Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Ven Jampa Ignyen offers a 46-minute systematic analysis of Buddhist epistemology—how awareness develops and cognition is classified. He traces the developmental progression from wrong conception through doubt toward valid perception, covers the seven-fold division of minds, and presents three overlapping ways to categorize cognition: conception versus non-conceptual awareness, and whether non-conceptual awareness is mistaken or unmistaken. A centerpiece is a debate on whether a Buddha’s self-cognition—awareness knowing itself—remains internal or, given omniscience, also constitutes other-cognition. He concludes by distinguishing main minds from mental factors and their role in knowing objects. Drawing from the Sūtra School’s epistemology, the talk assumes some prior familiarity with Buddhist philosophical analysis.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 M and C 2001 09 11.mp3
UUID: 339088a3-cf59-437c-90d2-6e1c3d502b26
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 07-09 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-09-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.7 minutes
Words: ~4,453
Well, that’s actually the way the way we develop is from which end? The bottom up. Right. Okay. So we start that way.
Wrong awareness. Wrong awareness. Doubt. Doubt. Inattentive awareness.
Inattentive awareness. Direct valid cognition. Yeah. That’s more or less how we develop. We start with wrong awareness, wrong conception generally.
It’s really from wrong conception is where we’re grounded at present. And then we seek to develop doubt to overcome our wrong awareness. We generally have to go through this process. Whatever wrong awareness we have, then it’s really just common sense. First, we need to develop some doubt about how we view things.
Then the doubt becomes firstly, doubt tending away from the fact, then even doubt, then tending to the fact, and then we establish correct belief. And from correct belief, then we establish which? No? After correct belief. No?
Oh, well, we could. No. Subsequent doesn’t follow from Subsequent awareness doesn’t follow a correct belief. Valid perception of valid inference, after those we have, subsequent awareness. It was a trick question.
But that order No, that’s okay. That order is in that way, but how we actually generate, subsequent awareness is for instance, after valid awareness. That’s okay, isn’t it? An inattentive awareness can occur at any time. And in general, they can either be, conceptual or non conceptual.
So a certain number can be conceptual. A certain number can be perceptual. Certainly valid inference has to be conceptual. Correct belief is conceptual. Inattentive awareness is really non conceptual.
Well, here it’s really talking about the eye awareness is inattentive to their The conception actually holds to their impermanence, doesn’t it? When we think about it and we develop, correct reasoning in relation to, hidden objects like impermanence, we develop the conception that they’re impermanent, but still our eye perception, eye awareness focused on physical form is inattentive to the momentary nature of the object. Things appear fixed to eye awareness and ear awareness and so on. Right. So those seven, they’re very important.
In fact, the process that we’re trying to initiate is therefore the this what process of etymology or developing awareness, overcoming doubt is really from wrong awareness is coming up through those minds. Overcoming doubt is our major process, our major goal. And the goal or the process of establishing correct belief is the means of overcoming doubt. Then being able to establish correct reasons, to establish the hidden is the means of going beyond the correct belief to valid inference. And then through developing valid inference, gradually, we’re able to develop, perception, non conceptual, valid awareness of those hidden objects.
Right, then after that, we did three types of conception or three types of cognition. Again, there was conception taking a generic image as a held object, non mistaken non conceptual awareness taking the real as its held object, and this is on page thirty three. And mistaken non conceptual awareness taking the clear appearance of the nonexistent as its held object. So these are three other ways that we can classify cognition. So where we finished last week was just doing the first of those: conception.
So there we did, some of the classifications of conception such as conception holding generic sound or generic image alone, both sound and image, and so on. Authentic conception and inauthentic conception, conception applying names, conception applying meaning. So these all occur on page thirty four or thirty three. Right. Then we have, the next one is conception is classified.
Again, are two. Oh, no, sorry. Right now for further division of awareness, we have about just over halfway down page thirty four. Sorry, not this is for the second of those initial three. For non mistaken non conceptual awareness, there is, definition and classification.
Right now, firstly, had conception. Now there are two types of non conceptual awareness. That is firstly, non mistaken, non conceptual. So non mistaken here means awareness not mistaken to its appearing object. So the definition of the first is that cognition possessing unmistaken clear appearance of its appearing object is the definition of non mistaken, non conceptual awareness.
