Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 32-minute session, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores Buddhist epistemology through a classical text on valid awareness, repeatedly pausing as students press him on where sense perception ends and conception begins. He distinguishes self-determined from other-determined valid awareness, grounding each type in concrete examples: fire burning wood, recognizing a parent on the street, mistaking a mirage for water. These examples show how different types of awareness know themselves to be valid in relation to their objects. The session moves toward a practical conclusion: using these epistemological categories as tools for investigating the nature of mind itself. Dense material requiring repeated study. Aimed at practitioners already engaged with Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 22 M and C.mp3
UUID: 13072672-e75d-4517-b000-30420c246911
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 32.0 minutes
Words: ~3,240
Are there some further debates here? Just wondering whether we should go into them. We might just skip ahead and do a little bit more. How are we, or would we prefer to do some discussion on this self determined and other determined? It’s also said that valid inference is always self determined.
Whenever we have a correct inference about something, we know ourselves to be correct. If we have if we think we have to ask anyone about it, then we haven’t comprehended it. But when we comprehend it conceptually, that conception knows itself to be correct in relation to that object. And that’s what comes out in the definition that if it’s self determined valid awareness, one knows that if that object removed, the comprehension of it is also gonna be destroyed. Whereas if it’s other determined valid awareness, one is not sure whether you take that object away, whether it will make a difference or not.
Or that in fact, it other determined is always gonna rely on the strength of another comprehension to establish it. Okay. How are we doing with that? Do we should we or should we spend a few more minutes on this, or should we roar ahead into the next section? Well, no.
If you’re hearing the crackling of the fire, that ear awareness is valid in relation to the crackling, isn’t it? Now, if I were to say, oh, is it a birch fire or is it a gum fire or a eucalyptus fire? You wouldn’t be able to say, unless you’re really an expert on these things. Then you would be self determined in relation to the crackling of the fire, but other determined on the crackling of a eucalyptus fire or a birch fire. So you would the only way you could determine those would be either to ask someone or go and have a look yourself.
Then you’d know, you’d fill up that branch and say, that’s gotta be a gum tree branch. Well we’re just going to do this now, so we might as well go ahead with this. Okay. So on page twenty one, we’ll just skip those debates. Now in our system, if self determined valid awareness is classified, there are five.
Valid sense perception, seeing function, valid sense perception, familiar with the object, valid self perception, valid yogic perception and valid inference. All of these are examples of self determined valid awareness. That is types of awareness that know themselves to be valid in relation to their object. So their instances are, number one, valid sense perception seeing function. Sense perception holding fire to function to burn dry wood.
That’s as an example. So it’s really here one sees that the function of fire is to burn dry wood. In a sense, one has self determined valid awareness to that function. Is that okay? So that’s self valid sense perception seeing the function.
Why not? Why can’t? We can see a car driving on the road? Yeah. But when you say function, it’s like a process.
We can see a process, can’t we? Yeah, we can see the process happening, but for us to understand that function, it must have some kind of concept conceptual thing. But we see process when they happen? Yeah. They go along with conceptual understanding.
Oh, well, we might label it as this or that. And we think about it with conception, but doesn’t sense perception see function when it happens? But doesn’t it just see that in force in color and form? Color and shape. Color and shape.
The things function within the bounds of color and shape, aren’t they? No? Well, then that’s okay. Then we can see it with eyewitness. If function occurs outside of color and shape, then we can can’t see it.
No, we need to think about these issues. Sense perception itself is not valid awareness, no. Valid sense perception is valid awareness. But sense perception by itself can be one of three types. It can either be valid, subsequent or inattentive.
Those three types exist for sense perception. Okay, so valid sense perception seeing function is a type of self determined valid awareness. So that function, in a sense one comprehends the function without having to rely on another type of awareness. One can incontrovertibly detect the function of something even through the senses. So you look at the function of fire, you can see the burning dry wood.
We know that without having to rely on any other awareness. We can see that function. Is that okay? No? Well, probably see the function as well, but they may not comprehend it.
Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, that’s right. I mean, are many things that require learning. And one is, we don’t necessarily know what the function of something is when we first look at it. But certainly once we look at it and we’re told and we work it out, we see the function.
But you can! But we can. We look at the fire and we see it burning. No, we can see it. Now here it means that I awareness itself, looking at the fire burning the dry wood, is self determined valid awareness in relation to the function of the fire burning the wood.
What it means is we don’t need to rely on any other type of awareness to settle the function of the fire. Certainly self determined, a child would know about it without having to explain it. If sense awareness alone was self determined. Oh, no. No.
Here, mean, it’s a bit like a baby, you know, when they’re first born. It’s that they see everything upside down for the first two or three weeks because the image on the back of their retina is upside down. And so they have trouble working it out. It takes it requires a process of we’ve got to exclude these early periods where a person is learning to use their senses and gaining a basic understanding of these issues. Here you’re talking about someone with a certain degree of training that, know, for them The I awareness itself is self No, no, no.
