167: Retreat Dhamma Talk 62: Three Kinds of Knowing

YouTube video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA9lVnG8Oo8&list=PLYiWmziXO9HCybav1DSf9fRQu421XNHCd&index=62

YouTube Channel Link

Website:
www.satipatthana.ca

Donations and Memberships

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

We think discussing mainly based on Satipathana Phipasana meditation mindfulness insight meditation and all these thoughts you will hear a few words quite often sometimes aware or awareness or understanding or insight wisdom. Such kind of words you hear quite often. But all these words indicate one thing. That one thing is know something. Knows something. Whatever the word is, whatever words it presents, it indicates the meaning of knows or known something. So of course there are a lot of differences based on the context, each word might vary, but everything is about knowing in one way or one form or the other. So let's try to precisely know what knowing is and what kinds of knowing it is and what kind of words will fall under what type of knowing. So first of all, we can put it under three kinds of knowing. It is not when I say we, not me. It is the Buddhas based on the scriptures and all that the elder has make it very easy for us to know. The first type of knowing is knowing through sense perception. Knowing through sense perception. The Pali word is called Senya. In English they translate it as perception. But it would be more complete if we understand as tense perception, we perceived through our senses. So that it can start differentiating from the dictionary word, dictionary meaning of the English word perception, knowing through sense perception, senya, S-A-N-N-E. So this is like in brief a child, maybe two years old, three years old, the way a child knows a coine, a loony, or a silver dollar. That kind of a child's knowing a coine or a dollar coine is called sense perception, sanya. And another kind of knowing is knowing through vainana, throwing through the consciousness. That's another type, second type. And in here, the way it knows is to understand it is how a man, an adult, knows that same quine, that same loony or tuni. What is the emphasis on what is this knowing? His knowing is based on his usage or utilities, how can it be useful? And what the value is. That is how adults know a coin. What is this useful? How can we use it, and what the value of it is. And the third type of knowing is knowing through wisdom, binya. The third kind of knowing is knowing through wisdom. Pali word is biny. And in here that is given as an example or the same thing. How a chemist would know the nature of the quine in terms of the purity and comes of its chemical compensation. That's the third kind of knowing. So all these different words that indicates insight, wisdom, awareness, attention, and so on, understanding, they fall under three kinds of knowing. Knowing through sense perception, knowing through consciousness, and knowing through wisdom. So in here we'll start with sunnya, knowing through sense perception. So what is it really means, sunnya, knowing through sense. So don't go and take the dictionary meaning of the word perception. Okay, now when you hear the word under the British verb, under the Buddhist contest, this is the way one should understand. It is a cognition of an object, whatever object it is, whether physical object or mental object, cognition of an object by its marks. By its marks. And these are the marks that they put. Simply just a coin. A coin is we use the word. The child doesn't even know as a coin. Oh, beautiful little thing, color, side shape, color, patterns, flowers, little birds on it, and so on. He just happy, he likes it. Take the coins to the mother and go, Mom, Mom, I found something here. And the mother taught the child. This is called a loony coin. A loony coin. So the child now knows this is called a loony and how it looks and what shapes are. And I'll put it in the little bowl that we have. So the child, whenever he sees this, the child just knows, recognize or cognize that thing. Oh, there's a loony. In what way? By its size, shape, form, color. That is how a child knows, and that way of knowing is called sanya. Nothing other than that. Maybe she knows a little more, he knows a little more, and I find that I have to put it in that bone because mom told me that's about it. But how can our child recognize that coin through its marks, size, shape, color, and form? So cognition through marks onto an object, of an object is called senya. Of course, the child will recognize or someone will recognize an object. To recognize this, one has to have the first exposure, first experience. On the first exposure, on the first experience, it makes mark. The mind makes mark. How to remember that, how to cognize that again, how to recognize that again when you see it again. That's how one's work. So on the first exposure, through the six senses, whatever the corresponding sentence is, it makes marks, it records from the S. First experience, records and stores it in the memory bank. And that is how one recognize the same object next time. What does that person store in the memory bag? The marks how one can recognize that object again. The more it is repeated, the memory is stronger. The less it is repeated, it can fade away sooner or later. So if you see the same object again and again, your memory of that object becomes stronger. So what is it? What is the function of sannya? The function of sannya is to recognize to recognize the object that once been exposed before. The function is to recognize. Recognize through what? Through Marx. And that is, yeah. But we talk about repeated exposure, make strong memory. But there are some cases, traumatic experience of people. Even though it is a single exposure, those traumatic experiences can give a deep imprint, deep impression on the mind, on the psyche, in your memory bank. So