Towards the end of our last meeting, we were talking about apperceptive cognition, which is a type of... what type of cognition is it a type of? Direct perception. Right. And somebody sent me an email which says, I was inspired by the class and my apperceptive cognition is hearing myself have a spontaneous thought... Now I don't know what this person meant, but strictly speaking, the apperceptive cognition

[01:08]

is, and then, hearing myself have a thought, if you hear yourself have a thought, or, yeah, maybe you shouldn't say hear yourself have a thought, maybe just say, my apperceptive cognition is about a spontaneous thought. So you wouldn't say the apperceptive cognition is hearing a thought, because hearing a thought wouldn't be an apperceptive cognition. But you could be aware of a thought, and the thought that she was talking about being aware of is this thought, quotes, this is why people think of themselves as I, because they have

[02:09]

a glimpse of apperceptive cognition and think that someone is thinking. That is a conceptual cognition. And being aware of that conceptual cognition would be an apperceptive cognition. And then you can look at that conceptual cognition, the conceptual cognition is, it's a conceptual cognition about apperceptive cognition. Did you get that? So she said, this is why people think of themselves as I. This being apperceptive cognition is part of the reason she thought, she had this thought that apperceptive cognition is the reason why people come up with the idea of I, think of themselves as I. Because we have a glimpse of apperceptive cognition and think someone, I, is thinking.

[03:17]

So if you could have an apperceptive cognition, could you have an apperceptive cognition of an apperceptive cognition? So there could be an apperceptive cognition that, you could sense an apperceptive cognition, in other words, you're thinking something and then you think, oh, I'm aware that I'm thinking something, I'm aware of this thought, and this awareness of this thought, you could think that would be the thinker of the thought. Like if you're thinking of the yoga room and you had an apperceptive cognition which was not the type of apperceptive cognition which is, what do you call it, inattentive or not ascertained, and not a subsequent one maybe either, actually it would be a subsequent

[04:26]

one I think, where you have a sense, you have an awareness that you're thinking something, like this is the yoga room. And that sense, that comprehension of an awareness of the thought, this is the yoga room, you could think that that consciousness was a self which is doing the thinking of the thought, this is the yoga room. However, that would actually be a type of ... but if you look at your chart, under apperceptive cognition, it doesn't have an X. Does everybody have a chart? This sense that there's a self, this sense that there's a self, that would not be an

[05:47]

apperceptive cognition. But based on having an ascertainable apperceptive cognition, you might give rise to a conception that this apperceptive cognition is actually a self, that there's a self in there. And that would be an example of a wrong, a wrong consciousness under the conceptual variety. And she was saying, I think, that this type of cognition, which accompanies all types of cognition, both conceptual and non-conceptual, so even in a situation where you're aware of a color, you could have an ascertainable apperceptive cognition.

[06:55]

Then based on that apperceptive cognition, you maybe could use that as a basis for coming up with the misconception that there was a self, and that the self was the apperceptive cognition. Now, is that what you were thinking? Is that what you were saying? What I said? When you said, um, about, and that's what I was thinking I was thinking about earlier. If you're thinking about something, that's a non-apperceptive cognition. Well, I don't know how to say it correctly, but what I did was, I went, oh, and then I thought the thought that I described, and so I wasn't, I was... Oh, for example, oh, that's not an apperceptive cognition. Oh is not an apperceptive cognition. Oh is about something. Right, then I'll say I had a sense of that. Could I say you had a sense of what?

[07:56]

I had a sense of the thought that I described, and I don't know if the thought was, um, I don't think the thought was the thought of having an apperceptive cognition gives people the belief that there is an I. I don't know if that's correct or not. I just was using it as an example. It could be a condition. It could be a condition. That thought could, that thought is about, that thought about that apperceptive cognition could be a condition for people coming up with a misconception of a self. It could be. But the thought, but the thought about apperceptive cognition being a condition for conjuring up a self that doesn't exist, that thought is a non-apperceptive cognition. That make sense? Yeah, but you said, um, hearing yourself have a thought is not apperceptive cognition. Yeah, hearing anything, the non-apperceptive cognitions are basically all cognitions except

[09:01]

apperceptive cognition or non-apperceptive cognitions. Those are thoughts about something, like those are hearing something. Okay? But if while you're thinking something, you would actually be aware of the thing you were thinking right while you were thinking, that would be the apperceptive cognition. Well, that's what I was trying to say. Yeah. So, the awareness of this, this, of, it's somewhat convoluted, but the awareness of any thought, the self-awareness of any thought, any thought knowing itself, is considered to be self-identical with that thought and yet a separate type of cognition. Like, hmm? It was like I was standing back having this thought. Yeah, except don't stand back too far because this, this, this cognition is identical and has the same conditions as what it's thinking about.

