Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen investigates valid perception as one of seven awareness types. He presents the Sūtra School position: the first moment of any perception is valid because it directly comprehends its object, while subsequent moments, though still perceiving, lack that special potency. He covers four kinds of valid perception with concrete examples—sense perception when hearing a bell or feeling a thorn, mental perception through an internal sense faculty, self-awareness where awareness knows itself, and yogic perception in meditation on selflessness. Woven through are clarifications on the difference between perception and conception, between gross and subtle selflessness, and student questions about whether mindfulness of the body necessarily includes or excludes the feeling that accompanies it.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 15 M and C 2001 06 12.mp3
UUID: c89f5a93-255c-4099-90c5-0fc894db93c1
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.9 minutes
Words: ~4,341
And so far, we’ve done we’ve dealt briefly with objects, and now now we’re continuing with object possessors. And so initially, we dealt with objects. And of objects, there are really two types of object that we need to be aware of, and that is appearing objects and the referent objects. Yeah. In the text, it gives synonyms or name equivalents of those two types of object, but it’s these two fundamental types that are important to us.
But these will be brought up again in the text in different circumstances, so it should become clearer what these two types of object are. So briefly, we’ve dealt with objects. Now with object possessors, there are three types, person’s awareness and expressive sound. But really, the central object possessor is awareness itself. And so now we’re beginning to investigate awareness.
And also, we should keep in mind that there are seven basic types of awareness. And this is in the index itself, that there’s valid awareness, subsequent awareness, for instance. Well, valid awareness, there’s valid perception, valid inference, so two. Then subsequent awareness, subsequent awareness, correct belief, inattentive awareness, doubt, and wrong awareness. So those seven was that seven?
Something like that anyway. There’s seven types. So really what we’re studying now is these seven types. So first, we start off with a valid awareness. And valid awareness covers valid perception and valid inference.
So initially, we’re talking about valid perception. But before we even start valid perception, we’re investigating perception itself. So last week, on page thirteen, we investigated the definition of perception, which is non mistaken, cognition free of conception, is the definition of perception, perceptual discernment. And basically, there’s four perception, mental perception, self perception, and yogic perception. Right.
So were there any issues from last week that anyone wanted to bring up? Right. So now we’re starting with valid perception itself. So having done perception, right, we finished at the bottom of page fourteen last week. And so now we’ve we’ve moved to the top of page fifteen.
So here, in this section here, it’s just talking about yogic perception, the very end of yogic perception. And whether the omniscient awareness of a Buddha is always valid, or is it subsequent awareness? The second moment and so on, is it subsequent awareness? Because here we’re dealing with the Sūtra school or the Sautrantikas or the Sautrāntika who assert that the first moment of any awareness has a special potency that the subsequent moments don’t possess. So therefore, they’re labeling that type of awareness as valid.
And the subsequent moments is non valid, as not as potent, not as effective as at comprehending the object in a sense. Isn’t omniscience always new? Yes. You can say that. Omniscience is always new, even the second moment.
This is the implication. Oh, it arises in the first moment. The first moment, one is initially breaking through to the object. One is in that first moment, one is actually comprehending the object or if we take, for instance, sense perception as a as an example, when we first hear something or actually sound is perhaps not such a good example, when we look at something, that eye awareness, for instance, comprehends the object in the first moment. While we sit there and stare at the object, we have subsequent moments of eye awareness.
Now for this school, they that first moment is special because it’s comprehending what hasn’t been comprehended. So That yeah. For a conceptual awareness, it’s like when we comprehend something or or when it yeah. That there is something special in a sense in that first moment of understanding something. It’s breaking through to an understanding.
It’s not because in subsequent moments it’s mixed with concept concept then. Here, we’re not we’re just dealing with sense perception as an example, for instance. So we’re not concerned with conception here. So the reason it’s not valid in the subsequent moments is not because your your your perception gets mixed with your the mind has concepts about the object. Oh, it has con the mind in a sense has conception there just about all the time.
Right? So it’s if that were to affect us having valid from here, we’re dealing with a sūtra school point of view. We must also reinforce. Must stress. This is the basis that we’re viewing this, the the nature of the mind from.