So here, that clear appearance, indicates that it’s referring to non conceptual awareness, and that is equivalent to perceptual discernment or perception. And then if classified, there are four which were explained before: sense perception, mental perception, self perception and yogic perception. Then towards the bottom of page thirty four, the third division of those three, which is mistaken non conceptual awareness, and there there is the definition is just a variation of the previous one. Cognition possessing mistaken appearance of its appearing object. So, again, it’s clear appearance because it’s non conceptual, but it’s mistaken.
So there, there are two: sense awareness, which is that, and mental awareness, which is that. And the first one, there’s a definition: the common basis of mistaken non conceptual awareness and that generated in dependence on physical power, physical sense power, sense base, which is its specific empowering condition, is the definition of the first. And the second is the common basis of mistaken non conceptual awareness and generated in dependence on a mental power, which is its specific empowering condition. So they’re similar to what was done previously. And then again, we have, is that okay?
There’s those threefold division of awareness. If it’s awareness, it’s either conception or non conception. And if it’s, non conceptual, it’s either mistaken or non mistaken. Conception itself is always mistaken. Yep.
Yeah. That’s okay. Oh, that’s they don’t have such a rigid division of conceptual and non conceptual. But that’s okay. Before we go into that, we’ll stick with the Sūtra School.
This particular text is, of course, written from the point of view of the sutrists, the Sautrāntika. And the advantage of that is that their view is very practical and a good view to have as a basis. And one thing that we’re attempting to achieve at present is to gain a working understanding of what the Sūtra School thinks or what they posit as the nature of awareness. So in a sense, to understand their worldview is what we’re seeking to do. Then from there, using that as a basis, can develop, we can move to the higher schools.
And this is what is done in tenets. Right. So now on page thirty five, again, have, cognition or awareness is divided into two types of cognition, self cognition and other cognition. So the first is equivalent, to awareness directed only internally. So that is awareness that’s viewing awareness itself.
The second is equivalent to awareness viewing the external. So one’s called self cognition, the other’s called other cognition. What the self means is not the self here in terms of the person, but self as awareness, awareness, viewing awareness. So it’s termed self awareness. Whereas awareness viewing what is other than itself is called other awareness.
What’s the example of self awareness viewing awareness? That is the self cognition or self perception that we did initially. You know how we had four types of perception? We had four types of perception. There’s sense perception, mental perception, self perception, and yogic perception.
Yeah, that’s self perception. That’s self cognition. So it’s awareness that’s viewing, So it’s called aspect awareness, zinam, awareness holding the aspect of the subject or awareness focused internally upon awareness itself. So this is said to exist from the Sūtra School’s point of view. So then again, as the author says, sense perception, mental perception, yogic perception and conception are instances of the second.
So those other types of perception plus all conception is considered to be other cognition or cognition focused on objects other than awareness, other than its own awareness within the mental continuum of the person. Yep. Yep. Yep. And why is this other cognition?
Why does that include perception? Oh, because sense perception is focused on the external, isn’t it? Not on the internal. So it’s really when we’re talking about internal here, it’s just, our experience itself, our inner awareness. So any awareness that we have which is focused on, our internal experience, that’s really self cognition.
Conception and so forth are regarded as other cognition, even though our conception may be conceiving internal awareness. Is that okay? So here there’s a there’s a few debates. We might just read through the first one here. Examining whether self cognition and other cognition are exclusive or whether they have any common basis.
Does self cognition and other cognition have a common base? Is there anything which can be both? Oh, here’s self meaning internal states awareness. Oh, that’s physical, isn’t it? Here it’s talking internal, it’s not physical internal, it’s what is conscious internal.
The awareness of self perception, that would have to be self perception. If we’re talking about our own awareness. Or if you’re talking about, for instance, like Yep. Now whether that’s necessary to have why would one have that? Yeah.
But what is aware? Even now, we have awareness. We’re aware that we’re aware of the table. What awareness? Is there another awareness doing that, or is it the awareness Exactly.
Yeah, there’d be an infinite regression or progression if we always needed another awareness to validate the first awareness. In a sense, it’s assertive that awareness itself indirectly, if it is a self determined valid awareness, for instance, it knows itself to be valid. Indirectly, it understands itself to be a valid awareness. Yeah. Otherwise, if we need another awareness to validate that, then we need another awareness to validate the validation and there’d been no end of the process.