[10:02]

Not thinking about, but what it's actually perceiving. It's, there's a direct perception, the thought's having a direct perception of itself. And this particular thought was a conceptual cognition. Quotes, maybe the reason why people have a sense of self is because sometimes they have a sense of apperceptive cognition and then they think that that's the consciousness that's doing the thinking, that's like a self that's doing the thinking. That's a big, fancy conceptual cognition, which I think might be guessing at one of the conditions for coming up with the idea that there's a self, for example, in conceptual cognition, in apperceptive cognition. Not that there's, the imagination was not that there was a self in this conceptual cognition about how apperceptive cognition is a basis for coming up with this misconception of a

[11:07]

self, but just simply that the sense of knowing yourself, the sense of a cognition of itself, of an awareness of itself, that that could be a condition for the imagination of the self. Makes sense in a way. That self-knowing could be a condition for the imagination of something that's not there. There is self-knowing, but there's not a self that does the self-knowing, and there's not a self that does the non-apperceptive knowing either. But an awareness of apperceptive cognition, or even thinking about apperceptive cognition, not an apperceptive cognition, but just thinking about the teaching of what apperceptive cognition is, could also be a condition to reinforce the sense of a self in consciousness. We could spend more time on apperceptive cognition, and maybe someday we will, if you want to.

[12:21]

Yes? I think that last time, or this time both, when you were talking about these, you were talking about apperceptive and non-apperceptive. I understand it differently from the question, because you keep talking about apperceptive when you're talking about a sense of knowing yourself, but I would think that is non-apperceptive from the chart. If you look at non-apperceptive on the chart, do you have the chart there? You see that it applies to all the seven categories there? Yes. So that means non-apperceptive cognitions can be conceptions. No, that's what I see, but you keep saying apperceptive. Yes, apperceptive is above the non-apperceptive. And if you look there, you see the apperceptive cognitions only has three X's. Not with ideas. Pardon? Not with concepts. Apperceptive cognition is not conceptual.

[13:22]

However, it knows all conceptual cognitions. So... It itself is direct perception. That's why it's listed under the three types of direct perception. Can you explain the difference? Because I don't really understand the difference between apperceptive and non-apperceptive, and why... I just don't get it. Basically, all types of cognition are non-apperceptive. Basically. Knowing a color, directly, either as a direct, valid perception of a color, or as a subsequent perception of a color, or as an inattentive, which is most of what we do, all the inattentive perceptions of colors, all the inattentive, direct sense perceptions we're having all day long. Okay? Okay. Hmm? Now I'm sort of seeing it. I'm sort of getting it.

[14:25]

Okay. And apperceptive could be either of those three types. But those three types could apply. You could have direct perception of a conceptual cognition. So you could be thinking about, this is the yoga room, blah, blah. And simultaneously with that, there could be a direct perception of those three types. It could be either of those three types about this conceptual cognition. Now you could also be seeing a color, and while you're seeing the color in direct perception of the three types, you could have... of one of the three types, you could have one of the three types of apperceptive cognition about the awareness of that color. So for example, you could have an inattentive awareness of a color, and then you could have an apperceptive cognition of that, that you would know, there would be a knowing of an inattentive. But knowing of an inattentive would be pretty inattentive. What does apperception mean? What does that mean?

[15:26]

Well, it's... One way to translate this term is self-knowing cognition, or self-knowing perception. And for all cognitions, both perceptual and conceptual, they're all accompanied by a self-knowing cognition, which is a direct perception. So self-knowing is one translation. But other translations from the... I'm choosing an English word, right? One English word... An English word, apperception, instead of self-knowing. Okay? So, in philosophy, Leibniz says that a mental act in which the mind becomes aware or has knowledge of itself as it perceives, but I would say, in addition, as it perceives or conceives. That's Leibniz's definition, which I think applies.

[16:30]

And it's in philosophy, by the way. This is a philosophical definition. So apper... And that reminds me of some overarching statement I want to make about what we've been doing so far. But also, there is... Oh, let's sit down here. So... And that's in Leibniz. And in Kant, it's a consciousness of oneself as a changing phenomena with a variable content, called also empirical apperception. A third... A second meaning is consciousness of the personality, identity or identity of oneself, irrespective of the changing representations as a necessity... as a necessary prerequisite for any experience. So that's what...

[17:32]

And in psychology, it's a process of understanding as of a new precept, in terms of one's previous experience. Now, that psychological definition of apperception doesn't apply here. The philosophical one does. The philosophical ones do. Okay, so... This type of direct perception, which can be any of the three types of direct perception, is present with every direct perception and every conceptual cognition. Yes? I guess I get confused when I see this chart because, in a way, I think you've been saying that all cognitions have this apperceptive quality. They all know themselves. And yet... Isn't that true? Yes. But the chart doesn't sort of show us that. You should have a veil over this chart.

