Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 30-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores the crucial distinction in Buddhist logic between holding a correct thesis and holding it for a valid reason. Using impermanence as his primary example, he examines the common situation of practitioners who accept that sound is impermanent without validly proving why—recognizing atoms in flux conceptually but not understanding their significance spiritually. He draws an unexpected parallel between Buddhist logical analysis and scientific method, noting that both employ similar reasoning structures and that science itself demonstrates impermanence through atomic physics, even if scientists don’t frame it in spiritual terms. A major section addresses the gap between intellectual understanding and perceptual insight into impermanence, emphasizing that conceptual knowledge alone cannot generate transformation. He concludes that genuine realization requires merit accumulated through renunciation or bodhicitta, not reasoning alone. Suited for practitioners with some background in Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 M and C 2001 08 14.mp3
UUID: 3130e3b4-1556-426d-88c2-770548097169
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-08-14
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 30.2 minutes
Words: ~2,478
But still, if we were to hold sound as impermanent by reason, it were held as an object of eye awareness, that would still be a correct belief. It sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? It’s a correct belief, but the correct belief only in the thesis. Oh, here the reason If the thesis exists, then the conception of that is a correct belief. That’s the the bottom line there.
If the thesis exists, and just holding that thesis, no matter what the reason is, is still a correct belief. I mean, if we say sound is impermanent, and we hold to that, yes, sound is impermanent, but we do so by an incorrect reason, it doesn’t invalidate the thesis. It just means that that reason is never gonna have the capacity to carry that correct belief to a valid inference. That’s the work of the correct reason. Seems odd that, doesn’t it?
So it does happen. But generally, sounds are not objects of eye awareness. Yeah. I think that sounds more poetic than yeah. The subject matter here is much more hard nosed and less poetic.
Okay. So it sounds a bit odd to put it this way, but there is reason for doing that. And the reason is to really emphasize the necessity of having a correct reason for getting beyond correct belief. Now the fifth one there is correct belief not proven that the reason exists. So number five, for example, discernment holding sound is impermanent by reason of being produced for one not validly determining if produced, it must be impermanent.
Where produced is the correct reason establishing sound is impermanent, but that person does not prove it to be the correct reason. In other words, that’s where we would be ourselves. At present, if we were to believe that sound were impermanent, we would have to do so by a correct reason. Otherwise, we would it would sound odd to us. So really, we are candidates for the fifth type of correct belief.
That’s where we would fit. Take sound, it’s impermanent because it’s produced. It’s a correct reason, but still the yeah. We haven’t detected yet impermanence. In fact Sorry?
Science is approaching this. We haven’t detected the thesis yet because we haven’t comprehended the predicate. Right? Still, we’re only doing it on a gross level. Yeah.
You can’t do it directly with the senses, but you can do it through Even then, we’re not developing the correct conception. Because still, generally for us, we have this idea that objects are fixed. Even sound is fixed. That or, like, for instance, this object here is somewhat fixed. The object of the first moment is the object of the second moment is the of the it hasn’t actually changed for the last half hour, this table.
Basically, that’s what we think, isn’t it? Scientist science is actually saying exactly this. No. No. No.
Science science is actually proving this. Because scientifically, we know that this table is made up of atoms and molecules, and the atoms themselves are in constant motion. There’s nothing fixed. Not one atom that’s fixed, not one electron or particle even smaller than those, which is fixed even for a millisecond or less, is there? There’s absolutely no particle that’s not moving in this table, is there?
That’s impermanence. The table exists. The reason What is the reason and correct reason? For because it’s produced. Valid inference?
Yeah. Sure. But it’s Scientific method itself very much conforms here with this the logic that’s, for instance, taught within Buddhism and so forth. They’re they’re quite similar. There’s no real contradiction between them.
So in fact, to say it’s produced is scientific. There’s no that reason alone would be okay. Is that okay? I’m not sure exactly what you mean there. Because science is Scientific method is fine.