For them, we can have valid sense awareness no matter what conceptual awareness one may have. You know, we can think we can think that this is permanent, yet still have a valid sense awareness focused upon it. That doesn’t stop us from having, from our eye awareness comprehending the object. True? I mean, we know when we comprehend the object.
We have no doubt about what it is with eye awareness, but we could still understand it with eye awareness but think it’s permanent. It’s fixed. So the conception that we have doesn’t necessarily, in the school, you know, stop us having a valid perception of something. Sorry. Probably not.
It’s hard for us to differentiate it. I can’t see it if it’s really Oh, for us to see that well, it’s hard for us to observe it when it’s happening. But we can understand the point that there is a difference between the first moment and the second second moments on and the second moments and so forth. It’s a little bit difficult because we haven’t actually comprehended impermanence yet. But there is a point, you know, sometimes when we understand something conceptually, it’s like, ah, that’s what it means.
Right? That’s an indication of the first moment. Then after that, we have an ongoing understanding of that. They’re the subsequent moments. So the for the Sūtra School, they say that first moment is special.
They call it valid awareness or or a pramāna. But the other schools, the higher schools see it a little bit differently. So hopefully, can get into their views also of this this particular issue. Anyway, So then on the top of page fifteen, there’s a particular text called means clarifying the darkness of the mind, valid awareness which clarifies darkness of the mind. And it states, if subsequent awareness occurs merely by a prior valid awareness having held its object, in consequence, the second moment of omniscient primordial awareness or omniscience and beyond would become subsequent awareness.
Limitless harm would occur. This will be explained below. So what that means there is that even the second moment or the third moment of omniscience is regarded as being valid, even though technically it’s it fits the definition of a subsequent awareness. Anyway, so we’ve dealt with up to this point the four types of perception. And now the author, Purchog Rinpoche, is going to give the definitions of the valid perception for those four.
So here, he gives the definition of valid perception. New non deceptive, non conceptual cognition is the definition of valid perception. So if we go back to the definition of perception that we had on page thirteen, we can see that it’s really only one component added and that’s new. So new has been added to that original definition and that gives valid perception. And if classified again, there are four, valid self perception, valid sense perception, valid mental perception, valid yogic perception.
Now just why the authors changed the order of the terms around here is I’m not sure why. Anyway, he starts with valid self perception. Now here self doesn’t mean the eye. It really just means internal states of awareness. Awareness which is aware of awareness itself.
So therefore, it’s called self self perception or self cognition. Okay? So new nondeceptive cognition free of conception derived only internally, and isolating the subject. So what that means? Isolating the subject, there just means that it’s you’re just viewing the subject itself.
And what is the subject there? That’s awareness itself. Directed only internally means that it’s not directed at external objects. Free of conception means that it’s perception. Non deceptive means that it’s actually detecting its object.
New means that it’s the first moment. So all of those elements go up or add up to defining what valid self perception is. It’s a little bit different than the definition first given, was zinnam, which is zin pa nam par shes pa, which is awareness taking a subject as its aspect. But that gives us a little bit more information on that topic awareness. Is this difficult?
No. It’s not too easy, the subject matter. But if anyone has any questions at any point or anything to any insights they may have, then please feel free at any time time to say something. Now the definition of the second one, which is valid sense perception, is new non deceptive cognition free of conception, which occurs in dependence on a physical sense power as its specific empowering condition is the definition of valid sense perception. So it’s similar to the previous, except that we’re dealing here with the first moment.
Does everyone have a text to look at? It probably helps to Everyone else got a text? Oh, it’s useful to have one anyway because yeah. I have a good idea. Right.
So that definition of valid sense perception is okay, isn’t it? All it is, it’s it’s like the previous definition given for sense perception, except that it’s saying the first moment of that perception is the valid sense perception. And we ourselves have valid sense perception. It’s occurring all the time. The first moment of sense perception viewing a particular object is generally valid for us according to this school.
Okay? From the higher school point of view, it’s all mistaken, but we won’t go there for a start. We’ll we’ll make it valid for a short period anyway. Make us feel better. So this is occurring all the time.
