Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Jampa Ignyen teaches Buddhist epistemology through the framework of seven types of cognition in this 46-minute talk. The core work, he explains, is eliminating doubt and wrong awareness to attain valid perception. He focuses on valid inference, walking through its definition and examining how it operates through correct reasoning. Using concrete examples—a monastery, smoke implying fire on a distant mountain, and the impermanence of sound—he illustrates the three modes of a valid syllogism. He introduces “sustaining mind,” the mental preconditions required for valid inference to arise, emphasizing how we overcome misconception: by generating doubt about wrong conceptions, then moving toward correct belief. Throughout, he connects this logical investigation to everyday practice, showing how valid reasoning helps overcome afflictions like hatred and attachment.
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File: 19 M and C 2001 06 26.mp3
UUID: 461d16c7-9701-4460-b64b-e832b6db560e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-26
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.2 minutes
Words: ~4,577
Doubt and wrong awareness. So it’s said that if it’s any sort of awareness that exists for us, it’s gotta be one of those seven types. Probably for us, we have a lot of the sixth and the seventh type. Lots of doubts and lots of wrong awareness. But of that list, what we need is the first one on list.
So really our work at present is to eliminate from seven, six, five, really have to go gradually though. Eventually we need to attain just one. That’s the first one: valid perception. So, that’s what our work is. That’s all our work is actually.
Right. So, what page should we finish on last time? The inference we’d done. Beginning of page seventeen. Right.
So, here we’re dealing with inference, valid inference. We’ve done valid perception. We’ve done valid perception. At least in terms of the classifications of it. We do have valid perception now anyway, don’t we?
What’s an instance of valid perception that we have? Yeah, just the first moment of eye awareness, looking at the Gompa. Actually, Gompa really means monastery, but we call this Gompa. It’s really Lhakhang in Tibetan. Lha kang meaning lha upper deities and kang meaning household.
Lha as in Lhasa. Yep. Lhasa means the ground or the place of gods. So it’s l h a for lha, and kang. It’s really k h a n g.
Lha kang. But gompa is fine. This is a gompa. We can see it. Gompa is an object of eye awareness, isn’t it?
And the first moment of our eye awareness, comprehending the Gompa, is valid perception. And there’s four types of valid perception. Anyone remember those four types? Yogic perception, sense perception, self perception, mental perception. Yep.
So those four types. Now we’ve moved on to valid inference, and the definition of valid inference was new, non-deceptive, other-cognizing awareness directly generated in dependence on its support by correct reason. So valid inference is new, meaning the first moment of of correct conception comprehending its object. Comprehending its object. And that arises in dependence on its support or basis, a correct reason.
So valid inference arises in dependence upon a correct reason. It can’t arise without a correct reason. What would be an example of valid inference? Do we have valid inference? Yeah.
We Right, so that’s a correct reason, establishing sound to be impermanent. So the understanding that sound is impermanent, that’s generated in dependence on that syllogism, is correct conception. The first moment of that is valid inference. Can we develop valid inference without a reason? If we just think sound is impermanent, is that valid inference here in this narrow sense of inference?
No, it’s not. It would be correct belief, but because a correct reason is not given and the correct reason in not being given is unable to, what, act as the generator of that correct understanding, then it doesn’t become a correct understanding or a correct conception. In other words, saying without a correct reason we can’t generate correct conception. Is that true? But in general, if it’s only correct in debate terms and not correct in our everyday life, then it’s no use whatsoever.
Get rid of debate. Oh, well, it can happen very quickly. You can look in the distance, you can see the smoke billowing up at a distant mountain path. And really you are comprehending all the elements needed to generate a correct inference or a valid inference. You see the smoke?
You know the smoke there. You see the smoke is at the pass. Okay. So we have a reason here, right? Take smoke, take the smoke at that distant past.
It follows that there’s fire there because there’s smoke there. Take that Smoky Mountain Pass, it follows that there’s fire there because there’s smoke there. Now we see the subject, the Smoky Mountain Pass, and we know that it is qualified by the reason there’s smoke there, right? We can see with our eyes, right? Intellectually, understand the pervasion.
Where there’s smoke, there must be fire. Already we’ve understood this. We’re convinced beyond any doubt. Wherever there’s smoke, there’s fire. It’s true, isn’t it?