Right. So here the debate arises. Is self cognition and other cognition, is there anything in common, a common basis of those two states? So one says take self cognition in the continuum of an Ārya Buddha. So the Buddha himself is asserted to have self cognition.
Okay. And that self cognition would be omniscient. So for the Sūtra school, the Buddha having self cognition is fully accepted. So then it follows that it is not other cognition. Right?
Take the self cognition in the continuum of Buddha, it follows it is not other cognition because it is self cognition. Reason not established, we say. It follows self cognition in the continuum of an Ārya Buddha is self cognition because self cognition exists in their continuum, because self perception experiencing mental awareness in their continuum is self cognition in their continuum, reason not established. Take an Aria Buddha. It follows self perception experiencing mental awareness in their continuum, his self cognition in their continuum, because he is a person possessing physical form.
Okay. All that it’s saying there is that it’s the Buddha is, for instance, Śākyamūni Buddha is a human being, possess physical form. So therefore, as a human being possessing physical form, they have self perception. Because this is a common attribute of all human beings, whether they are enlightened or not. So then take that subject.
It follows it is other cognition because it is awareness viewing the external, because it takes external Dharma such as form, etcetera, as its object. We say no pervasion. So in other words, what the author is saying here is that the Buddha does have self perception because they’re a human being with a physical body like ourselves. They have self perception. That self perception is focused on their internal on the internal experience of the Buddha him or herself.
But then that self perception is omniscient as well because all awareness of a Buddha is omniscient. So therefore, this particular person is saying, well, therefore, it’s not self perception because it’s other perception because it’s omniscient. It’s aware of everything else in the universe. Is that perception both self perception and other perception? Oh, you couldn’t.
No. There’d always be mental perception and so forth that coexist with it. So there has to be self perception along with other perception? Oh, of course. Yeah.
Yep. But a Buddha from the Sūtra School point of view, the Buddha has self perception. And the author accepts this because a Buddha is a human being, possessing physical form of a human being. Or as a sambhogakaya, it doesn’t really matter which way we go on this. Okay.
So a Buddha has self perception. Okay. Is that self perception other perception? It follows that it is other perception because it’s omniscient. Omniscience knows everything, doesn’t it?
But generally, self perception only knows the internal, isn’t it? So is is the self perception in the continuum of a of an Ārya Buddha self perception? Oh, yes. A Buddha would. Why not?
The Buddha a Buddha is distinct from other beings. Here, this self doesn’t mean the ordinary self. Here, this just means internal awareness. All it’s saying is that a Buddha has a type of awareness which is focused on awareness itself, which is called self cognition or self perception. And so the debate arises, is that self perception actually self perception or is it both self perception and other perception?
Because it comprehends the external. Sorry? We’ll hear the author saying no pervasion. Okay. Good.
The main thing with this is to understand the argument. What the author is saying is the Buddha has self perception, and it does view the external, but it doesn’t mean that it’s other awareness. It’s other cognition. That’s all. It just is omniscient, but it’s still self perception.
Perception internal states, isn’t it? Just aware of the awareness that arises. It’s not aware of any external objects. Whereas for a Buddha, because every state of awareness for a Buddha is omniscient, even their self perception is aware of external objects. Another beings and so on.
When you say awareness of other beings, does that mean like some sort of clairvoyant awareness? For a Buddha, all their awareness is yogic perception. Even as well, we have to be careful here. Their mental awareness is yogic perception. That’s why we do think because we only know our internal state, but I don’t know what’s happening in your walking.
I don’t really know what’s happening. That’s not self perception. Self perception is just aware of what’s happening within our own mental continuum. If we have awareness aware of what’s happening in other people’s continuums, then it’s higher perception, which is a type of mental perception. Right.
So the main thing there is just that, Purbuchok himself, is saying that a Buddha does have self perception, which is aware of external objects, but that doesn’t mean to say that it’s other, perception. That self and underneath this, that self cognition and other cognition are exclusive is formulated in accordance with statements from Jetsunpa’s analysis of the first chapter, which is this great text on the explanation of Maitreya’s Ornament of Realization. As he says, I didn’t make it up. He’s basing this on Jetsunpa’s text, which was written about four or five hundred years ago. Jetsunpa was a great scholar, but his view differed again from many other scholars as well.