Whenever we hear something, first moment, it’s a valid sense perception holding that object. It is, isn’t it? Someone rings a bell near our ear, we have a correct awareness, a valid sense perception of that sound and so on. We have various types of valid sense perception. And those valid sense perceptions either are through body awareness, tongue awareness, and so on.
The first moment we taste something, it’s salty, that’s a valid sense perception. The first moment when we step on a thorn, that’s a valid sense perception, and so on. The first moment of an ad coming on television, that’s a valid sense perception of the ad, at least of the color and shape of the ad. Although we sit there and look at the TV, it’s probably all inattentive in relation to the frame, the legs of the television, and the knobs and so forth because we’re just stuck in that central bit. Anyway, so we have valid sense perception and it’s occurring all the time.
The second moment is said to be not valid. We call it non valid awareness. But it doesn’t mean to say that it’s not comprehending the object. That probably wasn’t love to begin with in that case. Yeah.
Actually, love is not the loop. Love is can be a valid awareness, the first moment. Attachment counter. The first moment of attachment is not valid awareness. What was that?
Sorry. Attachment at first sight. It is. That’s for us. It’s true.
It’s attachment. It’s the the eye awareness that’s looking is valid. The attachment that’s there that’s interpreting what’s that object is not valid. Is that emotional, not feeling, or physical feeling? Both physical feeling.
Right. Talking about mindfulness, when we practice initially meditation on the breath, Meditation on the breath is categorized as mindfulness of the body. So Joe’s asking now, does that include physical oh, no. Mindfulness of body. Right.
Then we can also have mindfulness of feeling, which is a second type of mindfulness. If we practice mindfulness of feeling, does it include physical feeling and mental feeling? Right? Yeah. So it does.
Yeah. It does. So is it possible to have mindfulness of body without mindfulness of feeling? Yeah. How?
Well, mindfulness of the body is just taking the physical body like the, you know, the of the breath. The breath, the touch of the breath. Here we gotta come back to this example. The contact of the breath on an inside of the nose, for instance. This is mindfulness of that contact.
So it’s actually mindfulness of the body, isn’t it? I take that as a yes. Some agreement here. But but if we’re mindful of the feeling that arises in relation to that contact, then that’s mindfulness of feeling. But how can you have mindfulness of the body without feeling the air coming in?
Oh, feeling is always there, but it depends on the object that you’re taking that you’re observing. If you’re observing the body, it’s mindfulness of body. In this context here. Awareness of the feeling of the body. In which case, it includes Oh, feeling comes along.
With the mindfulness, there is always feeling Yeah. That’s occurring as a concordant mental factor. But that’s observing the body, therefore mindfulness of body. But if we take the feelings as the object themselves, then that’s slightly different. Although the feelings are there when we’re mindful of the body itself.
What are the other two mindfulness of? Mindfulness of the mind, mindfulness of dharma. Dharmas or objects in general. This is a very good question, though. But in general, if we take the feelings as our object of investigation investigation and we’re mindful of them, then that’s mindfulness of fuming.
But it doesn’t mean to say that there’s no feelings that exist when we’re mindful of the body itself. There’s not in one sense, there’s not a huge difference between them. Anyway, we’ll come back to that point because that is very, very important. Right. So we have the definition of valid sense perception, and that’s classified into five.
Valid perception holding form. That form there means the form base, which means color and shape. Then valid perception holding sound, valid perception holding aroma, valid perception holding flavors, and valid perception holding textures, tactility, so forth, objects of touch. So there’s five types there. Right.
And then after that, we have the third definition, new nondeceptive cognition free of conception. So it’s the same formula that’s continuing through, which occurs in dependence on a mental sense power as its specific empowering condition is the definition of valid mental perception. Right. That’s mental perception. Perception.
We also have mental perception, but we’re generally not aware of it. The mental sense power is really the sixth sense power. We have the five physical sense powers, don’t we? What are the five physical sense powers? Yeah.
But it’s not the the eye that we can see or the nose we can see and so forth. There is subtle form that exist within the eye that acts as a condition for eye awareness to be generated. Similarly, the ear sense power and so forth. All these are physical sense powers, they’re subtle form. For mental perception, we need a sixth type of sense power to act as the empowering condition.