[18:34]

Well... Cognitions are... Let's see, how could you show that on the chart? It's hard to show it on a chart. So, again, you just said it. All cognitions are accompanied by or have the characteristic... All cognitions have the characteristic that they are accompanied by self-knowing. So, everything on this chart is covered by an apperception. Right? Yes. And this chart just tells you that apperceptive cognition is not all the different types of cognition. But it is actually a type of cognition. It's a direct perception. So it belongs on the chart because it belongs under direct perception. But it covers all non-apperceptive as well as all... No, no, no. It covers all non-apperceptive.

[19:36]

Yes. Not as well as in something else. It doesn't... It doesn't... There's not... It's not... We're not saying that there's an apperceptive cognition of apperceptive cognition. We don't want to say that. That would be... That's one of the dangers of that and criticisms of it is infinite regress. Infinite regress. Infinite regress that you'd have apperceptive cognition of apperceptive cognition of app... But no, you don't. An apperceptive cognition of apperceptive cognition would be identical to the first apperceptive cognition. It wouldn't... There would be no additional... Because the first apperceptive cognition is the same being as the non-apperceptive cognition, which is about. So you just have all different types of cognition which are non-apperceptive except there's one type of cognition in addition to all the non-apperceptive which is self-identical with all... It's not in addition.

[20:37]

All the types of cognition are non-apperceptive and they all have this quality of being apperceptive also. Or experiencing themselves. Of experiencing themselves, right. But the way of experiencing themselves is not... But there's not all the ways of cognition... That the way of experiencing the cognition does not comprise all the different ways of experiencing things. So you can't self-experience yourself conceptually. That wouldn't be an apperceptive cognition. Yes. What you were explaining about what... Yeah. Exactly. The way of knowing yourself is direct. There's no conceptual mediation. So last week you gave a homework assignment to... You were asking us to try to notice

[21:39]

our apperceptive cognition. Yeah. And it's possible to do so if you see on the chart. It's possible to note. It's possible to have an ascertainment of a conceptual cognition and Lynn thought she did. And it's also possible to according to this, you are having these apperceptive cognitions every moment of the day. Every moment of the day there's an apperceptive cognition with everything that happens. But mostly they will be inattentive. But I was suggesting to you that particularly since most of your direct perceptions are inattentive or un-ascertainable or I should say un-ascertained they could be attainable but you can't in normal life you do not ascertain your direct sense experience which you're having gazillions of direct sense experiences you know every minute.

[22:40]

But they're not ascertained. However, every one of those also has a self-knowing. So those will be hard to find be hard to find the self-knowing of a state that you can't that you're not aware of. So I suggested to you and Lynn's example is an example of that that when you have conceptual cognitions those are more ascertainable. You almost never miss a conceptual cognition. That's what your life is mostly made out of in your conscious life. You're actually most of your conscious life is so those would be the ones I thought you could have a better chance to have some self-awareness of your conceptual cognitions. And that's the example she came up with where she had a sense of this ironically I don't know if ironically but this and the conceptual cognition she chose was a conceptual cognition about aperceptive cognition. But right now you're having conceptual cognitions

[23:45]

which you probably can ascertain and then can you see can you find a sense of that direct perception of your a self-knowing of your conceptual cognitions and I think you have a chance to do that better chance than direct perceptions except for the first two categories of direct perception those you could have as good a chance of sensing aperceptive cognition as you can with conceptual cognitions because those are as clear and as strong as conceptual cognition. They're the same level of certainty that they're happening. Yeah. It seems to me that we're talking about aperceptive cognition that is the same as mindfulness that direct awareness of No. Not the same as mindfulness. Mindfulness is

[24:46]

a mental factor. Now we haven't got to that yet but I think maybe we will. Okay. Now this is part of what I was going to mention to you in a minute. Mindfulness is a mental factor. Mindfulness is not a cognition. It's not Mindfulness is a mental factor and it's also a cognition but mindfulness accompanies these cognitions that we're talking about here. So you have the main or the primary cognition which includes many mental factors and one of them could be mindfulness. But mindfulness by itself is never a cognition. You know, by itself. It arises with a cognition of something. So for example you could be have the direct perception of blue and you could have mindfulness accompanying that direct perception of blue but you couldn't just have

