of the distortion is in the situation, which I often have this experience. When I'm on a train, and the train across the track moves, and I think my train's moving. You know that one? Or somebody or a porter is moving, it moves a cart, and I think my train's moving. It's situational. And it's an error. My train moving is a non-existent train. So the way it appears to the sense perception and the way I'm engaged with the situation are both wrong. So those are the four types of mistaken sense perception. And I want to make this big step, but Ellen? Well, I was just curious. You gave those examples of the previous .

[01:03]

Yes. Is that kind of if, or are there more of those? You know, what's angry? Is that just an example, or is that sort of the whole deal? So the main ones are? It could be sleep or, I mean, is there a whole other room, or is it just, you know? Well, it's not so much sleep, but what do you call it, being drowsy. or being in a state of torpor, where you're actually still awake, but yeah, that would... Yeah. No, no. Well, those are the most... I mean, those are the... Greenhagen illusion are the basic unwholesome things. And unwholesome states of mind actually, we're saying here, they actually can distort your sensation process, which we don't usually think that. but they actually can disturb your sense perception, not to mention your conceptual cognition. There they really go to town.

[02:04]

OK, now the next thing I would like to introduce to you in the short time we have remaining is the first two categories. And I have a handout on this too, but I didn't want to hand it out before that deal with that piece of paper. But I have a brief introduction to the first two types of awareness, which are called valid perception and valid inference. And I'm using the word. I chose the word valid here. And there's a Sanskrit word. It's called pramana. Pramana. Pra means it can be etymologized in different ways by different people. One etymology is ideal. Another one is perfect.

[03:06]

Another one is best. Another one is valid. Another one is prime or printable. And mana. is mind. So I'm proposing just that my favorite of these translations would be valid mind or valid cognition. And valid cognition comes in two types. conceptual and direct perception. And the usual way this is taught is that a valid mind, a valid cognition, or a valid

[04:20]

perception or a valid conception depends on three characteristics. One is freshness or newness. That's one main characteristic. The next one is infallibility. And the last one is cognition. The last one is very simple. It just wants to make the point, or I want to make the point, that valid cognition actually is a cognition. It's not, for example, a sense organ, which some people propose. So really, the two main conditions to look at are freshness and infallibility. So a valid cognition, a valid perception is a fresh one. It's the never-before-experienced cognition, a new one not a successive one or a succeeding one. A fresh, unique experience, either conceptual or perceptual.

[05:32]

Second characteristic of infallibility means that we comprehend or we have a comprehensive engagement with the object. which means we clearly ascertain what it is, and we do so in such a way that we have no doubt as to what the object is. So in the handout that I gave you, I'm using the example of a rose. The example of a perception that comprehends its object would be a visual perception of a rose that creates a sufficient impression on the mind to be able to induce a correct conceptual ascertainment that the object seen was a rose.

[06:33]

Furthermore, since on the basis of this perception there is no possibility of misconception, of misconceiving the rose to be anything else than a rose, it is said to be capable of eliminating any doubt or misconception about the object. Another way to look at this is if you look Under, look at the first two lines now, perception. So you'll see perception, X under valid perception. So perception can be a valid perception. In other words, a sense perception or a mental perception, direct perception can be valid.

[07:34]

It can be fresh and infallible. And a perception can also be a subsequent cognition. You see? But the subsequent cognition is not a valid cognition because it's not fresh. So you can see a rose, and then you can see the rose again. But the second time you see the rose, it's not that valid cognition. perception of the row is. It's not, it's not, you could say it's non-valid. Not invalid, but non-valid. Non-valid. And where's my definition of valid? I looked up valid. Where are you? Valid means what? Yes. Another meaning of valid is that it's well-grounded.

[08:38]

And another meaning of valid is that it is an argument. A valid argument is one where the premises lead to a conclusion that cannot be denied without contradiction. Valid means an authoritative experience, one that has force and power. The original experience of the rose was authoritative. It had the power to convince. The subsequent ones, they're being convinced because of the previous one. The subsequent ones are just riding along on the power of the first one. The first one, and not just the first one, because not just the freshness of it, but the authoritativeness of it.