There’s a pervasion. So all we have to do is look and we establish one part of the syllogism just by looking. That is, the subject is pervaded by the reason. And we comprehend the pervasion there: if there’s smoke, there’s fire if there’s no fire, there’s no smoke. There’s two pervasions there.
Intellectually we understand that. So just looking there, we can develop a valid inference that there must be fire there. But that happens very quickly. Is that true or is there some other way? When we look and we see the smoke there, we comprehend there’s fire there, don’t we?
We? Or don’t we? Do we have any doubt about whether there’s fire there or not? You’ve seen smoke without fire. Oh, there, there’s actually fire there.
It’s just manifest. Well, there there’s a difference because with the Smoky Mountain Pass one, we can establish part of the syllogism or the first, what’s called the first mode, just by eye awareness. But if we take another syllogism like take sound impermanent because it’s produced, then it’s all done with conception. So there’s a bit of a difference. It’s really just common sense.
I think if we stop and we think about the process, then we see that whenever we develop a correct inference or a valid inference, it’s really done through assembling a valid or a correct syllogism. Otherwise, our conceptions are generally, our conceptions about the way things are are usually in terms of a conception about a thesis or an idea, aren’t they? You know, we have something as a subject and it has a particular attribute. Like, the food tastes bad, or we have an idea about that. That’s really like a thesis, And then we give a reason for it.
Much of our thinking is involved in like a thesis or assertions about things. And many of the thesis or assertions that we hold, these ideas about things that we have, are not actually valid. They’re not not true. All that, because it’s off here, we give her, yeah, we look for the reason then. It has a funny taste.
Why does it taste like this? And we look around for it until we find one. Often we don’t fully understand the process of reasoning itself, and we do tend to accept things without there being a valid reason to establish it being so. So we do tend to accept hearsay or half truths about things. Well, that person over there is bad because so and so said so, because look at the type of clothes they wear, and so on.
Our hatred and anger and attachment are all conceptual. And they’re all wrong conception. But even in wrong conception, the thesis itself can’t be established. The thesis is wrong. The subject, whatever attribute we’re adding to the subject is wrong.
So it’s important to have an idea about the process, therefore a valid inference. And here, by definition, for valid inference to arise, it comes about through a correct reason. So that’s why it’s good for us to be skeptical about the reasons people give, and then we can examine whether the reason is valid or not. Like the one smoke, take a smoky mountain pass. It follows that there’s fire there because there’s smoke.
We really have to understand why that’s a correct reason. And then when we understand the principles for why that’s a correct reason, then we should apply it to all other reasons that we posit ourselves or other people posit and examine skeptically whether what’s being said is true or not. Right. So there’s three types of valid inference that are given here. Inference by the strength of fact, inference through renown, and inference through conviction.
And inference through renown really boils down to inference through the strength of fact. And inference through the strength of fact is that type of inference that’s enabling us to comprehend slightly hidden objects. We do, I’m just yeah. Whereas inference through conviction is allowing us to understand things that are extremely hidden, such as the law of cause and effect. But reasons that are posited can either be a reason establishing a thesis really through the strength of the fact or through conviction.
Anyway, so there’s those types of valid inference that exist. Now on page seventeen, then we have again, if classified by convention or classified by the mode of expression, there are two: inference for self and inference for other. Here, the first and inference are equivalent, it said. The second and correct establishing speech are equivalent. Inference for self is the type of inference that we generate in order to understand something.
How do we come to an understanding that sound is impermanent? We accept that sound is impermanent, don’t we? How do we understand it? Well, it does come and go, but here’s subtly impermanent. Because it’s a product, because it’s produced.
How can that generate the understanding that sound is impermanent? Yep. If it is produced, necessarily is impermanent on a subtle level. It’s momentary. To come to the understanding that sound is impermanent, really have to think of a correct reason to establish it.
Because it’s only by the strength of the correct reason that we can understand the thesis. There’s no other way we can do it. We’ve accepted the premise by the thought. Oh, we’ve accepted the premise, but until we have a reason to actually establish it, we can think about it. Sound is impermanent.
Sound is impermanent for, you know, a very long time and never understand it because the cause of us understanding it is a valid reason to establish that. Yep. Yep. And why are these accepting that? Oh, because if it’s produced, it must be impermanent.
Did you say so? No. If it’s produced, it must be impermanent. If it’s produced, it must have a cause, right? If it has a cause, it means that it came into being through a specific substantial cause and coactive conditions that gave rise to it.
