Cognition

Nonexistent phenomena can be objects of cognition, but not objects of valid cognition, only of distorted cognition.

With non-determining cognition, the involved object of the cognition appears clearly and accurately, but without a decisive determination of it.

Apprehension is an accurate, decisive cognition of its own object. Of the seven ways of knowing, bare cognition, inferential cognition and subsequent cognition are apprehensions.

According to the Sautrantika tenet system, there are seven ways of knowing an object. To understand the seven in more detail, we first need to know what a way of knowing (“lorig” in Tibetan) is.

Understanding the difference between affirmation phenomena, which are known simply by affirming the presence or existence of something, and negation phenomena, known by negating the presence or existence of something, enables us to understand nonstaticness and voidness.

Presumptive cognition is an invalid cognition that conceptually takes its object correctly and freshly but presumes it to be true either for no reason, a wrong one, or even a right one but without understanding why it is correct.

Conceptual cognition is a deceptive cognition, because it confuses a category and generic representation of a member of a category with a specific item. Western languages call such conceptual labeling “projection.”

An overview of the different numbers of valid ways of knowing in Indian tenet systems.

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.