[09:52]

Yes. Yeah. And then if you look also on the On the perception line, one more over there, inattentive perception. So inattentive perception is a perception, but it's a separate category from the valid perception because inattentive perception doesn't clearly ascertain its object. It perceives it, but not in clearly ascertaining it. And so it really isn't authoritative. And when you have a flash of sensory perception that's inattentive, and somebody says, is that the same one? You might say yes, but you really wouldn't know. You'd just be guessing. There's two possibilities, yes or no. Yeah, I saw it. So the inattentive one is not. The inattentive one actually could be fresh.

[10:58]

Right? You could have a sensory perception, nice and fresh, see something you never saw before. OK, it's not a subsequent one. It's a new one, a new one, a new one, a new one. So it's got the fresh part. Mostly we're experiencing fresh sensory perceptions. But they're inattentive. So we don't ascertain them. And if somebody said that it was something other than what it was, we'd kind of go, mm. But the ideal perception, if somebody holds up a different rose, a different rose, it's not just you saw a rose. If they hold up a different rose, you would say it's not the same rose. But if I flash a rose up there real fast, and then say, is this the same rose? If you don't have that authentic, fresh, infallible,

[12:01]

Direct perception. In your heart, you would not know if that was the same rose or not. In your mind, you would not know. But when you do have a perception like that, and you have had perceptions like that, then you are sure. And the same with conceptions. They also can be fresh, and they also can ascertain their object infallibly. However, in order to do that, look again at the chart here now. Go across there. Cognitive conception can be a valid inference. In other words, conception can be fresh, first time, never had this conception before, and infallible, irrefutable. It's possible. Look at the next category, subsequent.

[13:03]

Once you have this, you can have subsequent cognitions, conceptual cognitions, but they won't be fresh anymore. However, you will still be convinced, but the subsequent cognitions, the subsequent conception would not have sufficient force to convince you. It's just that you continue to be convinced, but not by the new conception. The next one, correct belief. If you hear that things are impermanent, and you believe it, that is a correct conception. It's a true conception. However, it's not an ideal conception because your belief is not yet fresh and totally convinced. The only way you can totally convince your conception is by reasoning. in such a way that the conclusion of your reasoning leaves absolutely no doubt in your mind and cannot be denied without contradiction.

[14:12]

So the conceptual cognitions, in order for them to be ideal or are valid, it's the first time that you have a cognition about something which is totally irrefutable. The first time. Subsequent times are not that. So what we want to have is to focus on this chart. If you go over then down the conceptual line, you see that there is possible there wrong conception. And the last column, second one down, that could be circled in red. Some people say that that category of misconception is the root cause of suffering. Which four? Mistaken cognition, second from the top. So mistaken cognitions can be perceptions. And I told you about mistaken cognitions that are perceptions, right?

[15:14]

They're like things like thinking that the other, that your train is moving when is the other one moving? We need to, we need to clear this stuff up. And we do. We try to learn how to do that and not be confused about those things. But they do not cause the deep suffering of that misconceptions do, like, for example, the misconception that things are permanent, the misconception that things have self. These misconceptions, these wrong consciousnesses which are conceptual, that's the main problem on the chart. However, if you can develop ideal or valid inference, you can. correctly conceptually cognize for the first time that the misconception, which is a separate state of consciousness which you've experienced for an awful long time, you can have a new conceptual cognition to go with the old conceptual cognition.

[16:21]

But the new one is that you actually conceptually cognize that that is a false cognition. And it's irrefutable conceptual cognition. And the one that's really powerful is the first one, the first time you get that in an irrefutable way. Actually, the misconception can also be fresh. You could have, that's an old thing. We did that a long time ago. So the misconception is old. But the valid conception, which can overturn the misconceptions which are the source of our problem, it's the first time and the irrefutable one. The next ones, the succeeding ones, you can see on the chart that there are subsequent cognitions on the conceptual line, too.

