Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 26-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen examines how we distinguish valid from mistaken awareness. He introduces mistaken awareness — cognition mistaken to its appearing object — and walks through the seven types of pseudo-perception, using the example of conceiving “horns of a rabbit.” The core discussion centers on a counterintuitive claim: when we conceive of an impermanent object like a vase, our mind contacts not the vase itself, but a permanent, unchanging mental image called a generic image. He explores the implications: if generic images are permanent and uncaused, how do they arise? Why must every possible generic image exist and have been observed by a Buddha? Through questioning, he shows how reference objects and appearing objects operate differently. For serious students of Tibetan Buddhist epistemology.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 M and C 2001 06 12.mp3
UUID: 92033d9e-9df6-4c4f-a431-78a7a62df318
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: 25.9 minutes
Words: ~2,563
That type of conceptual awareness that was not valid, it’s subsequent conception. Right. So anyway, what we’ve done here is we’ve done the four types of valid awareness or valid perception. Now, there’s a further category that the author is indicating and that is pseudo perception. And pseudo perception is often what we regard as being valid perception of things or correct perception, but actually when we investigate it, find out that it’s not.
Now firstly, have the definition of pseudo perception. Cognition mistaken to its appearing object is the definition of pseudo perception. And it is equivalent to mistaken awareness. So any type of mistaken awareness is pseudo perception. In Tibetan.
All conception is regarded as being this pseudo perception. So we’ve classified there are seven types, six conceptual pseudo perceptions and one non conceptual pseudo perception. Alright. But here, the main thing is the definition. Oh, it’s very simple.
Cognition mistaken to its appearing object. If we understand, that’s not a difficult definition. Any awareness that’s mistaken to its appearing object is called in Tibetan or pseudo perception. And it means mistaken awareness. All it is is mistaken awareness.
Horns of a rabbit doesn’t even exist. The conception holding the horns of a rabbit is definitely mistaken awareness because it’s mistaken to its appearing object. That’s mistaken awareness. Yes. And then it’s a pseudo perception because they’re equivalent.
This is just a convention that the author is establishing here. If we don’t use don’t want to use pseudo perception, we can just call it mistaken awareness. Therefore, mistaken awareness is awareness which is mistaken to its appearing object. So what’s an example of an appearing object? Sorry?
The The gong is an appearing object, isn’t it? Why is it an an appearing object? Because it’s held by awareness. Just being held by awareness doesn’t mean to say that it’s an appearing object. It’s by if it’s apprehended by awareness, it doesn’t mean to say that it’s an appearing object or that it even appears to awareness.
Probably the easiest thing that we’ll we have at present to go on is that everything exists everything that exists is an appearing object. If it’s impermanent, it is what? Perception. No. It’s not perception.
If it’s impermanent, it must be An object. It must be an object. True? But a special type of object. Phenomenon.
Must be a phenomenon, true. But if it’s if we agree that if it exists, it must be an appearing object. Right? And we have two types then. We have and under that, what happened?
It was just a statement. Can anyone remember? If it is it might if it is in theory, then Yes. It’s the appearing object of perception. And if it’s permanent?
Sorry. Concepting. Object of conception. We need to think through that. Okay.
So appearing object, we know it well, it doesn’t fully explain what appearing objects are, but it gives us a bit of a clue. So mistaken awareness is awareness mistaken to its appearing object. Is this an appearing object? What’s an what’s what is it the appearing object of? No.
What’s it the appearing object of? Perception. Perception. Which perception? Eye perception.
Eye It is. That’s the appearing object of our eye perception, isn’t it? True? Yes. Is it the appearing object of our conception holding it?
Yes. Well, we have a concept of a bell. So it’s an appearing object. It’s also the matter. Is it the appearing object of conception?
No. It’s the appearing object of perception. What if you have the concept of the bell? If you have a conception of the bell, even then it’s not the appearing object of the conception holding this bowl. The generic image of it is the appearing object.
True. So this is not the appearing object of conception. Why? Because it’s impermanent. It’s not permanent.
Do you accept that? Why? You don’t have to. Can there be an appearing of conception at the same time? An appearing object of perception and conception.
At the same time? Yep. And that is the The appearing object of conception and what are synonyms? The appearing object of conception is equal to what? A way.