[25:47]

mindfulness of blue. No, but the same way that you have an aperceptive cognition about your seeing blue. Yeah, so that's a good example. So you have you have direct cognition of blue okay you have aperceptive cognition of the direct cognition of blue and you can have mindfulness of the blue too. But the mindfulness is not the is not the aperceptive cognition and it's not the awareness of the blue. It's mindfulness in association with the awareness of blue. So it is a cognition but it's a conceptual cognition too. Mindfulness is a conceptual cognition. Instructions for mindfulness are instructions to a conceptual cognition. That's why mindfulness that's why you can do it. If mindfulness was in direct perception

[26:47]

you would have a hard time getting started unless you already were a very advanced yogi. But people who don't who cannot identify direct perceptions can practice the conceptual cognition of mindfulness towards direct cognitions of, for example, body sensations. So you can practice mindfulness of body which is a mental which is a conceptual mental factor applied to the actual cognition of, for example, bodily information. So that's a good example. So what I wanted to say is as a kind of overarching statement Is this class called The Nature of Mind 2 or something like that? Okay. So I I just wanted to tell you that I didn't tell you this before but so far this class has been approaching

[27:48]

the study and understanding and transformation of mind through an epistemological template. We've been mostly talking about ways of knowing varieties the varieties of ways of knowing. Correct ways incorrect ways and so on. You know valid ways invalid ways conceptual ways perceptual ways that's what we've been talking about. And yeah, so yeah, so we've been talking about concerns with sources of knowledge and the sources of knowledge are conceptions and perceptions. That's our source. And that's epistemological. But there's another way of doing which I think we can maybe do before the class is over which is a more psychological template about the mind. So you can look at the mind epistemologically or philosophically

[28:50]

and you can look at the mind conceptually I mean, excuse me you can look at the mind conceptually epistemologically in terms of looking at the mind in terms of how does it know? What are the ways it knows? What are the sources of its knowledge? The other way of looking at it is in terms of basically these mental states which accompany the knowing and these mental states like emotions and feelings and so on these mental states that accompany the knowing they form patterns which are called thinking. So the psychological template on mind has more to do with mind in terms of how it's thinking. And thinking is the basic definition of karma.

[29:51]

So the psychological template looks at the mental factors that accompany the basic cognition. And the basic cognition which is never without these mental factors and the mental factors are never without the basic cognition but the mental factors create a texture or a landscape in the consciousness which is the pattern which we call action or karma. The psychological perspective looks at those looks at action and its consequence. Looks at thinking which is named for the pattern of all the different mental factors in a given moment of consciousness and the action. So that's the psychological point of view of looking at the mind. So again now we're looking at the different types of knowledge and different types of awareness which give rise to those knowledges and which are those knowledges and later

[30:55]

we'll start looking at the mental factors and how they work together to create thinking and our thinking creates karma. And the Buddhist path equally involves both these ways because on the one side the transformation of mind the transformation of mind from one type of knowledge to another type of knowledge and in particular the transformation of mind from the invalid forms of knowing to the valid forms of knowing or the ideal forms of knowing the transformation over to the first two columns that is an epistemological shift a shifting from invalid

[31:55]

to valid invalid means not necessarily wrong but not valid not perfect not complete the shift from the type of cognition which we normally are involved in to this special kind of cognition called valid cognition which is fresh infallible and cognition that shift is an epistemological shift over on the psychological side the shift from wholesome to unwholesome or skillful to unskillful or unskillful to skillful that shift is a shift in karma is a shift in these mental factors and you can't have the shift from the valid cognition to the shift from the invalid cognition I shouldn't say invalid I should say non-valid the shift

[32:56]

from non-valid cognition to valid cognition can't happen unless you've made a shift from skillful unskillful to skillful on the psychological side so you have to look at the psychological side so you understand how to move from unskillful to skillful and when you make that move and see how the mind works when it's skillful and how it moves when it's unskillful and how you can move from unskillful to skillful and then stay there then from that position you can apply the epistemology and attain the valid state of consciousness and only with the valid state of consciousness can you actually uproot the mental tendencies which give rise to unwholesome states yeah so excuse me so these two sides work together you need the wholesome to get the valid and you need the valid to uproot the source of all unwholesome states

[33:56]

yes are we talking about like a tranquility practice or or we're not no uh tranquility i mean like the dichotomy you're setting up does it have anything to i mean i i just thinking i'm thinking it's so clear sometimes we talk about the like a calming practice versus a wisdom practice and kind of using both of and i'm just wondering if this has any relation are these just different these these psychological versus the philosophical approach okay does one relate more to like a tranquility practice what i just said was um about over on the psychological side by studying these mental factors that accompany these these