Scientific Scientific method? Scientific method is using it’s a particular method that’s based fundamentally on logic and stemming from the logic of the Greeks and so forth. And the, you know, the syllogisms that were expounded by the Greeks and the different provisions that existed within those. And and then the development of different methods by which those types of logic can be expanded and tested. Similarly, this type of logic here, the syllogism takes sound.
Well, take this table, it’s impermanent because it’s produced. It’s a very similar process. But what do you what do you understand as scientific method? For science, science itself, logically, it’s established that science itself is logically established that this is composed of atoms and molecules. Right?
And this we accept. Why do we accept that? Yeah. At present we don’t comprehend, for instance, the fact of impermanence. And, in fact, we may have doubts about whether things are impermanent or not.
You mean the scientific presentation of these Impermanence is not such a big issue for science because their science is directed more towards the explanation of the natural physical world with a view to just understanding how, you know, understanding how things work. The reason that impermanence is investigated from a Buddhist perspective is that it’s a stage understanding impermanence is a stage in the under stage in the development of the understanding of the ultimate mode of abidance of objects. And by that process, one develops the capacity fundamentally to purify all obscurations. There’s a different there’s a different approach taken. But science from its own side, wishing to comprehend how things are, has, you know, for the sake of just knowing how things are, has actually made great progress in these areas.
And this process actually is quite similar to that used within Buddhism. The scientific method and the logic employed within a syllogism, for instance, are quite similar. They can be said to have a common presentation. When we talk about impermanence, from the point of view of science, impermanence really is established for physical objects because what Buddhism is talking about with impermanence is the fact that there is nothing fixed, for instance, in this table. And we can understand that from science because it’s composed of atoms and molecules and so forth, and they’re in constant flux.
But we look at this table and we have the impression that it’s fixed. And so, even though it’s in constant flux, we have this conception of it being fixed. In order to develop spiritually, from a Buddhist perspective, we need to understand that it’s impermanent. There’s no other way of developing spiritually than understanding impermanent objects are actually impermanent on a subtle level. If we have the conviction that they’re fixed as we do at present, that will act as a barrier to us developing spiritually.
But that’s not the issue in science at all. But Buddhism is only seeking the fact just like science is doing. And as His Holiness has mentioned that if science ever were to prove something, then Buddhism would have to accept it. There’s no so in that sense, Buddhism accepts everything in science. There’s nothing in science that or every, you know, valid discovery in science is accepted within Buddhism.
Absolutely. And we can always follow what science is saying, as long as it’s supported by scientific, you know, like a valid method. No. No. And in fact, this whole when one goes into science, and science is such an incredible structure.
And when you look at mathematics and development in mathematics, and mathematics is often used as a, you know, a way of of investigating or summarizing the nature of objects and so forth. And in general and often things have to be proven mathematically before they’re, you know, before they’re they’re sought in the actual external world. Like with Einstein and so forth, would prove that the light rays are bending around the sun from the stars, but it took a long time to prove this. It’s still a little bit in doubt. That mathematics, which is really, in a sense, the development of logic, is this type of logic here as well.
And what is mathematics? It’s simply condensing things down into convenient symbols and recognizing the relationships that exist between different physical entities and expressing them in those symbols. Also here too in this logic, it’s recognizing the logic expressed here is recognizing the relationships that exist between objects and expressing those relationships in a syllogism. Anyway, I’m not sure with scientific method. This this needs to be gone into because people do have a certain degree of faith and belief in science, and that that’s not a bad thing.
And that can be used definitely in our practice. Yep. The table and the impermanence of the table are distinct. There Yeah. One can comprehend.
There’s basically two ways of comprehending anything. One is either perceptually or the other is conceptually. Right? But the perceptual understanding of hidden phenomena really first arises conceptually, then perceptually, not the other way around. Oh, you can, but it depends initially on developing a valid conception of the of the impermanence.
Scientists. Oh, no. You must no. I think if you go down that that road, it sounds like you’re a disparaging scientist. Scientists are seeking to understand, you know, what the nature of the physical world is, And they do that very well.
You know, they’re it’s unprecedented. Their degree of and their accuracy and the subtlety of their comprehension of physical matter. But they’re not it’s not in a sense a spiritual path. Science is taken as the investigation of the external world in order to know the external world as it is. And there are no in a sense, it’s a there’s not much else that’s tied to that, except that, you know, research does bring, you know, new inventions and they perhaps generate money.
