Impure and Pure Appearances: Non-Gelug Presentation

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Appearances of Truly Existents and of Non-Truly Existents

In conceptual cognition (rtog-pa), which can only be mental cognition (yid-shes), appearances of things as truly existent “this”s and “that”s (bden-snang) arise. For example, they may be the appearance of a truly existent “table” or the appearance of the truly existent word “table.” Appearances (snang-ba) refer to any cognitive object that arises in a cognition.

Such appearances do not refer to anything real. There is no such thing as a truly existent table – an object that exists as a “table” independently of the conceptual label “table.” There is no such thing as a truly existent word “table” – a sound that exists as the word “table” independently of the conceptual process. Let us call these appearances “appearances of truly existents.”

In sensory cognition (dbang-shes), which can only be non-conceptual cognition (rtog-med), appearances of things as not truly existent “this”s and “that”s (med-snang) arise. The appearances are the cognized aspects (gzung-rnam) of the sensory cognitions and represent the external phenomena (phyi-don), which, as focal objects (dmigs-yul), precede and give rise to the cognitions. For example, in visual cognition, the object-aspects may be the appearance of merely colored shapes; in audial cognition of speech, they may be the appearance of merely the sound of consonants and vowels. The appearances of them as “tables” or as words like “table” arise afterwards, as mental constructs (spros-pa) fabricated by conceptual mental activity. Things also do not exist in this way, as disjointed colored shapes or as disjointed sounds of consonants and vowels. Let us call the appearances that arise in sensory cognition “appearances of non-truly existents.”

[See: Relationships with Objects]

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