[34:57]

cognitions we we become more skillful with mental factors becoming more skillful with working with mental factors part of that is to develop tranquility is to develop concentration with concentration we will be able to realize the the epistemological possibility of a valid cognition so in some sense over in the psychological side you would have you would be developing concentration on that side because that's a that's a very whole concentration and what makes possible concentration is a wholesome state is a skillful state a tranquil state is a skillful state so that tranquil state would set up the possibility of making a shift from non-valid to valid shifting from non-valid to valid is not so much a concentration event but

[35:57]

you could be you could have a a valid state of cognition okay and that valid state of cognition then would be coupled with the concentration so that would be an example of direct yogic concentration direct yogic perception would be developing on the psychological side the concentration and then joining that with the teaching in such a way as to give rise to a direct perception a direct valid perception of the teaching so in a way that the working with skillfulness and in particular skillfulness of of tranquility would go more on the psychological side but then it would be but then it would be joined to the epistemological side because only when you develop skillful states can you realize this epistemological shift and then when you make the epistemological shift it feeds back in to to more and more deeply

[36:58]

the more the most deep tendencies which are undermining which are supporting the possibility of of any further unwholesomeness are removed by the valid perception of the nature of things in a state which has been developed through yoga of concentration where there is union of tranquility and insight okay so now there is just one more big topic under direct perception and I'll just say the name of it ready get set direct yogic perception or yogic direct perception which we were just talking about we have a direct perception okay and

[38:04]

we talked about this before like direct yogic perception it's dominant factor or at least let me say the dominant factor the dominant condition for the five sense perceptions is what what that's right the organ so the dominant condition for direct perception of a color huh pardon would be the eye right that would be the dominant condition but the dominant condition for direct yogic perception is a is a state of concentration it's organ in a sense it doesn't operate with the sense organ it's organ

[39:05]

is a state of concentration where in tranquility and insight have been united so it's a state of direct perception arising and it's organ is this samadhi is this concentration state where where insight and concentration are united and it can look at anything it can look at a color it can look at a can hear it can look at a sound it can look at it can perceive a color it can perceive a sound it can perceive a mental state anything but it doesn't use a sense organ to do it it uses a state of concentration so it's dominant condition will be a state of concentration it's immediate antecedent condition will be a state of consciousness before it and it's object condition

[40:06]

will will be like the object condition of a sense consciousness or the object condition of direct mental perception so direct mental perception can know colors and sounds and it can also know mental states it can also know states of consciousness so it's it's really different it's really really different and I think maybe just that's enough unless you have some questions because it's it's a huge topic and I think come back to it later if we have time but you kind of get the picture what amazing state of consciousness that would be it's a state of

[41:07]

consciousness it's a type of cognition it's a direct perception just like direct perception of colors it's just that it's dominant condition is a concentration rather than in the case of sense consciousness it's an organ it's a sense organ and it's in the case of mind consciousness the dominant condition is what? the previous consciousness huh? the previous consciousness so for for a for a direct mind for a for a direct perception direct mental perception the dominant condition is a previous moment of consciousness and of course antecedent condition is the same in this case I would say that the immediate antecedent condition I don't think I would say that that was I just said it was that was the immediate yeah it would be the previous state of consciousness but it's

[42:08]

dominant condition which also could be a similar state of consciousness it's dominant condition is a samadhi now the previous state of consciousness could also have been a state of consciousness which had a dominant condition which was also a samadhi but it seems to me that you it couldn't always have a previous immediately antecedent condition of being another state of consciousness that had as its dominant condition a samadhi otherwise you would never be able to get into the samadhi unless you had been in a samadhi before that make sense? I can imagine that you didn't get that so some of you didn't and don't want to say or did everybody get it by chance? Mariam did you get it? wow

[43:09]

did everybody get it? I barely got it myself but I was talking so one of the advantages of listening so I think that there could be a there could be a first moment when when the insight and tranquility unite into this concentration and then that and but also every time this happens does not mean that there will be right away after that that there will be it does not mean that there will be followed immediately from that a state of direct perception of this type there could be a union of these two without it being a direct perception I think

[44:13]

but let's go on shall we? to what's next conception we just dealt with the main types of direct perception and oh actually there's there's we we did it but not but from the point but not in terms of the three vertical columns we didn't do it that way to do it that way we're going to come back through again so what I'm going to do now is move to conception and then after finishing conception I'm going to come back and then look at the conception and perception from the point of view of these valid perception and valid valid inference which is a valid type of conception

[45:13]

so so I said there's four types of perception but that those four types of perception can be divided into again three types again so there's there's four four basic types and there's three of each of those four I believe that make sense so is that twelve types so there's four types but really there's but also there's twelve types so anybody anybody want to say what the twelve types are Michael want to say what the twelve types of direct perception are no what if you do that then we're multiplying then there'll be