Therefore, it at one it didn’t exist at one moment, it existed in the next moment. It’s moment, therefore it’s momentary. It’s impermanent. It’s a result of something. And being a result, therefore, it means it’s destroyed moment by moment.
Anything which is produced or is a result is destroyed moment by moment. That if it’s impermanent, if it’s produced, must be, yeah. Oh, we know it’s changing moment to moment, don’t we? I mean, it’s made up of atoms and molecules, isn’t it? We know those atoms and molecules are in motion.
There’s nothing from one moment to the next that’s the same about the atoms and molecules making it up. We accept that, don’t we? I mean, you don’t accept that, if you assert that there is some permanent, you know, substance or substrate there that’s I accept it because I just don’t know why. Oh, we need to know why. And that’s it.
Unless we get go back through the reasons to establish it, we’re not going to establish it. We’ll have a certain level of doubt here and further doubt over there, another doubt over here. So developing a correct inference is really getting to the point where, ah, that’s what it is. It’s impermanent. And we see it conceptually to be what it is.
And when that occurs, that valid conception is a self determining valid awareness, a self determined valid awareness. It knows itself to be valid. But that’s right, if we’ve got a doubt about it somewhere, then we haven’t understood it. So if we don’t accept the pervasion that if it is produced it must be impermanent, Then we have to establish it with reasons. Yeah, from its own side it’s impermanent.
Yep. But even so, just thinking that it’s impermanent from its own side doesn’t have the strength to generate an understanding that it’s impermanent from its own side. But according to the definition we have from Purbu Chok Rinpoche, it can only, as it says, as he says in his definition: New non deceptive So it’s only generated in dependence on a correct reason, which is something that establishes that thesis. So anything, anything like, you know, take this table, it is impermanent because if we can put there a correct and a valid reason, then that valid reason will have the strength to generate an understanding that it is impermanent. Without the valid reason, it will only remain at the level of correct belief.
It’s correct belief. At present, it’s like, that’s how it is for us. We believe that things are impermanent. Yeah, the glass is impermanent. We really haven’t understood it yet.
The reason we haven’t understood it is that we haven’t consistently applied the reason and then gone through. Even when we apply the reason, because it’s produced, anything that’s produced must be momentary, not just impermanent on a gross level, it must be changing moment to moment. It’s not fixed in any way. But at present we have this idea that things are actually fixed. Sure they’re impermanent, but you know, cup there was the same.
It hasn’t really changed in the last half hour. The water may wobble a bit, but it hasn’t really changed. Actually, there’s nothing there that was the same. Nothing, not even the tiniest particle the same from one moment to the next. Now if we think about those reasons for ourselves without expressing them to others, then it’s inference for self.
It’s this first type. And this is the type of inference where we’re just sitting down and we’re contemplating. Take myself. I’m impermanent because I’m produced. And then just thinking in those ways or in that way, then that’s producing well, potentially, it will produce an understanding that I am impermanent because I am produced.
We’re all produced, aren’t we? What’s produced us? Our parents haven’t produced us, have they? Our karma more, yes.
The parents have produced our physical body, but our physical body is not us. What are we? We’re a person? What’s a person? That’s right.
It’s the I imputed onto the four or five aggregates. That’s impermanent. That’s produced. What’s produced I? Ah, exactly.
The previous moment of I tends to produce the future. There is a substantial cause of that, a continuum. But it’s also dependent on its basis of designation. And among its basis of designation, is intention, karma. Among the basis of designation of I, there is karma.
And karma of the previous moments is a cause or condition for the I. Right. So then, also we have inference for other. Inference for inference for other is said to be equivalent to correct establishing speech. Correct establishing speech is speech in which a correct reason is given to establish something.
Right. So there’s those two types of inference, inference for self or inference for other where a particular reason is given to someone in order to generate an understanding of something in their continuum. So therefore it’s inference rather. It’s not really inference for self because oneself has already potentially understood that point. Right, now there’s a short debate here.
One says: New non deceptive conceiving cognition with respect to its hidden assessed object, generated in dependence on formulating its support, a correct reason is the definition of valid inference. And here it’s saying hidden assessed object, so slightly hidden object. So it’s almost the same as the definition given by Purbuchok himself. So, Purbu Chok says, okay, if that’s the definition that’s given, take a rabbit with horns. It follows it conforms to that definition because it conforms to the object defined.