So that’s the mental sense power. The mental sense power is not physical. The mental sense power in brief is the previous moment of awareness that gives rise to mental perception, which acts as the condition for the arrival of mental perception. Okay. So then if classified, there are six, valid mental perception holding form, etcetera.
So we go through the five. And then the sixth is dharma itself. So there’s six types of mental perception, five types of sense perception. Right. Now we have the the fourth definition, the definition of yogic valid yogic perception.
So that is other-cognizing pristine awareness in a continuum of an ārya, which newly and perceptually comprehends either subtle impermanence or gross or subtle selflessness, in dependence on concentration, which is the union of calm abiding and insight as its empowering condition. Right. So that definition is quite long for a start. Maybe too long. Maybe two lines too long.
Okay. Other cognizing means that it’s cognizing something other than awareness. So it’s talking about external objects. Pristine awareness means that it is the path. It’s qualified by the path, and it is the path itself.
In the continuum of an aria means that it only exists in a continuum of an ārya being, which newly newly means, therefore, it’s the first moment. And perceptually, meaning it’s not conceptual, comprehends, meaning it actually understands its object. And what is its object? It’s either subtle impermanence, one, or gross selflessness, two, or subtle selflessness, three, as its object. Either of those objects is okay.
in dependence on concentration. in dependence on its own specific empowering condition, which is concentration, which is the union of calm abiding and insight. So that’s the definition of valid yogic perception. So it’s is that reasonably straightforward? It’s important we understand these definitions.
That’s what we need to try and develop. So if classified, there are three. So again, it’s just restating what was already in the definition. There’s three types of valid perception. Valid awareness, perceptually comprehending subtle impermanence.
Valid awareness perceptually comprehend comprehending gross selflessness, and valid awareness perceptually comprehending subtle selflessness. Right. So from this school’s point of view, there are those three types of valid yogic perception. What do you mean the definition of gross and subtleties? Gross and subtle selflessness refer to different levels of selflessness that ought to be comprehended.
The first level there is that a person is empty or is free of a single permanent self powered self. So that’s gross selflessness. So that type of self doesn’t exist. Single meaning single meaning that it’s homogeneous or monolithic? No.
Not quite. Here, single means that it’s without parts. Absolutely, like, Not in a sense, not made up of anything. Permanent means that it’s not impermanent. Of course, not momentary.
Self powered means that it has the capacity to control itself. Self controlling. So understanding that no such self exists is understanding gross selflessness. Subtle selflessness is understanding that a person is free of or empty of a self arisen, substantially existent self. Self arisen means that it’s able to establish itself, pull itself up by its bootstraps.
There’s no type of self, that type of self that exists internally within us. It’s able to create itself independent in Tibetan. Substantially existent means that it’s okay. So there’s no self arisen, substantially existent self. Let’s say substantially existent there means that there’s no self which is exists by its own substance.
In a sense, it means there’s no substance of a self there as as there appears to be to us. In a sense, it’s saying there’s no self separate from the aggregates. One definition of what substantially existent means is that in order to comprehend it, if some something is substantially existent, if but by comprehending it, one doesn’t need to comprehend anything else but it. That’s one explanation of the meaning of self of substantially existent. Then in order to comprehend it, one doesn’t need to comprehend anything else other than it.
Right? So for instance, to comprehend this little bowl here, one can do it with one’s eye awareness, and one doesn’t rely on any other comprehension in order to comprehend it. One doesn’t need to comprehend, in a sense, something other than it in order to comprehend it. You need a mental function because you need a mental function. If I had Alzheimer’s and forgot what it was, you know, and I had sensed perception that I had no naming quality or labeling quality or function quality.
You can still comprehend the basis of designation there. Basis of designation there with your sense awareness. But it depends. Someone that does have severe Alzheimer’s and so on, certainly their memory is affected. But we don’t need to know the name of this in order to comprehend the basis of designation of it.
Anyway, so that so there are those two, the gross selflessness and subtle selflessness, and subtle impermanence. For this school, for the sūtra school, they’re the three objects that are comprehended by yogic perception. So therefore we have It can. Yep. Yep.
Well, as a subsequent perception Or sorry. Did you say perception or conception? I don’t think I said conception. Sorry? Someone else just said conception.