No. Permanent. Permanent. Yep. If it’s permanent, it’s the appearing object of right.
If it’s impermanent, it’s the appearing object of Right. This is the sūtra school. They’ve have set this down. No. It doesn’t mean to say that conception is permanent.
All that it’s saying is the appearing object of conception is permanent. Conception is always impermanent. The appearing object of perception is always impermanent. Anything which is impermanent is always the appearing object of perception. Is everything that’s impermanent the appearing object of perception?
Yeah. We have to say that. Yeah. When examining these texts, in one sense, you know, one really has to investigate the implications of what’s being said as broadly as possible. And that’s why they’re written.
They’re written for us to challenge us to, so we investigate what is meant. And what are the implications if we hold this view? What does it mean about the way the world exists if if this is true or that is true? This is very important. We don’t have to accept any of it.
We can be skeptical. Of course, if we just just, you know, we don’t accept any of it for no reason, then that’s not gonna be of much use to us either. What’s an example of the appearing The appearing object of conception, the main one there is the generic image. The generic image that occurs or that is accessed by conception. That’s the appearing object of conception.
Yeah. This this whole presentation is according to the sūtra school. It doesn’t mean to say that the higher schools just throw everything that the sūtra school accepts out either. So we shouldn’t think that, wait a minute, we’re studying the sūtra school here, and it’d be far better if we if we study the Prāsaṇgika. Because in general, what the Prāsaṇgika are doing is they’re not they’re just interpreting the basic presentation of the lower schools, just adjusting things here and there.
So understanding the Sūtra school is very useful to us, has some practical benefit. And, of course, the higher schools also assert the existence of generic images, and the generic images are permanent and so on, that they’re the appearing object of conception. But their view is more refined. The generic image. Yeah.
Well, we can access other generic images according in accordance with our experience of things. But even so, I’d say the generic image itself is not not impermanent. It’s not created by anything. We can have new conception. We can our conceptions are always changing.
Our perception, our sense perceptions of things are always changing. But it says that the generic image that conception is accessing in order to hold its object, that doesn’t change. So where does it come from? It’s it’s it’s not a result of anything. It doesn’t come from anything.
Nothing. It does. It’s not. It doesn’t come from nothing. No.
It has to be something from from somewhere. No. If it’s impermanent, it does. Coming from somewhere is the measure of being a result, but not everything is a result. Sorry?
What was the example of something that’s not the result of something? Well, nirvana is not the result of anything. Isn’t the result of more meditation? No. Even though we engage in a lot of practice, nirvana is not the result of that.
So you also know if you just come with our karmic imprints. Come with our karmic imprints? Karmic imprints are actually impermanent. Oh, well, why not? Why would that be contradictory?
Yeah. Permanent things come from trying to accept it. Permanent entities this is very good because even no. It’s this is very important because the more we think about these issues, the more doubts come up, and we should bring them up because these are central. And the definition of something which is permanent is something that’s that’s non momentary.
It’s not the result of anything. It doesn’t come from anywhere. That’s what permanent means. Let’s just let’s say kind of thinking? Oh, the the conception.
Yeah. The conception of objects may arise through the karmic imprints. But there’s because the conception is impermanent. It’s a result. And conception can have as its substantial cause an a seed or an imprint.
That’s true. But doesn’t mean to say the object of that conception has to be impermanent. The conception itself does have to be. So what’s the origin that’s in their They have no origin. You must have seen a bus once.
Yeah. The seeing of a bus is impermanent. The bus itself is impermanent. Definition of the generic Permanent. Yes.
Definition. There is in a previous text the definition of the generic image of a vase. Which means Which is the the image, the overestimated image, which is like a vase, but not a vase, which appears to the conception holding vase. Because everybody can see that it’s a vase, it’s used as a vase. But that’s its common A vase is like that.
Yeah. A vase has a definition. It’s this physical thing we got. Here’s one. Oh, yeah.
But impermanent. And even when we conceive of a vase, the reference object of our conception of a vase is impermanent. It’s the a vase. But the generic image, that’s permanent. So That’s what’s said.
If everything that exists is seen by In order to exist, the measure of something existing is that it’s observed by valid awareness. So generic images exist. They’re observed by valid awareness. So every generic image that we could ever think of from the meaningless time until infinity has Well, it has to been observed by Buddha. It has to it has to exist.
