Cognition

An overview of the Gelug presentation and some of its ramifications concerning the view of valid cognition.

All Indian Buddhist tenet systems, except Vaibhashika, agree that the validly knowable “me” is not a self-sufficiently knowable phenomenon, it is imputedly knowable.

The various Tibetan Buddhist traditions differ as to the voidness non-conceptually cognized by each of the three types of practitioners – shravaka, pratyekabuddha and bodhisattva – when becoming an arya.

Mental activity is made up of six types of consciousness that are aware of an object as being a sight, a sound, and so on, and 51 types of mental factors that qualify or help with the cognition of that object.

It is useful to not look at the mind as a “thing” but as mental activity, occurring moment to moment and which ​​can be non-conceptual or conceptual.

Disturbing emotions occur not only in conceptual cognitions, which are always mental cognition, but also in non-conceptual sensory and mental cognition.

A true stopping of impure appearance-making occurs only with enlightenment.

The Indian Buddhist tenet systems present graded levels of understanding of how things exist like an illusion, which we can use in our daily lives.

The aggregate of karmic formations (Skt. samskaraskandha) contains two types of affecting variables.

Understanding the difference between the definitions of these three terms helps us to deconstruct conceptual thoughts that we have.