those are a different thing with a single exposure. But we don't have thanks to the life we live and we don't have too many traumatic experiences. And also one thing one needs to know is Sanya is that perception, the way you remember or recognize that object, may be right or wrong. Right or wrong means it may be in line with the way it is, the way it should be. That's called right. It may be as it really is in its true nature. That is, if you remember that way, that is the right sinya. Wrong sanya, wrong perception is you still recognize, you still know the object, but the way you know the approach you did is not in accordance with the true nature, not as it really is or as it should be. So it could be either one, right or wrong, you don't know. But regardless whether you have a right sannya or wrong sannya, you will still remember, you will still recognize that object once being exposed. So that is a very important thing about sanya. It could be right or it could be wrong. To the real facts, to the real nature of the object. And prolong and repeated knowing of wrong sannya or wrong perception. That's very dangerous. Once the wrong sannya is repeated again and again and again and again, what happens is for that person that becomes the truth. That's become the truth. Even though it's a wrong thing, because it's been conditioned so long, so many times, for that person it becomes the truth. So what happened to that person is that person's belief falls as true. That person belief falls as true. But you can't go and change that person's mind. This is true. So in here, attachment to wrong views, attachment to wrong ideas. These wrong views and wrong ideas are the perception that one has. Attachment to wrong views, wrong idea is very, very dangerous once you become attached to it. As an example, is um most of us all know about that little red book in the communist China period under Mositon. Little Red Book is just like the Mabada for the Buddhist, little red book is for the communism, the Mahapada of communism, and there's a lot of extreme measures, there's a lot of violence, a lot of cruelties are involved. But they have it, they use it like the Mabada, or they use it as the communist Bible. They read again and again and they have to read again and again, they have to recite again and again every day, and eventually the whole mass believes that is the truth. But nowadays, even the communists in modern-day China don't believe those things anymore because they know it is not true. But about 50, 60 years ago, they believe this is the Bible for us. That is what it means by once you believe false as truth, once you become attached to the wrong views and wrong ideas, it become very, very dangerous. That's how the divisions happen too. Divisions between ism, capitalism, communism. One is exposed repeatedly into one ism throughout the whole life. And that person believes the other isms are wrong. We are right, the others are not good enough, we are the best. Vice versa from everybody, and that's how the walls are built. Conflicts arise, discrimination and prejudice arises, attachment to wrong views, or you can say attachment to wrong senya, wrong senna. So these are modern-day examples, but in the scripture here is explained one way. I'll always like to put a little bit of what is it exactly given in the scripture. And I think most of you might have that story. It's more become like a story, but it's written there. Elephant and the six blind men. Six blind men, they are not blind from birth. So they have some psychopath and then all become blind. But they have never seen or know what elephant is. So the king brought in a big elephant and then gave it to the six, um, tell the people to conduct an experiment, bring the six blind men, and one was taken to the trunk area, uh, the trunk of the elephant, another person, the tusk, the third, the legs, the fourth, the body, the fifth, the ears, the sixth, the tails. They take them to them and let them touch it. So the first one really touched the trunk. And then he said, Oh, no, elephant is just like a snake. And the other guy said, no, no, no. He was touching his tusk. It's like spear. The elephant is like spear. And another guy who's touching the ear. No, it's like a mat or a big fan. A big mat. Another guy said, no, he's touching the legs. It's like a big tree trunk. Another guy who's touching the body said, no, it's a big wall. And the sixth person who is touching and feeling and investigating the tail is, no, it's like a broom. That's it, they come out and sit down and they give their answer and they talk to one another and they argue and they argue and they argue. Nobody would give in. I'm true, I'm right, you are wrong, I'm right, you're wrong. Because that is, it's been exposed sometime to the false information, sometimes to partial information. Total ignorance or partial ignorance, that will give you a wrong signal. If you are totally ignorant about the whole thing, it will give you a wrong sannyal. If you are partially ignorant about it, it will give you a wrong sannyal. That's what the story explains. And at the same time, once they believe in something, they hold on to that view and they will fight, they won't give in. It becomes very dangerous. Here is another example to explain what senior means. And here in the scripture it's used scarecrow. See? That's analogy. Scarecrow analogy is, you know, every country, especially in Little Den, there's farming involved. The grains come in, you have to read them when they become ripe. But at the same time, the birds, when the grains are fully grown, they come in and they eat. Sometimes they come in big flocks and they can wipe out the whole field. So especially in Asia, there are small little patches of field, everybody owns it. So each one has to build a little hut and stay there, and when the birds come, they shoe the birds away. So it's a daily job. But at the same