[46:14]

there'll be five times the first type so there's four basic types I would say and then each of those four types can be multiplied by three but the first type and the first type is five types and the second type is two types so there's five types of direct sense perception there's two types of direct mental perception there's one type of aperceptive cognition and there's one type of direct yotic concentration what right so there would be ideal direct sense perception subsequent direct sense perception and inattentive direct sense perception and inattentive or unassertained direct sense perception is the ocean of experience that's most of what's going on and we want to

[47:16]

move from this inattentive eventually over to attentive of the ideal variety and then there will be subsequent ones too so then there would be same for for mental cognitions there would be there's two types of those which are those which arise from sense perception and those that arise from meditation remember that do you know how they arise from sense perception remember how that works anyway there's two types the ones that arise from direct sense perception and the ones that arise from meditation those two types and those two types can be of three types same ideal or valid subsequent and inattentive unassertained and the same with the same with perceptive cognition

[48:18]

there can be a valid a valid in other words where you actually know that you're having it and that was the basis of people telling us about this is that some people like irrefutably had this thing they're saying for the first time and this was like a discovery a yogic discovery okay and that can be that can be of three types and how about direct yogic could that be of three types? I would say I'm just going to say to you that huh? what? direct yogic could not be inattentive direct yogic you know it doesn't that's what Asim sorry what's your name again? Sharif Sharif thought that too that would be something that I will research whether anybody has has ascertained that you couldn't have

[49:19]

an unascertained direct yogic state because it doesn't make sense like that so that maybe you can have that huh? I can see that that you know that you have a problem with that too so I'll if I vow to research this it's an ocean out there okay alright so now ready to move on to conceptual cognition okay so this is the stuff that this is the type of cognition by which we mostly consciously respond to objects in our life

[50:19]

it's it's it's not the way we actually become aware of the objects we become aware of them through direct perception but it's the way we respond to them as I mentioned before perceptual cognitions are receptive and unreflective conceptual cognitions are responsive and reflective so mostly what we're doing is we're responding to information that's coming to us through our direct sense perceptions that's most of what we're doing we're responding and reflecting we're responding and conceptualizing about information that's coming to us through direct perception which is not reflected on and it's coming to us through these different types of direct perceptions some direct perceptions we know

[51:22]

but even the ones we know we still can be responsive to and reflective on some which we don't know but even the ones we don't know when they accumulate sufficiently they're followed by a direct mental perception and then we can conceive about them and the conceptual process means we start responding to the information and reflecting on it we have a constant tendency to think about or interpret the sense perceptions that constitute or are the ground for our moment by moment experience it is through conceptual cognitions that we as humans have constructed systems and non-systems of philosophy psychology physics chemistry and so on in an attempt to understand and explain our world to ourselves it is conceptual cognition

[52:25]

of a fallacious kind that is the key condition for all mentally disturbing thoughts and emotions that in turn mentally disturbing thoughts and emotions those are the mental factors that accompany the cognition so you got this you got this conceptual cognition a fallacious mistaken kind of conceptual cognition and it gets accompanied by mental factors of a certain type that lead to karma which creates samsara false totally mistaken okay so again perception has three conditions object condition dominant condition and immediate antecedent

[53:26]

but in in mental perception in conceptual cognition there are just two well it's really just two yeah in conceptual cognition there are just two in mental cognition there are three but two are the same right mental direct perception I said mental cognition that's wrong mental cognition can be mental direct perception it can be and it can be mental conceptual cognition mental direct perception has three conditions object immediate antecedent and dominant has three but two of the three are the same okay the two that the two that are the same are what

[54:29]

no that's that's wrong dominant antecedent are the same because the dominant condition is the antecedent condition for direct perception the antecedent condition is a previous state of consciousness but the dominant condition is a sense organ for mind consciousness the antecedent condition is previous sense consciousness but the organ in this case is a previous sense consciousness it's not a sense organ so for mind direct perception of the mental type you have three but two are the same For direct perception, direct yogic perception, you have three, but the dominant condition is a strange one, which we just mentioned. It's a samadhi, the organ is a samadhi, but it has an object condition and it has an antecedent condition, okay? It doesn't mention in the books, it doesn't mention what the three conditions for apperceptive

[55:41]

cognition are, it doesn't mention it. The reason being? What? What? They're the same as the consciousness that's self-knowing itself, it's the same. So if there's apperceptive cognition of a direct sense perception, we'll have the same three conditions as the direct sense perception. Apperceptive cognition of a mental cognition will have the three same conditions as mental cognition, and apperceptive cognition of direct yogic awareness ... because you want to remember when you have those yogic awarenesses, right? Our perceptive cognition of that will have the same conditions as the direct yogic awareness. Now we come to conceptual cognition. It just has two conditions. What are the two? Huh? No. It has a characteristic because conceptual cognitions also are accompanied by self-knowledge.

