Cognition

Inferential Cognition The next is inferential cognition. And here in the Gelugpa Sautrantika system this is a cognition that arises depending on a line of reasoning. So we could directly perceive smoke coming from the house on the other side of the valley. If we’re...

Review We’ve been speaking about appearances and how the mind is involved with that. We’ve seen that when we speak about appearances, we’re speaking about something that appears to the mind and has a deep relationship with mind. And when we speak about mind, we’re speaking...

Non-Determining Cognition A knowing (of something) that is a non-determining cognition is one whose involved object is an objective entity that appears clearly but without decisiveness. When divided, there are three: (1) (non-determining) sensory bare cognition, (2)...

Definitions  The next topic is subjects and objects. When we talk about subject here, that word, of course, could be understood in many different ways, but literally, it’s something that has an object. Subjects are functional phenomena (dngos-po) that have objects (yul-can),...

Fine Points about Categories  There was an interesting question Ulla brought up this morning that I thought about. That is, how do we know a double negative? We were speaking in terms of specifiers (ldog-pa). How do we know that something is not anything other than itself?...

We started our discussion of conceptual cognition last time and I asked you to think of a dog and examine: what is it that appears? Did you think of all dogs in general? Or did a mental picture of a specific dog come to your mind? Answer please. My dog. So, a specific...

Presenting Extreme Examples Somebody brought up a point during the break, that in many of my explanations I tend to go to extremes when giving examples from different points of view. This is a method that’s used in Buddhist analysis, especially Prasangika, which is to look at...

Bare Cognition The ways of knowing that take as their appearing objects objective entities and metaphysical entities are, respectively, bare cognition and conceptual cognition. According to the Sautrantika explanation, all validly knowable phenomena are either objective...

Mental Holograms in Non-Conceptual Cognition In sensory non-conceptual cognition, an external object (phyi-don) casts (gtod) a mental aspect (rnam-pa) – or mental impression, mental image – of itself on the sensory consciousness that cognizes it. Mental aspects or images are...

How to Approach the Voidness Cognized in an Arya’s Total Absorption Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II: Now, the biggest debate regarding Prasangika in Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma and Gelugpa concerns differences in how to approach the voidness that is seen in total absorption. They all...