time, they can do a lot of other things rather than sitting and waiting for the birds and shoeing them away. So eventually, what they did is they built a scarecrow which looked like a human. Two legs, body, two hands throwing up, and a head, and a big eye, and might even put a hat on it. Scarecrow. And the birds, before they are exposed to human shape, human form, coming and throwing up the hands and shooing them away. So they are scared when they see human. And then later the birds come again, and this time they score scarecrow. But all that they perceived is the shape of two legs, body, two hands, and a hat. So they think it's a human and they go away. That is perception. They remember, they cognize by shape and form. Nothing beyond it. Shape, form, size, color. That's perception. We really need to understand what perception or sanya is. Just another example in the scripture there. Again, look at in here. In here is the birds were totally ignorant about between a human and a scarecrow. Total ignorance. The first one is with the elephant. They know something about the elephant, but still they are partially ignorant. They are ignorant about the rest, they know only part. That's why wrong sannya will rise due to partial ignorance or total ignorance. So we are building up this sanya and emphasizing how important it is because it is directly related to the practice we are doing. The practice we are doing. We are practicing mindfulness and psych meditation. Why do we do that? First stage is so that we can understand the true nature of mind and matter. The true nature of mind and matter. That's a purpose. And what is this mind and matter? Mind and matter means this body and this mind. Our body and our mind. That's mind and matter. In other words, this body and mind we call it this me, I, you, us, we. That's what it is. In other words, this is self. This is self. And then this self, we just don't, we are going backward from that. This self, as soon as we see you, me, I, there is an identity there. There's an ego there. There's a conceit there. There is something exists there. And furthermore, we even go to the point of there is a soul. Because we can't explain why we are so different from the rest. There's the mind and the body. And eventually the concept of individuality, personality, the concept of self, the concept of soul arises. That is what's happening and the reason we practice mindfulness insight is so that we can truly understand what we call self and soul. Is that's the way it has been presented. Investigation into the nature of self and soul. That's why we practice. So this self or soul, the concept is called atta. Self, soul, a person, an individual. It's the main thing of the study of Buddhism. They study this. This self also exists even before Buddhism. But Buddha doesn't take anything as it is said. Buddha doesn't take anything that is traditional or because it is a culture. His investigation of life is through direct experience, not from books, not from teachers, not from hand-me-down information. So he went into the exploration or investigation of what self or soul is. That's the central thing. So the concept of self, the concept of soul, I'll use the word concept, concept of self or soul or a spirit. You can call anything you want, self, soul, spirit. That concept has been in existence for centuries and centuries, even before Buddha arise. Buddha arose about 2,500, 600 years ago. But this concept of soul has existed. We can follow up about safely about full 5,000 into the human history. At that time, self and soul, the concept, the idea of self and soul already there. It has been in existence for as long as the human history could follow. And still it exists today. A lot of people believe in self-soul, act in a self, belief in a soul, and belief in a spirit. And that concept will keep on going into the future. It exists before, it exists now, and it will exist in the future as well. So you will see in many religions. And many philosophies, they always explain, approach, touch, and embrace and believe in this idea of self, soul, or spirit. This not only this religions and philosophy, great philosopher comment, even long before, long before the organized religion started in human history, already believe in that. They believe in the spirits of the trees, spirits of the mountains, or the great spirit from the sun or the moon, and so on and so forth. So this has been going on for a long, long time. So what do we say? We perceived, we perceive this ever elusive, unidentifiable nature of something. Something as a self or a soul. It's something, but we cannot really put our hand on it, but still there is something there. Elusive nature to identify. So this is how this concept arises. So we perceived, or the human perceived, or we can say more precisely, the human make a marked. Perceive or make a mark on this phenomenon or of this right nature, the true nature or the phenomena. There's something something going on. That phenomenon of that nature, we make a mark, we mean human throughout centuries and centuries of period. We make a mark repeatedly as a self or soul. We believe, we talk that way, and it spread and it spread and said and it became the main concept of human race. Word concept, a self or a soul. For something that we cannot really put our hand and identify on. And we called, we give a name, a word concept, a self or a soul. It's safe to say it has been going on for at least about 5,000 years in the past. Maybe even more. But we don't have any proven history. So this century-long repetition, repetition of this idea, this concept, has conditioned us to believe as we perceive it. It has been going on so long, we simply take it that is true. But it has been conditioning us for so long, so wide, time and space, that concept is so prevalent, we believe, we embrace as true this self also. Once a person have a wrong sunnya, wrong perception about