[56:48]

In other words, conceptual cognitions are accompanied by direct perception. Cool. It all has got direct perception. Even in conceptual cognition you have direct perception according to this epistemological report. As a condition for me to have a conceptual cognition I need some sort of perception, right? For a concept to arise I need a perception, right? For concepts to arise you need a perception. So what is the perception that you need? What condition would that be? Huh? Yeah. The antecedent condition. So a conceptual cognition will have immediate antecedent condition which will be a perception. It also could be a conceptual cognition, but it needs an antecedent condition, in other words a previous state of consciousness. A perception at some point has to be behind the train or ahead of the train.

[57:48]

Okay? What else does it need? One more condition. What's it going to be? There's not too many choices. An object. An object. Well, there's not many choices and you got the wrong one. What's the other choice? Minority. Dominant. Dominant. It needs a dominant. And what would a dominant be? Minority. Yeah. It would be the mind organ. Hm? Now the mind organ for a mental perception. Excuse me, you're right. It won't be the mind organ. Sorry. What? Immediate. Precedent. No, you already got that. The immediate preceding consciousness is the mind organ. But what's the mind organ here when there's no object?

[58:51]

Well, it's like a predisposition towards images. That's what it is. The dominant condition is predispositions towards images. The dominant condition of a conceptual cognition is its own predispositions. Its own image bank. Its own ability to imagine is a dominant condition. So, the conceptual cognition is not primarily dependent on an object condition, but only upon the just-to-see state of concognition. Mm-hm. Sorry.

[60:05]

Yeah, I thought you said an object condition. Hm? I keep thinking it has an object condition. It doesn't really have an object condition. So, what's the faculty? It's the same as for mental cognition. So, it's the same as for mental direct perception. Except mental direct perception has an object condition, too. But conceptual cognition doesn't really have an object condition. It just has the immediate antecedent condition, which serves both the function of immediate antecedent condition and dominant condition. It doesn't really pay much attention to the object anymore. The object is a condition for it, but it's not really a condition, because it doesn't really look at it.

[61:06]

It just looks at its own images by which it's going to apprehend the object. So, really, it just has two. The object is so weak. Mm-hm. So, conception, unlike perception, does not apprehend the object through the force of the object appearing to it. Perception apprehends the object through the force of the object. The dominant condition is the ability to be sensitive to the object, but the object has force. But conception apprehends the object primarily due to the force of subjective predispositions. That's why the object condition gets really weak. There is an object which is being supplied by the sense perception,

[62:12]

but really it's through the predispositions that it will grasp the object. So, here's an example. Visual data, like a color. You have visual data, eye organ, and the just-to-see consciousness are the conditions that produce visual consciousness of color, the eye consciousness. But the conception, or the reflection, quotes, this is a color, is an intentional reflection on the object already presented to the mind by the visual sense perception. The visual sense perception sees the blue with no reflection. That makes possible now a conception of this. So, the dominant condition is the previous state of consciousness,

[63:20]

the sense consciousness. The previous state of sense consciousness is the antecedent condition. And now the force of what will appear will be a subjective predisposition to a certain image. So, the conception is actually... Okay, so this type of cognition, all the different types of conceptual cognition will be of this general type. There's more narrow types, but this is a general type. It'll apply to all of them. So, the conception is formulated within the inner stream of thought that constantly accompanies the sense perception.

[64:22]

So, you have the sense perception, and there's a stream of thought that accompanies the sense perception, and the conception occurs in the stream of thought that accompanies the sense perception. So, you have sense perception going on, direct sense perception going on, of five times three varieties. Five times three. Pardon? A lie is the subjective predispositions. We're not going to be talking about a lie here, but that's what a lie is talking about, is the storehouse of subjective predispositions. Isn't that connected with the stream of thought? Yeah, right. So, you could say that a lie is this stream of thought that's going along with the sense perceptions. The sense perceptions, we're getting into a lie which not everybody knows about, so I should stop, sorry. But that's pretty much right,

[65:26]

without getting into a lie. So, again, conception is, in a sense, looking at this direct sensory cognition. And this direct sensory cognition is the dominant condition and the immediate condition. So, the direct sense perception has object, sense organ, and immediate and exceeding conditions. This one has dominant and immediate, and the dominant and immediate is the sense consciousness. So, conceptual cognition is looking at a sense cognition. However, when it looks at the sense cognition,