[17:23]

In other words, subsequent to the ideal inference. They're true cognitions, but they don't have the power of the fresh, irrefutable one. They're no longer fresh, of course, because they're subsequent, but also they don't have the irrefutable power in themselves. They're just riding on the valid cognition that happened earlier. What do you mean by irrefutable? Like I said, like an example there for a rose, when you see a rose in this way, Set that you cannot, so you have no doubt that it's this rose. Anybody have experience like that? If you have a direct, if you have a hologram of a rose, can you see that in direct perception?

[18:27]

And if you see that in an irrefutable way, then if somebody shows you a different hologram, you say it's not the same one. What I just said, you clearly ascertain the hologram in such a way that if anybody showed you any misrepresentation of it or misconception about it or said anything about it, there would be no room for doubt. And if there's any room for doubt, you don't have this kind of cognition, perceptual or conceptual. And you would be able to notice if it was conceptual cognition that if anything went against it, you could see that there's a contradiction. So I just want to say briefly that I pass this out, this introduction to this to this new, the first two categories.

[19:34]

You can pick that up later. And I just wanted to get this out there during this class because we're going to pick it up more in the next one and go deeper into this. Yes? I have trouble with the freshness. Here's my hand. Yes. OK. There's something hanging from that. Where's my hand again? Is this fresh now? Can it be fresh again, or is there some sort of latency period by which something can be ascertained? Like you seem to say, subsequent cognition is not fresh. So I'm just wondering, it's hard for me to see how you could have a fresh ascertainment of things. I think that if you go to inattentive perception, I would say that the inattentive perceptions satisfy the fresh part of the valid perception.

[20:39]

In other words, you say, here's my hand, but actually the visual impression of your hand, each one of those is fresh and unique. Many of them. But to ascertain that one of those flashes of your hand, to ascertain that one in a way that was irrefutable, infallible, that would be a valid perception of your hand. And the first time you had that kind of perception of your hand would be a valid perception of your hand. The first time, the one that made you really sure was your hand, if that's an example. But you can have lots of other inattentive experiences. So in that example, just theoretically speaking, at three years old and all of a sudden, there's a hand there.

[21:45]

You're saying that could have been it? That could have been the fresh? original valid ascertainment of my hand? No, that would be the valid ascertainment. That could be the valid ascertainment for that three-year-old of their hand at that time. Okay. At that time. Okay. Okay. Because that's not the same hand as that 40-year-old. Right. But even the 40-year-old, given his hand, it's changing, but still, given his hand, you can have inattentive, direct perceptions of the hand which you would be having if it was flapping in front of your face. You have many inattentive ones. And each one will be fresh. So that part of it would be satisfying. But you wouldn't clearly ascertain any of them. And if you don't clearly ascertain them, you wouldn't be able to be absolutely, completely have no doubt about whether this was the same hand or a different hand. Okay, so are you talking about the infallibility component?

[22:52]

Yeah. I don't see how that carries through when your attention and your mind move on to other things and then you come back. Why there isn't a... Why you don't go through another fresh... ascertained and fallible cognition. You could. You could have another one for the hand you've got now. But this hand you've got now, if somebody took this away and gave you another one that wasn't it, you would have no doubt that it was not the same hand. You would know that it's not the same hand. Because everything's changing. It seems like there's a component of habit in there. But even though things are changing, if you have a momentary flash of direct perception of something that's fresh and infallible, then you can have subsequent perceptions of it, but they don't have that freshness anymore.

[24:06]

But they're still based on it. But they're still perceptions. But they're based on the previous one. So they're not fresh. And also they don't have the power to establish certainty in themselves. I can kind of see that. So the transformative power of the inattentive, of course, is very weak because you don't even ascertain. If you don't ascertain, you can't get to a state of no doubt. But again, the inattentive ones are fresh. The subsequent ones, you're convinced, but you don't have the freshness. Plus, because you don't have the freshness, the actual power of the thing is not there. So it's just not as powerful to transform your understanding of the physical world in this case. So with lots of questions, it makes sense. Yes? . I have a question that's been coming up in my mind .