Here it’s Not every type of I awareness is self determining. Here, this valid sense perception seeing function is said to be a self determined valid awareness. So sense perception that doesn’t see function is not a valid So the sense perception of you No, No. It’s just using an example here of something that’s quite easy to understand. But there are many types of eye awareness that are not self determined.
It’s not saying every type of eye awareness is self determined, of course, because we just did that example of the color, for instance. Eye awareness self determined valid awareness has to be valid awareness to begin with. Right? All those other of those valid types of awareness, some are other determined, some are self determined. Here you’re dealing with someone probably as familiar with the term fire, that have done some degree of degree of study on these issues.
Not like a baby who really doesn’t know what they’re seeing, for instance, and so on. Here the author is dealing with a particular thing. Like if you look at fire, if you look at a flame, you can see the function of the flame there is to consume the wax and so on. Sense perception itself can see that function. We’re coming back to this issue again of what is conception and what is perception in these issues.
Right? Don’t yeah. Yeah. I think you’re pushing too hard as if you’re pushing that everything’s got to be conceptual, which is unusual in a way because sense perception does exist. Perception comprehending objects does exist.
We don’t have to try and convert all of our sense perceptions into conceptions in order to understand them. We don’t need to push too hard in that area, but we do need to come to an understanding of what conception is and what perception is. Now the second example given here is valid sense perception familiar with the object. So that is sense perception holding the form of the father in the continuum of the son. In other words, it’s saying is the sense perception in the continuum of the son who’s holding the form of his father or the daughter of or whoever.
Here it’s an object of familiarity to the I mean, if we walked down the street and we saw our father coming the other way, our eye awareness comprehends the physical form of our father, the color and shape of our father. This has happened to us, hasn’t it? I’ve got stories in my life, because you don’t think it’s Excluding those possibilities. If we walk down the street okay, our mother, or anyone else that’s that possibly may be walking down the street. We know that eye awareness itself knows itself to be valid in relation to that object of familiarity.
That familiar object, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it? We don’t have to question someone as, is that my father there? Is that my mother over there? You look, it comprehends itself to be valid.
That eye awareness itself knows itself to valid in relation to the color and shape, the form of one’s mother. True? One doesn’t have to think, stop and think about this, does one? Look at that person over there. Now, look.
That looks like my mother. We don’t need a positive reason. Right? We know that valid inference is generated by a correct reason. For instance, we don’t need the positive reason to establish that person over there to be my father or my mother.
Oh, validity means first moment for the sūtra school. So when we’re walking down the street, that first moment of seeing our mother, our father, that is said to be valid sense perception, familiar with the object, and its self determined valid awareness, and its sense perception. Then we have valid self perception. Is everyone happy with that second one, a self determined valid awareness? That’s straightforward, isn’t Everyone happy with that being sense perception?
Good to be honest on these issues. No, it’s not easy. Oh, you hadn’t seen her in five years then? Yeah. Well But the first moment wasn’t a valid awareness.
No, no, it was valid eye awareness of the physical, you know, of that person. But it wasn’t valid with relation to your sister, the form of your sister. In fact, didn’t even have a doubt to begin with. But it’s valid eye awareness, isn’t it, that first moment. Okay.
Then we have valid self perception number three, and that is self perception experiencing eye awareness. So it says that the first moment of self perception focused on I awareness, sense perception, that self determines the valid awareness. It knows itself to be valid. Is everyone happy with self perception, what that means? Self perception or self cognition is a type of awareness that’s focused on awareness itself, not on external objects.
It’s awareness that’s holding awareness. Awareness. So for instance, we can have self cognition holding eye awareness. Like at present we have eye awareness looking at an object. In this school it’s said that the time we have eye awareness, say focused on the heater, we have self perception focused on eye awareness holding the heater.
And that self perception or that self cognition holding the eye awareness is self determined valid awareness. It knows it self to be valid in relation to the I awareness. The only thing is that that self perception and that I awareness are probably mixed substantially together. Because they’re not awareness doesn’t it doesn’t exist like form with spatial dimension. So you have a sort of a self awareness viewing and I awareness that is somewhat probably mixed in a bit of a blob there.
Just how you extract one from the other would be a good question. Then we have valid yogic perception. So omniscience, as an other-cognizing mental awareness, is said to be self determined. So the mind of omniscience is self determined valid awareness. And the fifth one, inference.
Valid inference comprehending sound is impermanent, is self determined valid awareness. It knows itself to be valid in relation to its object. And then it said that if other determined valid awareness is classified by convention or by the mode of expression, there are three. So we do the five types of self determined valid awareness, and now we do the three types of other determined valid awareness. This is not easy going, this material.
So it’s really only through familiarity that it becomes easier. And this we have to be aware of. If it seems hardgoing and difficult, it’s because it really is. It is difficult material, but it does become easier with with familiarity. Okay.