[66:27]

it has, you know, it's got the sense cognition of the object there, and then it's got its subjectively imputed images, which are the media by which the object is perceived. The conception apprehends this sense consciousness, and these two get mixed. So, it looks like the object that's being supplied by the sense consciousness is actually the image which has been subjectively, through subjective predispositions, superimposed as a way of grasping clearly the often or usually inattentive sense perception. And they get mixed together, which produces a mixed-up cognition. And even in the case where the conception is working

[67:30]

on a sense perception, a valid sense perception, or a direct sense perception, it still gets mixed up by mixing up its image by which it's apprehending it with the object itself. So, all conceptual cognitions are mixed up, are mistaken with regard to how the object appears to them. Even though when they say, this is blue, and they're right, it is blue, or even when they say, this is Maryland, and they're right, this is Maryland, they mix up the image of Maryland with Maryland, and they can't separate them. But they really think this image is that person. But in this case, that would not be a wrong cognition, a wrong conceptual cognition. It would be, in a sense, it would be a, which type would you say that would be looking at Maryland

[68:33]

and thinking, this is Maryland. Where would you put that in the chart? It's conception, right? Which one would it be? Subsequent? Subsequent? No? Correct belief. It would be correct belief. Pardon? Would it be also mistaken? No, it wouldn't be mistaken. So that last column on mistaken cognition, I'm sorry about the words, but the last, but in the chart, in the discussion on the back of the chart, I think if you read that, this may make it clear. Mistaken, deceived is another way to put it. But anyway, all conceptual cognitions are mistaken or mixed up

[69:35]

about the way the object appears to them. But they're not all mistaken about the object they're engaged with. So like again, using Maryland, I'm not wrong about that I'm engaged with this object, but I am mistaken about the way it appears because it appears that the image of her is her. That's mixed up. But when I say that's Maryland, although I'm mixed up about the image by which I was able to say that as being her, I'm actually right about the object I'm engaged with. But if I would say, looking at Maryland, I would say that's Fred, there is no Fred over there. So then that would be wrong consciousness. So conceptual cognition is wrong. Where it says mistaken cognition in the last column,

[70:40]

that is when conceptual cognition is wrong on both counts. But also it's when perceptual cognition is wrong on both counts. But when conceptual cognition is wrong on one count, it's always wrong on the other count. But conceptual cognition, even when it correctly ascertains something, like this is Lydia, that's correct, but I mix up my image of Lydia with Lydia in a way that I can't disentangle because it's conceptual. In conceptual cognition you cannot disentangle the image by which, the medium by which you ascertain the object from the object. However, you can accurately ascertain the object. But in sense perception,

[71:43]

if one's wrong, the other one's wrong because the object of appearance and the object of engagement are the same. So if I saw a polar bear sitting there, now, if I saw that, the object of appearance would be not there and the object of engagement would not be there. Or rather, the object of appearance would be wrong and the object that I think this appearance stands for wouldn't be there. So basically what's wrong for both, the fundamental mistake of both types of wrong perception is that you're actually cognizing something that's not there. And for direct perception, if something appears, something appears which is not there, then of course it also won't be there. But if in perception something could appear that's not there, but the object actually could be there.

[72:47]

I mean, the image isn't there, the appearance isn't really there, is mistaken. It's not really that the appearance is not there, it's a confused appearance, it's a mistaken appearance about something that actually is there. So that's not a wrong cognition. That could be a correct belief or it could be a doubting consciousness. In the case of me saying that that's Marilyn, that's a correct belief, not a doubting consciousness. So I think next week a little bit more on conception, and then we'll move to try to look at what valid or ideal perception is

[73:47]

and what valid, ideal, or rather, valid inference are. And then, with the rest of the time, I'd like to shift to the psychological model and look at the mental factors that accompany these cognitions. So maybe we can finish conception next week and move on to what the valid cognitions are. And if you want to read ahead on the valid cognitions, I have a handout here on them. And if anybody needs a chart, I have some extra charts. With, again, read the backside of the charts about this discriminating between, basically, perceptions are either true or false. Conceptions can be half true and half false or completely false,

[74:51]

but they're never completely true. And then, the other thing is that even true perceptions are not the same as valid perceptions. Got that? Some true perceptions are also valid perceptions, but not all true perceptions are valid perceptions. Valid perceptions are a, what do you call it, the creme de la creme of the true perceptions. And, of course, we never really say that conceptions are never really true. They're always a little bit mistaken. But even a conception that's only half mistaken, some of those are still valid cognitions, valid conceptions, and can be the basis for enlightenment,

[75:53]

even though they're still confused. But they're the step just before you switch to valid perception, where there's no mistaking or confusing, for example, emptiness with the image of emptiness. Okay? Thank you very much.

[76:18]

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