[25:14]

And I was wondering how we can stillfully act in the face of the common people. And once we've actually got to the place where we are aware of all the from the state . How can we stillfully act in the face of the common people who have, who are still there in the state ? you know, of all perceptions. And then also in dealing with situations, at least one that came really close to me is my mother had borderline personality. And obviously those situations, like the person, is definitely something that in some ways can help. And so I'm wondering what is the skillful way to deal with those kinds of situations? I feel that question is out of scale for 9.16 PM. It's not, it's irrelevant, but I just, I can't, it's too big at this point in the evening. I'm sorry.

[26:16]

Well, the main place to start, which is not to try to get into this material, to put this material down and just remember that the person you're describing is an object of compassion. This person you're describing is should be dealt with with compassion. We should practice generosity with this person, we should practice precepts with this person, we should practice patience with this person, we should be diligent, and we should be tranquil with this person that you're describing who has misconceptions and also misperceptions. that they're suffering with. So that's the first way. Now then, after that, while you're doing that, you can start studying this material and we can discuss it. But the first aid is compassion towards such a person. And like I say, seventh column, second line, until we deal with that one,

[27:31]

those basic misconceptions, we ourselves are not fully able to be compassionate either. But when we meet people who are caught by false consciousnesses, they should be dealt with with compassion. And part of our compassion should be that we study the mind to be helpful to them more and more and understand that We're all working together here for this person to have this misconception. They didn't come up with this misconception all by themselves. Rather, we don't come up with the misconception that we come up with things by ourselves, all by ourselves. We think we come up with our own problems by ourselves, or other people do, but that's a misconception. We don't really come up with this stuff by ourselves. We're working together. But we do share, together, misconceptions that we do things by ourselves. That's the misconception that we have to get over. Until we do and until other people do, we and others are objects of compassion, always, no matter how bad we get.

[28:34]

We should be dealt with with compassion. So anyway, I appreciate you hanging in here in this class. I know it's been one of the hardest ones that I've ever could here at the Yoga Room. I've slept tight from the yoga classes. But I appreciate that you're still here and that I am too. So I'm daring to offer this class again. And I hope somebody shows up. And there's another handout here for you to take home with you, introducing the first two types. of awareness, the two types of valid cognition. Can you leave us with a little teaser for the next season? Do you have any sense of where this goes? I'd like to use this chart and meditate on this chart, and particularly I'd like to understand more, I'd like to really go into what valid

[29:44]

Cognition is because it's through a valid cognition that our mind is changed, that we actually, our mind changes from all the misconceptions we have to some new conceptions, which are not misconceptions, but that are . And again, if you look at the chart, there's misconceptions or wrong consciousnesses. But that's just the last column. The other ones are not wrong. We have other consciousnesses which are not wrong. However, the wrong ones keep happening until we get the first two types, which can transform the wrong kind. We have the first two types, which transform wrong consciousness. The middle ones don't have the power. The correctly assuming consciousness, the doubting consciousness, the subsequent consciousness, these consciousnesses don't have the power to transform the wrong consciousnesses. The first two do. So studying valid cognition is very important to understand how the mind can cure itself. through its actual normal processes, how that can happen.

[30:49]

So is that enough of a teaser? Not exactly, you know, the next season of Jesser Housewives. But it's similar to this other one you called, what's it called? Elected Development. What's that other one? Oh, Curb Your Enthusiasm. I wanted to let you know that I'm probably not going to be able to make it this week as far as the treehouse goes. Because I've got a lot of stuff happening. Plus, we're sitting Saturday. I appreciate you letting me know. Yeah. Next week, though. What do you mean by next week? What date are you talking about when you say next week?

[31:53]

Saturdays the 17th, Sundays the 18th, Mondays the 19th. So what do you mean by next week? You mean like Monday through Saturday? You might come then? Yeah, because I have to come under that roof, too. Yeah, well, that'll be fine.

[32:07]

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