It follows, it’s a bit of a trick debate this one. Anyway, we’ll just read through it. Take that subject, the rabbit with horns. It follows inference is valid awareness because inference is inferential valid awareness. There is a pervasion because inference, inferential valid awareness and inference for self are equivalent.
This debate is just a vehicle for Purbuchok to say the last line there. Inferential valid awareness and inference for self are equivalent. Those three are equivalent terms. Otherwise, he’s making a play on words, which works in Tibetan, but doesn’t easily translate into English. So I don’t know whether it’s worth We won’t go into that just at present.
Now, in addition, there’s a further section in this subdivision here on valid inference called sustaining mind. And here there are two parts, the definition and the classification. Okay, so this is a little bit wordy. But it may be useful anyway to have some idea of what is meant in this section. Now it gives this very long cognition in a continuum of a correct respondent for establishing sound as impermanent by reason of being produced, which is the common basis of that non deceptive to where the sound is produced, or if produced it must be impermanent, and two, the cause of the inference comprehending sound is impermanent by reason of being produced, which is derived through the production of its causes and condition, is the definition of sustaining mind establishing sound is impermanent by reason of being produced.
Right. Yes, now this particular definition, it’s probably, there’s too many words in it, in a sense. It almost obscures the meaning. But what it’s saying is that for us to generate a valid inference about something like sound is impermanent, prior to that we need a number of conditions to be established internally within our mental continuum. Okay, because for instance, there is a syllogism: take sound, it is impermanent because it’s produced.
And that syllogism has three modes for establishing it to be valid. The first mode is actually, we handed out a sheet, didn’t we, the beginning? Does everyone have that? This one? Yep.
Oh, that’s the one. Yeah. Does everyone have that? Yeah. There are really three modes.
And if we Okay, it’s more or less summarized in the second part here. But in essence, can say there’s three parts to the syllogism: the subject is one, the first part, the predicate is the second part, and the reason is the third part. Now, order to prove a reason to be valid, we need to prove first that if it is the subject it must conform with the reason. In other words, one must be three. Then we also must prove that if it is three or if it is the reason, it must be the predicate.
That’s the second mode. And the third mode is that if it’s not two, if it’s not the predicate or if it’s the opposite of the predicate, it must not be that which is the reason. Okay. So there’s those three modes. One in a sense needs the conceptual comprehension of each of these three modes brought together before the penny is gonna drop, and one’s gonna comprehend the thesis given that the reason is correct.
Right? So that’s what’s really being said in this definition here. It’s called sustaining mind because it’s a type of mind that sustains a number of what? It’s holding a number of this conception there that’s holding, for instance, two or three different things together at once so that the valid inference can be generated. So here the definition is cognition.
So it is cognition for a start, it’s conception. In the continuum of a correct respondent, the correct respondent there is someone for whom that reason is a valid reason, meaning someone who’s yet to comprehend the thesis. So cognition in the continuum of a correct respondent for establishing sound is impermanent by reason of being produced, which is the common basis of that non deceptive So it’s the common basis of what? That which is non-deceptive to: sound is produced, which is the first mode. If it’s a subject, it must be the reason.
Or is non deceptive to the second mode, which is if produced it must be impermanent, which is the pervasion in the syllogism. Either of those two, and two, the cause of the inference comprehending sound is impermanent by reason of being produced. So in other words, what it’s saying is that the sustaining mind are states of mind that exist prior to the generation of the valid inference that are there as necessary preconditions for the generation of valid inference. If we don’t have them, the valid inference won’t won’t be generated. We’ll still have doubt about that particular area.
We’ll still have doubt about the pervasion. So if we have doubt about the pervasion, then the valid inference can’t be generated. So for sustaining mind like this, there are two types. Sustaining mind establishing, this is in the paragraph below that, sustaining mind establishing sound is impermanent by reason of being produced, through apprehending sound is produced, and sustaining mind apprehending the pervasion that if produced it must be impermanent. So those two comprehensions must exist prior to understanding sound as impermanent.
Before we can understand sound as impermanent, in other words, by that correct reason, we have to understand that sound is produced. That’s straightforward, isn’t it? If we have a syllogism: take sound, it is impermanent because it’s produced. Before we understand that sound is impermanent, have to understand that sound is produced. And also, before we understand sound is impermanent, we have to understand that if it’s produced, it must be impermanent.