But did you say concept? I said perception. Perception. A naming, you mean a type of awareness that is designating labels to objects and so forth. Yeah.
Can that be a subsequent perception? It’s probably possible. Yeah. Generally for us though, our when we label something, it’s conceptual. When when we’re labeling things or our conceptual awareness is imputing names to things all the time.
And it also is said by Purchog Chokden that this conceptual awareness that we have is always new. It doesn’t actually become a it’s always new. Yeah. This process that we have of conceptualizing things. It doesn’t mean to say it’s correctly comprehending things, but it’s said to be new by Purchog Chak.
Really? No. That’s not but our perceptual awareness is generally what we need also to remember is that there is a type of awareness called discrimination, ‘du shes in Tibetan, which is actually this mental factor that’s marking the identity of objects. And that can be perceptual and cons or conceptual depending on the type of awareness, the main mind which has arisen. Anyway, we haven’t gotten onto this section yet, so it’ll be a bit confusing if we in a sense, dealing with awareness, one starts to make it easier, we start with perception because perception is something that is easier for us to, what, comprehend.
Because we got valid sense perception. Our sense awareness is, you know, generally functioning, you know, while we’re awake anyway. And it’s something that we can easily observe. So we can use our sense awareness, you know, in a sense, as a model or as a something that we can observe to develop an understanding of and then apply that understanding to conception. Because in a sense, what we really need to understand is conception.
Because all our problems are really a product of conception or really a product of misconception. So we need to come to an understanding of this process of conception. So what we’re doing at present is coming to an understanding of what perception is. Is it possible to have conception that’s not mistaken? No.
So when everybody say perception, let’s say you mean it’s something. Absolutely. All that conception is mistaken. But it doesn’t mean to say that it can’t be correct. Yeah, can’t be correct.
Is it valid? Sorry? We can have valid conception that’s not mistaken. So it’s like when I’m up on a ladder today, priming the timber. So I call that the action priming, and I call the timber the fascia board of the house, but And that is correct conception, the valid conception, because No one understands that.
That’s probably not valid conception. The valid conception is a very special type of conception that arises through positing a correct reason. What we have through the day is like probably correct belief. It’s just conceptual awareness that arises and thinks about things. And often, it’s on the level of correct belief about things without really understanding them or without necessarily understanding them.
Okay. This we need to observe anyway. Because it it’s awareness like conception is. It has objects like conception does. So it’s really examining probably our sense awareness is the most obvious type of awareness for us.
And we can examine our sense awareness and see how our sense awareness does actually engage its objects. And then we can use that as a basis for understanding conception. Although we understand that conception is on another level, isn’t it? Our sense awareness is very clear, but when we observe our conception, we see that it’s unclear and so forth. It’s on a different level.
But we can use some of the information that we glean from examining our sense perception to understand conception itself. What’s an example of valid conception? Oh, the first moment of understanding impermanence for us will be a valid conception. Doesn’t that mean realization? So is that first valid conception then?
When we understand impermanence in the first moment, then that’s a valid inference, that’s valid conception. Conception. That becomes the second moment and so forth are no longer valid inference. They’re subsequent conception, comprehending the object. Well, valid conception is very rare then. Devil’s truth.
Then probably not as common as they should be, but it’s true. There’s not that But we do have them. They do occur. But they occur on different levels as well. But a lot of our conceptual awareness is not valid, although we take it to be valid, or we take it to be correct.
So you’re saying that most of our conceptions are valid, believe Correct belief. A lot of it is on a level as long as its object exists, it’s it’s a correct belief. Otherwise, lot of our conception is completely wrong awareness. For instance, all our grasping at our self is wrong awareness. Awareness.
All our grasping at true existence is wrong awareness, misconception. And so forth, its object doesn’t exist at all. The first moment of our perception, of our correct perception of things, say sense perception is valid. Yes. That’s valid awareness.
There can be right. In that first moment, it’s valid, but then it becomes subsequent awareness. Say the second moment, the third moment and so forth. Those moments can are then subsequent perception. And even from that, then we can generate subsequent conception can arise that comprehends that initial object conceptually or and that’s