something, automatically that sunny will repeat by itself. It will repeat by itself. Once you have a wrong sanny, you will stick with the wrong sannya and you will stay with this wrong sanny and you will repeat again and again and again through that concept. What it is is one is believing. What is not there is there. And nobody can change your mind. Believing what is not there is there. And if we approach with some sort of an explanation, what it is, this is caused by karma. There's the way we believe. What is not there is there. The way believe there's something that we do not know how to identify or put a hand on as a self or a soul or a person or individual. This is caused by karma. This karma more specifically it is the attachment to identity. Oh precise, karma, in this case attachment to identity, is caused by attachment to identity. That we have in a countless past life, we have countless past life. In those lives, we still hold on to this, what we call self. We are attached to the self. We don't want to die. We want to live forever. We don't want to be disappeared. Poof, gone into the thin air. That attachment to identity. It's not only right now in this life, we have countless, countless previous lives and we live with it. That long it has been conditioning us. And in this life, it arose again. And this idea arose again. This concept arose again with us. And we call it in a Buddhist word, it's called vibaka. Vipaka, resultant, resultant of the karma of the past. But in here we are very specific about it. What karma it is, that karma is attachment to identity. And here we are living the vibaka, living with the idea or concept of a self or soul, because it has been conditioning us and we are believing what is not there is there and we are still with it in our shy. Now, Buddhism. We are saying these things because of what the Buddha has taught us, so we have to talk about Buddhism. Buddhism is the only religion. We call it religion because we don't have the we don't have a lack of a better word than the word religion because everybody called Buddhism as one of the religions. But Buddhism not really is a religion. But that's another story. So Buddhism brought out a concept totally opposed to the concept of self or soul. Pali word is attack. Buddha brought out a concept totally opposite, contrary to the accepted concept, which is called atta, a self or a soul. And the Buddha called it simply anatta. He just put a negation on the attack Buddha called that concept anatta. So which means non-self, no soul. So this is the only religion who is based on the non-self, no, no soul concept. All other religions is based on self-soul or spirit. So that's a different. I'm not claiming this is right and that is wrong or that is wrong and that is right. Simply this is what it is. Just explaining as it's being presented to the or accessible to the humanity in terms of books and papers and lectures. So it is a non-self no soul, another doctrine. That's what Buddhism is. So we cannot simply just say non-self no soul, we have to say something about it, we have to present something. What is that non-start no soul means? And Buddha presented this as a mental phenomena, not an identity, not a self, not ever existing soul, non-destructive soul, neither one of them. It is simply a mental phenomenon, and we believe that mental phenomenon is a self or eternal soul. So that's Buddha's presentation. Again, in Buddhism, is Buddha's never taught us anything out of philosophy or intellectual or knowledge, logic or analysical power. Everything he taught to us is through his direct own experience. So keep that in mind. So in this world, physical phenomena exist. Everybody agrees, we agree because especially now the science has shown us the physical world exists, physical phenomena exist. At zero degree water becomes ice, hundred degree water becomes gas, vapor, and natural phenomena happen. Seasons change, the world rotates, galaxies spins, there is some natural phenomena. So physical phenomena exist in this world, in this universe. But the Buddhist way of presenting is when we call universe, it is not only the physical phenomena, not only physics and chemistry. Buddhist put biology, so to speak. But biology not in the way we understand little insects and virus and germs and humans and birds and so on. Buddhist biology is it is that in this universe there exists not only the physical phenomenon, there exists also another unidentifiable, untouchable, untangible mental phenomena exist. So the universe is made up of two phenomena, physical phenomena and mental phenomena. That mental phenomenon, we are taking it as a self, a soul, a spirit. That is the Buddha's take on life, or Buddha's take on the universe. So the nature of this non-self, see, non-self, basically it's a concept. It's a Buddhist concept of a self or a soul. This non-self is a concept and it is going against the tide of the pre-existing concept of Atta. Atta is already taken the throne and rules, but now, 2500 years ago, Buddhists come and put up a new concept, but this concept is directly directed to the pre-existing, well-accepted concept of Atta self or so. So it is a new kick on the block now. And also another thing is this idea of non-self, in other words, you don't exist, I don't exist. It is wrong trying to put identity on it. So this idea of not having self, not having a soul, a soul that is undestructive, a soul that is eternal or a spirit. You don't have the spirit, you don't have a soul, you don't have a self. That idea is not comforting. To all of us, not comforting. There's nothing to hang on. So keep that in mind. This concept, the new concept of anatta is needless to say, it is a new concept that's coming up, but it doesn't even give any comfort or build or boost your ego or identity. So nobody likes it. Simply put, people don't like it, you don't exist. How would you like it? I don't exist, I don't like