Here, the main purpose is not necessarily determining that this is absolutely the right view, but understanding what possibilities exist in relation to interpreting these issues. Because there’s often more than one way of interpreting them. It’d be nice if we could just summarize things down into one sort of lump nugget and say, this is how it is, exactly like this. In a nutshell, this is it. And at times things can be reduced in that way.
At other times there are various ways in which we can view these issues. And the advantage of having an understanding of this is that the more perspectives we have on a particular object, like emptiness and so forth, the more chance we have of actually understanding it. It’s the measure, as it’s said, that Bodhisattvas generally are more intelligent than hearers and solitary realizers because they have many more ways of establishing the ultimate mode of abidance of things. And the more ways we can establish how things ultimately exist, then, of course, the more possibility we have of actually breaking through to an understanding of these issues. And then we say, if that is not established, take that subject which is omniscience, self cognition in the continuum of an Ārya Buddha.
It follows it is awareness which takes external dharmas such as form, etcetera, as its object because it is pristine awareness taking all dharmas as its object because it is omniscience. Okay. So that’s simply finishing that. So therefore, have basically different ways that we can divide up awareness into seven, into three, into two. So we should be aware that we can divide up awareness in this way.
Now we move to the next fundamental division, which is into main minds and mental factors. And this in a way is the most, perhaps the most important for us. So the definition of a main mind is the main cognition posited by means of holding the nature of its object. So that’s the definition of main mind. Main mind, mind, mentality, and consciousness are equivalent in synonyms.
And if classified by nature, there are six or two. So one to six are from eye consciousness to mental consciousness, and one to two sense consciousness and mental consciousness. So we can reduce the six fold division down to two into sense awareness, or sense consciousness and mental consciousness. Now, and mental awareness have four possibilities. But before we go into that, what is meant here by main mind is the type of mind which holds the nature of its object.
So of the various types of awareness that we have, we have, some types of awareness which are actively interpreting an object, and there is another type of awareness which is holding the bare identity of the object itself. Yeah. This the main mind itself is simply just a bare awareness of an object. It’s not its function is really just to be aware of the object. It’s the mere awareness of the identity or the nature of the object.
That’s a yes. Our eye awareness is simply the it’s hard for us to differentiate these out. But one of the functions of awareness that we have is to hold the bare identity of the table. The feeling that arises in relation to the table, the discrimination, and so forth. All of these things are mental factors.
Factors, which are in a way they’re interpreting the table for us or they illustrate our experience in relation to the table. But the main mind is not doing that. All the main mind is doing, the main mind is not even bringing the mind to the table. One mental factor will bring the mind to the table, another mental factor holds the mind to the table, Another mental factor, tastes the table or experiences the table in a sense — it is the feeling in relation to the table. Another mental factor discriminates the unique identity of the table from other objects, other tables and so on.
So anyway, we have the main mind. Now, also what’s important is we have main mind, mind, mentality, and consciousness as being equivalent. So when these terms arise in the text, they’re regarded as equivalent. Equivalent. Now we have mentality.
Now under here, have a four possibility scenario with mentality and mental awareness. Now awareness is a broader term than consciousness because consciousness here refers to simply main minds themselves and not the mental factors. So there are four possibilities in terms of mentality and, mental awareness. Does everyone understand the four possibilities, what this means? Right.
Here in relation to two objects, two objects can have four possibilities with respect to each other. Right? Four possibilities are four possibilities is the maximum number. Okay. For instance, what can we say?
What would be a good example of four These two here exhibit four possibilities: mentality and mental awareness. That means that something which is neither exists, something which is both exists, something which is mentality but not mental awareness exists, and something which is mental awareness but not mentality exists. So there are four possibilities there: something which is both, something which is neither, something which is one and not the other, and something which is the other and not the first. Is that okay? Sometimes only three possibilities exist.
Sometimes only two possibilities exist. Right. So here’s four possibilities. So the first one, eye consciousness is mentality, but not mental awareness. So eye consciousness here is regarded as mentality, but not mental awareness.
No. We’re using it in a slightly different way here. It’s really we have this term in Tibetan or yi, manas. Manas in Sanskrit is quite closely related to mind. So it’s from the Sanskrit point of view, we can draw a sort of a parallel.
That’s true. Manas is a Sanskrit term, which means mind, and manas is related to the English word mind. So here, mentality, all we’re referring to here really by mentality is anything which is a main mind consciousness, anything which is a main mind. So mentality there can be any main mind, whether it’s eye consciousness, ear consciousness and so on. So here eye consciousness is mentality, right?
