Ways of Knowing

The Tibetan debate process is a learning and clarifying process for ways of knowing, which is then intended for application in meditation and in practice.

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

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.

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.

An overview of objects that are not decisively cognized within the context of conceptual and nonconceptual cognition.

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

An overview of the ways of knowing within the context and point of view of the different Indian Buddhist philosophical tenet systems.

The superficial and deepest truths of anything are those phenomena that the valid conceptual and non-conceptual cognitions, scrutinizing superficial truth on the one hand or deepest truth on the other, take as their involved objects and explicitly apprehend.

Subsequent cognition is an invalid awareness that apprehends what has already been apprehended.

We need a detailed map of all possible ways of knowing and states of mind so that we can always identify what is occurring on our mental continuum, so that we can guide ourselves toward any constructive goal.