it. So even this word, anatta, non-self-do so. I'm going to use it as a let's say one of the slogan or statement in the little red book. Power recites at the point of a barrel of a gun. They repeat that for about 60, 70 years, they believe it. Because there's this tangibility too. Now, this anatta, you can repeat that word again and again. So to speak, you can brainwashed with this concept of anatta again and again and again and again. And it's been brain, let's use the word brainwashed, we've been brainwashing for 2500 years, but still we don't like to accept it. We don't want to appraise it. We don't believe it because it is not comforting, because it doesn't boost your ego, because it doesn't give you stronger identity. That's why this anatta except it is going against the tide. Paddling upstream. So even the repetition, continuous repetition, would not make any imprint on your psyche. It won't change your mind. The only way to embrace or the only way to believe this concept of anatta, concept of anatta, is to understand through direct experience. At that time nobody is telling you anymore. It is your own experience, first-hand experience, not from books, not from lectures, not from brainwashing. You directly experience. And how can you experience? The Buddha doesn't leave. Go experience yourself. He gives you a technique, a method, mindfulness and sight method. Use this method and experience what this self or soul is, which I call a phenomenon. See whether it is a phenomenon or not. Only then the notion of the self or soul can be totally dispelled. From the Buddhist point of view, we call it wrong sanya, wrong perception. This wrong perception can be dispelled only through direct experience by brightnessing mindfulness inside meditation. So let's sum it up. What's the characteristic? Characteristics is you can know by making marks to recognize or memorize something, an object. Making marks. That's a characteristic. And the function is to recognize the object as it has been previously perceived. To recognize the object as it has been previously perceived. That's the function of sinya. And how does the sunya manifest? Interpreting the object by ways of its features. Features mean marks, marks features. Manifest by interpreting the object by ways of its features. That has been apprehended. But if your apprehension is correct, it will be a right sinya. If your apprehension is wrong or incorrect, you'll be stuck with the wrong sinnya. So manifestation can be one way right or one way is wrong. Approximate cause. The object appears to one. The way it appears. The object it appears to you. The way it appears to you. Appear as one mental. Appear as the way your mental inclination is. Or simple put the way you want to believe it. That is the proximate cause. So being attached or believed to a belief, which one has originally marked and accepted of a physical or mental phenomenon is senior. To some being attached to a belief, which one has originally marked and accepted of a physical or mental object is senior. It may be in line with the right nature, its true nature or not. One may or may not. And we always take these marks. Everybody is different. We look at something, ten people look at the same thing, but we mark it in a different way. We mark it in a way that is obvious to us. The way it is obvious to us. So there will be slight difference here and there and here and there. So wrong perception or wrong sinya, especially when it comes to opinions and views, point of views of an object or a condition or situation. It arises because the person who is experiencing or who is having that sannya lacks analytical and penetrative power. That's a difference. Some people have great analytical penetrative power, some people have less analytical power, and the sannyash will be different. And also bear in mind the karma, the karma of the past has an influence. Kama vipakatama. So that much will give you a pretty good understanding about what the knowing through perception, sinya. That's one way of knowing. And second way of knowing is knowing through wisdom, binya. So this one is, I think, easy for you guys. You have been hearing a lot. Knowing the true nature and the relationship of the mind and matter, knowing the true nature of mind, knowing the true nature of matter and their relationship and their characteristics. And how this mind and matters interrelate with this environment. And if you know that way, that is knowing through wisdom. And you can only get that if you exercise five controlling mental faculties, if you develop five controlling mental faculties, confidence, effort, mindfulness, mental concentration and wisdom. Five controlling mental faculties. And you can develop that by practicing mindfulness inside meditation. Satipathana Vipassana. It is a requirement to have or to know through wisdom. Pali word one word will be samaditi. If you have the right view, that means you are knowing through wisdom. Or scriptural term if you understand, if you know the full noble truth. That is knowing through wisdom. Second type of knowing. And the third type of knowing is knowing through consciousness. Vijnana. So this type of knowing is entirely different from the first two. You can eliminate the types of knowing from the first two. Totally different. It knows the object, how to use it, how to manipulate it, what the value is, what the usage is. Like a man knowing the value of a coin or how to use a coin. That is the third kind of knowing. So these three knowings will cover every type of knowing we have. Whatever words you use, they all fall under those three. So may all of you be able to practice satipattana, vipassana, mindfulness, and slight medication. And may you be able to achieve the wis wisdom. Able to attain the wisdom knowing through binya. And know the true nature of mind and matter and gain peace as soon as possible. Sadu Sadu. Sadu. Thank you very much.