Because it is consciousness. Eye consciousness is consciousness, but it is not mental awareness. Eye consciousness is not mental awareness, is it? Does that mean it’s not general mental awareness, it’s a specific mind? Eye consciousness is not mental consciousness.
So therefore it’s not mental awareness, is it? Eye consciousness. So here, there is a division here between main minds and mental factors. One thing we have to keep in mind is that mental awareness does include mental factors. Mental awareness.
What distinguishes mental consciousness and mental awareness is that mental awareness includes can include mental factors or states of awareness which are not consciousness. Which one’s that? The Awareness. It does. It excludes mental consciousness.
It’s one which overlaps. Yeah. There’s an overlapping path between mentality and mental awareness. Right. So we have an example of something which is mentality, but not mental awareness.
Okay? An example of that is eye consciousness. It’s mentality because it’s consciousness and mentality and consciousness are synonyms. It’s not mental awareness. Eye consciousness is not mental awareness because it’s eye awareness, isn’t it?
And eye awareness and mental awareness are exclusive. Then feeling in the retinue of mental consciousness is mental awareness, but not mentality. Okay. So we can have mental consciousness, and then we can have feeling which is in the retinue of mental consciousness. Yeah.
Yeah. Our feeling that arises with our conception, for instance, is feeling in the retinue of mental consciousness because conception can be mental consciousness. It can be, can’t it? Conception can be mental consciousness. Okay.
So feeling in the retinue. Now here, when we talk about about retinue, means that we have a main mind and in the main minds always have in the retinue mental factors. And feeling is a mental factor, so feeling always exists in the retinue of mental consciousness. Is that okay? Or it could can be in the retinue of sensory consciousness.
There’s only those two possibilities. If it’s feeling, it has to be in the retinue of either mental consciousness or sense consciousness. Is this feeling emotion, that Yes. It but generally, emotions go beyond feeling as well. But they’re conception anyway.
Emotions, they can be sensory, I think. But they’re often mental. Okay. So feeling in the retinue of mental consciousness is mental awareness. Is mental awareness.
Is that okay? Feeling in the retinue of mental consciousness is mental awareness, but not mentality. It’s not mentality because it’s, mentality can be sense awareness, but it’s not a main mind. That’s the feeling in the retinue of mental consciousness is a mental factor. So therefore, it’s not mentality because it’s not a main mind — it’s a mental factor.
These are very good to debate out. Often, takes a bit of debate with these particular it is. Yeah. Okay. The third one.
Mental consciousness is both mentality and mental awareness. That’s the easy one, isn’t it? Mental consciousness is both mentality. It’s mentality because it’s consciousness. And mental consciousness is mental awareness. No one’s going to debate that. Then feeling in the retinue of eye consciousness is neither mentality nor mental awareness. Similarly, it should be known that the method for positing the four possibilities for mentality and sense awareness, primordial awareness, mental awareness, etcetera, So there’s many different, and it can be very useful to debate these issues out. Takes a bit of mental energy to do it, but that’s good for us.
It’s a bit of exercise. We limber up. Anyway, the Tibetans love to debate these issues out. And there’s great benefit in doing this because it does develop our understanding of these issues. Okay.
Then moving on to mental factors. Cognition holding an attribute of its object and occurring as retinue of any main mind concordant with it is the definition of mental factor. So in a in a sense, the main mind is like an elephant — the main mind really doesn’t do a great deal, it just sort of sits there.
And the mental factors are what do all the work. The mental factors are what are leading the elephant of the mind from one object to another. The mental factors interpret the object, taste the object, decide about it, determine it to be this or that, determine the way we approach it, the way we react to it, how we deal with it, and so on. The main mind simply goes along. The main mind doesn’t do it a great deal, but the mental factors are doing all the work.
So that that type of cognition which is holding an attribute of its object, not the bare identity of its object, but in a way, they’re holding an attribute of the object. And also they occur as a retinue of a main mind. So we have the main mind, and then another type of awareness which occurs concordant with it, here concordant means similar to it, in harmony with it. They accord with one another. So there are a retinue which concords.
Here, retinue meaning the main mind is like a king or monarch, and the mental factor is like a minister — prime minister and the minister of defense, or the minister of home affairs, treasurer, and so on. All these are like the mental factors. The prime minister is like the main mind.