But in but, of course, often science is merely for, you know, research. It’s research that doesn’t produce profit and so forth. It’s simply to extend the boundaries of understanding. It’s not just the belief determines what you see, because we could have a conception about anything. But having a correct belief, it’s a correct belief only because its reference object exists.
Right? It’s not that the conception determines the object. Right? Otherwise, if that were the case, then we could if we had the conception that this table were permanent, the table would be permanent. Right?
Is that is there is on a subtle level, there is the whole process of imputation. And in fact, every entity in the universe is said to be an imputed existence from the higher school’s point of view. And being an imputed existence means that objects the measure of an object existing is that it’s imputed there by conception. But that doesn’t mean that whatever we think, of course, whatever mode that we conceive of objects, objects are established therefore in that way. It’s a subtler process than that.
Not really possible. Only conceptual, I would say. Or you could develop an under yeah. Yeah. You could develop develop certainly the conception.
That’s possible. No. Beings of high intelligence can comprehend many things intellectually. But really to progress from an intellectual or conceptual understanding to a perceptual understanding requires a what? A method to substantiate that development from the conceptual to the perceptual.
Conceptual to the perceptual. Otherwise, it simply, you know, remains an intellectual understanding of impermanence. Even even very intelligent beings can understand selflessness conceptually. That have to be moved in order for that perceptual understanding to arise initially. They it would be impossible that a being impossible.
What, in fact, you is possible here is a being like a Pratyekabuddha, like a solitary realizer. At a time when there are no, you know, like formal Buddhist teachings, for instance, they are able by their accumulation of past merit to simply comprehend perceptually the nature of impermanence, nature of selflessness, the nature of emptiness. Simply by, you know, their by themselves without any assistance from anyone else. In their past in their past developed to the point where they can comprehend in this life. But that who knows?
There may be a scientist as well in that life in that particular life. But in general, they that being themselves is already established in the path from the past. And, you know, they’re a stream enterer, once-returner, non-returner in their past life. And that sort of thing does occur. But say an ordinary scientist, to contemplate the meaning of objects such as a table, how quarks exist, excuse me, and how they’re put together and so forth.
Even thinking about that and developing a clear conception of the particle nature of matter on a very subtle level, still in itself may not generate an understanding of impermanence for that person. It’d be a little bit like the fifth one here, a correct belief. You know, it’s all made up of particles and it’s all in motion, but still they may not generate the understanding of impermanence. Conceptually. Sorry?
There. It’s a bit of a roundabout way. No. These areas are this is really, you know, fascinating. It’s possible, but you wouldn’t be able to do it just through reading a physics book.
You would have to be someone like a a solitary realizer that’s spent the previous hundred eons accumulating merit to do it. Otherwise, you would you may develop an interest, but there wouldn’t be the substantive basis, there wouldn’t be the merit that would enable you to, you know, generate, say, the conceptual understanding or having the conceptual understanding generate the perceptual understanding. What’s going to establish that is that accumulation of merit. And what establishes that accumulation of merit is the method. So it’s that method is either gonna be renunciation or bodhicitta.
This is actually a good good sorry? Oh, that’s it. That’s the method there. The method oh, anyway, that’s a huge area, whole area of method. And actually, it’s a very interesting question comparing that process with the process of a scientist.
So No. But that’s that’s an important question because Buddhism very much parallel science, and there’s no yeah. There’s nothing nothing in in science that contradicts Buddhist belief. Oh, well, those well, what contradicts I mean, you can do that with genes. You can create clones and so forth.
This has to be examined. Oh, because well, these are just unproven theories that exist at present. Yeah. And they’re branches of cognitive theory and sorry? Biology.
Absolutely. They’re That’s right. These are there’s such a mixture of theories in that particular area, cognitive theory. And you can see there is a movement there. Yeah.
Which is a good thing. It’s all of these theories, even all the Buddhist theories have to be tested as well. Anyway, we should have a break here.