So the three types, initial perception, undirected perception, and perception possessing the cause of mistake or the cause of distortion. Right. So initial perception there is, for instance, is about halfway down page twenty one. Sense perception holding the color of an Utpala flower in the continuum of a person who has not previously experienced seeing an Utpala flower, which is probably most of us. So, that is other determined valid awareness, which is initial perception or the first perception, first time we look at something.
So the first time we looked at an Utpala flower, we don’t know it’s an Utpala flower, it’s other determined and valid awareness in relation to the Utpala flower. That’s okay, isn’t it? Anyone disagree with that? It’s other determined because if someone said, is that an Utpala flower to us? We’d say, I have no idea.
Okay. So that’s the instance of initial perception. Even though we’re seeing something there, we’re seeing a flower. Because we’re in doubt about whether it’s an Utpala flower or not, it’s other determined in relation to the Utpala flower. But it’s self determined in relation to flower, isn’t it?
Self determined valid awareness in relation to flower, we know it’s a flower. We don’t need to consult anyone on that, but other determined on whether it’s an Utpala flower or not. So undirected perception, the second one. Sense perception holding sound in the continuum of a being while their mind is attracted to pleasant form is other determined valid awareness. So distracted awareness, inattentive awareness.
Sense perception holding sound in the continuum of someone who’s attracted to pleasant form. Even though that person is sitting there listening to the sound, suddenly outside the window they see something go by. And then you ask them about, oh, what was was said at that point? I don’t know. They’re other determined in relation to the sound because of their distraction.
Even though, really they were sitting there listening to the sound. And then perception possessing the cause of mistake or the cause of distortion, sense perception holding the color of a mirage directly producing the overestimation holding the mirage to be water. So that’s perception possessing the cause of a mistake or distortion. So that’s other determined in relation to the mirage, other determined. In fact, There is a color there that’s appearing in the mirage, and that whatever the appearance there is being comprehended by the eye awareness.
But then holding that to be water, holding that shimmering light to be water is wrong. And then if doubt were to arise about that, then one wonders, is that water or not? One would have to then rely on another type of awareness to see whether it’s water or not. Even though the eye awareness is really self determined in relation to the fact that there’s something there that’s like water, shimmering, that we know, that we see. But whether that’s water or not, we don’t know.
Right. Oh, that’s about we’re doing okay. We’re about halfway through the text. A little bit less than halfway, but Again, it’s a pity we don’t have more time at our leisure just to go through the text more slowly and in greater depth. But still, anyway, it’s good just to cover these issues.
And maybe it forms a basis anyway for a future investigation, more in-depth investigation of the text. In the Tibetan, this itself is a commentary of a commentary. I haven’t seen any commentaries to this. This is very much simplified. And from here, one goes back into more.
A number of different works actually, this extracted from a number of different texts from Abhidharma, from logic, from middle way view to a degree, a little bit from there. Yes. So it’s a compilation of a number of of sections of other works, But it almost needs a commentary written to it. Oh, this is not easy. Well, really, it’s it’s a matter of just contemplating the points as we understand them.
Yeah, there’s a commentary there by Lati Rinpoche. And then really investigating, just reviewing our own awareness and trying to gauge how our awareness functions. But certainly, our own awareness is not something that’s obvious to us, mainly because it’s not physical. So it’s not so easy for us to bring out a bit and put it in front of us and look at it one way or another. But certainly our awareness does exist.
And so this text is fundamentally a way of giving tools, giving us some tools to investigate our awareness. This is also for the debates in here as well. They’re also designed as giving tools for investigating the nature of the mind. Other than one’s using conception, isn’t it? When we’re thinking about the I and investigating the nature of the I, one is using one’s conceptual awareness.
Yeah. It’s and therefore using generic images. And simply and then one using one’s memory a lot, which is conceptual. And that memory itself is often well, the the data of the memory in a sense is, for the most part, sense data. Because when we start to think about the I, it’s not easy.
We have all these impressions of what the I may be, like our face, our physical body, our feelings, our fears, our hopes, our past, our future, all these different images come to mind. Because there we’re contemplating, we’re using conception and seeking to comprehend what the I is. Sorry. Yep. The conditioned response, like when you’re investigating this issue of the eye.
Oh, senses are working. Yeah, we sit there, we have sensory contact, sensory awareness, and so forth. Our sense awareness, Yeah, it’s continuous. We don’t need to put effort into maintaining our sense awareness in general. But for the most part, when we’re meditating, we’re using conception.
Because what we’re seeking to understand is beyond the senses. So necessarily we’re using conception. And in using conception we’re seeking to develop correct belief, overcome doubt and develop correct belief, and then develop correct belief to the point of valid inference. And the only way we can do that is through generating correct reasons to establish the thesis or the idea that we accept with correct belief. The only way that we can then develop correct conception is through using correct reasons.
So then establishing correct reasons, contemplating dharmic subjects and establishing those through correct reasons is very important.