That’s all it’s saying. They’re preconditions for the generation of the understanding of the thesis. Now each of those has a definition, but I don’t know whether we need to go into those definitions. But this is some in a sense, it may sound like this is too intellectual or it doesn’t really have much application to what we’re doing every day. But actually in our everyday life, we’re always trying to understand things, comprehend things.
The mechanism by which we understand things is not often clear to us. And at times we do understand, other times we come nowhere near to understanding. Just what the preconditions are for our development of understanding are, are really very important to us. And this especially in terms of dharma, not only in the worldly sense but in the sphere of our own development, we need to understand the process by which we comprehend things. In other words, the process by which we eliminate doubt about things.
In other words, it’s saying this is how we eliminate number seven on the list, And then we progress to eliminating number six on the list. What was number seven on the list? Wrong awareness. And what’s number six? Doubt.
First, have wrong awareness about things, which is completely, you know, taking something in completely the wrong way, or misunderstanding something. Misunderstanding something. How do we overcome that? If we have a misconception about something, how do we overcome it? Sorry?
Certainly relaxing is a good thing. But here in order to overcome a misconception, really first what we have to do is develop some doubt about it, that our conception of it may not be correct. That’s really the first thing that happens. Otherwise we just have the misconception. It just remains a misconception.
But by contemplating it, especially if we apply correct reasons to it, we can then develop doubt about whether that conception is true or not. No, no, it just remains at number seven. Yeah. Oh, that’s right. Then, that’s right, because even wrong awareness itself is just engaging an object in a completely wrong way, in the opposite way to what it actually is.
The only way we can begin to overcome that is by generating doubt about whether the object actually exists in that way or not. No. Inattentiveness, but then from doubt, once we’ve overcome doubt about something, we generate correct belief. Inattentiveness may occur at any time. It’s not necessarily in the process by which we come to an understanding about something. But certainly we have wrong awareness, then wrong awareness, from there we progress to doubt, and from then doubt to correct belief.
But even in doubt, we first go to doubt tending away from the fact, or even handed doubt, or then to doubt tending to the fact. And then from there we can progress to correct belief about something. We should examine if this is the way things actually progress for us, or is this how it actually is? A lot of the wrong awareness that we have, we don’t understand to be wrong awareness. We generally think our states of wrong awareness are valid.
Correct assessment, that’s how it is. But when doubt arises, then that’s positive because, for instance, hatred is a wrong awareness, wrongly engaging a subject. And at times, the hatred appears to be valid to us. Oh, I’m justified. That person has all those negative qualities.
They deserve being hated. And we start thinking about reasons, you know, why we should hate them, why we should have resentment towards them. All of these are wrong reasons. But then someone may suggest, for instance, oh, actually they have some I did this good deed. A little bit of doubt arises.
And that doubt starts to affect our, the wrong awareness we have focused to that person, focused towards that person. But not only that, also with the nature of reality itself, we tend to be full of misconceptions about how things actually exist. We tend to think the way we conceive objects to exist at present is the way they actually exist. And we hardly have a doubt about it. But generating a doubt is, in that instance, is very positive.
Oh, absolutely. If we can get rid of wrong awareness, that’ll get rid of most of our afflictions actually. Oh, very good. Hatred’s gone, anger’s gone. That’s a big step.
Attachment’s also gone. Resentment, pride, jealousy, you know, all these types of attitudes. Deceit. A very long way on the path when you overcome wrong awareness. Yes, it takes, oh, until the eighth bodhisattva level.
Prior to that wrong awareness does arrive. But when one enters the pure grounds, the eighth, ninth, and tenth bodhisattva grounds, then yeah. One’s really from then on just dealing with latencies. Latencies of awareness rather than awareness itself. No, but we can use reasoning to justify them.
We don’t need reasons. We don’t have to think of a reason to dislike another person or to develop resentment or anger or hatred. But often we do justify it to ourselves through reasoning, don’t we? We’re expert at it. One person has to just do one small thing and we think about it over and over again and generate all these reasons why we should, why that awareness of them, why that particular conception of them is true.
It’s not true to begin with, but, Well, that’s a process of wrong awareness. So all those reasons are wrong reasons to begin with. They’re not, if in that process we start to generate a correct reason, then we’ll overcome the wrong awareness. That’s like the seven-point cause and effect. They are generating valid reasons directed towards sentient beings.