The future doesn’t. Does the future exist? Does because otherwise Why? Does tomorrow exist? If it does, where?
The future exists now? No. No. The generic thing is that it’s going to be experienced in the future by someone else. Could that exist?
How could it exist now? Well, it has to because you said it’s permanent. No. That doesn’t For permanent things, it’s a little bit like the emptiness of this that will occur tomorrow doesn’t exist now, but that emptiness is permanent. So it didn’t come from anything.
It just happened. Yeah. It doesn’t it doesn’t when saying it doesn’t come from anything here, I’m interpreting that to mean that it has no cause. To come from something. Right?
This we have to be clear about terminology here. Directly from something. Or directly or indirectly. I think it’s best to at present to interpret not coming from anything as meaning that it’s not coming from a cause. Okay?
But it doesn’t mean to say that permanent things are not dependent arising. Because permanent entities depend on their parts, but they don’t depend on causes. Would it be right to say that the emptiness of the depends on the bell as well? Absolutely. Yeah.
But it doesn’t mean to say the emptiness of the bell is caused by the bell. And why? Because they’re substantially one. Well, not substantially, they’re of one essence. Anyway, with that anyway, we don’t want to get into too much of the higher school’s presentation.
Maybe possible if I don’t know. It’s hard to imagine how it would come to an end. Well, I think permanent is okay because it does I mean, you gotta in English, we gotta find some term. Yeah. And the term in Tibetan is takpa.
And as long as we understand that what we’re talking about is the fact that it’s not momentary, that’s what permanent means. And being not momentary, it means that it’s not being established by causes. And things that are permanent are not necessarily eternal. They don’t always need to exist. But it’s just when they exist, they’re they’re not actually changing in any way.
An area of any two exist for three moments could be called permanent, but one existed for one moment. It’d still be permanent. It’d still be permanent. But how long is that to exist for it to be not called momentary anymore? Well, to be not momentary.
Okay. To be permanent. Maybe that’s just stupid. Well, there’s different lengths of moment, and I think this is what you’re getting at. There’s what’s called the the Jatsugi kachikma and the Dutuka kachikma.
There’s the and I think for all intents and purposes there, what is meant is the probably the Jatsugi, which is the complete action moment or the moment that’s required for an action to be completed. Actually, we have to be careful with that because that type of moment, that complete action moment can be quite long, and that can extend beyond what we think of as momentary. But here, momentary means a very, very short period of time. Things that are changing, things that evolve over a period do not remain the same. They’re impermanent.
Meaning generality of that? Generic image. Yeah. Yeah. Meaning generality.
The term in Tibetan is don chi. Don don means object or it can mean meaning, event, and so forth. Artha in Sanskrit. And then generality is this chi, generic. Generality, generic.
Universal is also a possible term there. Some call it meaning universal or object universal or just universal in general. Generic image. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s a slight difference, but not a major difference, I don’t think. Yeah. Right.
Okay. No. The fact that generic images are said to be permanent is not an easy point. And in a sense, what’s implied in this, we just take accessing generic images, and generic images are not something that are created by anything. But the perception, the sense perception, and the conception that arises in dependence on sense perception, they’re cause they can be causally related.
But the object itself doesn’t need to be causally related. Is that easier if it’s so we can have a sense perception of something. And then even from that sense perception, that can directly lead to a conception. And they can be causally related, those two types of awareness. But it doesn’t mean to say the objects that those awarenesses are accessing need to be causally related.
The reference object for instance, if we have a conception of a vase, the vase itself is the reference object. If we a conception of a vase, right, we conceive of a vase. The vase itself that we conceive is the reference object. The generic image is the appearing object. The generic image of a vase is the appearing object.
Of course. This if we have eye perception viewing this this object, that is the reference object of our eye awareness. It’s also the appearing object. It’s both. But it doesn’t mean to say that for all sense awareness, the appearing object and the reference object are necessarily the same.
The impermanence of this object is also an appearing object, but it’s certainly not the reference object of eye awareness holding this this thing. Is that okay? So we can separate the reference object from the appearing object. Okay. We should have a break.
Have a cup of tea.