Thursday, November 6th, 1980

CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

November 6, 1980

BUDDHISM; EPISTEMOLOGY; SAUTRANTIKA

TOPIC: Buddhism

SUBJECT: Epistemology

SUBSUBJECT: Sautrantika

CONTENTS:

Core tenets of the Sautrantika system: generic image, permanent phenomena, and emptiness

Primary focus is on the notion of generic image–what it is; how it is built up on basis of sense-organs' functioning; how it is built up in childhood and stored in the unconscious; its emptiness; its role as an intermediary in perception

Epistemological problem not confronted in Sautrantika; sense-organs react to stimuli but don't smell, see, etc.; smells, sights, etc., are forms

Vasanas as empty potentialities for experience that accompany all experience and lapse back into psyche as motions when that experience is over; this correlated with generic images

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins, Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism

• Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper, Mind in Tibetan Buddhism

• Satkari Mookerjee, The Buddhist Philosophy of Universal Flux

• Paul Brunton, The Hidden Teaching Beyond Yoga

• Paul Brunton, The Wisdom of the Overself

• Jang-gya-rol-bay-dor-jay, Presentation of Tenets, "The Sautrantika Tenet System"

• Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom

• Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past

NOTE: For readability's sake, the following substitutions/edits made in Verbatim Transcript: cuz = because; gonna = going to; gotta = got to; yeah = yes; yous = you.

TRANSCRIBED Verbatim by IT prior to 2017, reformatted by jf 2017. This is V12a (2023) and has: updated prefatory matter, footer, and audio file name; completed Book List; typos/errors corrected; new formatting to accord with new conventions. Archival verbatim transcript – V12a.

AUDIO FILES: 1980 1106a, 1980 1106b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]

1980 11/06 at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Buddhism; Epistemology; Sautrantika

[Audio File 1980 1106a Begins]

LDS: So right away we know or can a-- can assume that we're in the cosmos, we're talking about some kind of object that's within the cosmos, because within the cosmos would have to do with this impermanence. Now, one of the questions that comes up about this object that's particular and impermanent is its specificity. Now if-- if the object is solely matter per se, it doesn't seem likely that we could-- we could speak of this object as being specific then or of being particular, characterized. So it seems to me we have to bring in the notion of form or idea to account for its-- the specificity of an impermanent object. So if we say that the object is, let's say, a result or a consequence of these forces, of some kind of production of the cosmic Nature, cosmic soul, however you want to speak of it, what does that mean that it's a production? Well, it seems first of all to imply that there has to be an element of matter, which I guess we could say accounts for its impermanence. But to account for its specificity we have to bring in the notion of form or idea. And this is my speculation. We can't be speaking of a homogenous matter.

AD: Yes well what-- give the term they use, give them a term that they use.

LDS: For?

AD: Form or idea.

LDS: For form or idea?

AD/S(?) (very faint): Uh-hm.

[9¼ second pause]

LDS: I don't know if they-- if their noti-- I don't know if their notion of dharma, the dharmas, would equate with idea. But it seems to me that they, at least in what I've read, that they don't really break-- break this object up into its components in terms of the form and the matter part of it. I don't know Sid, have you-- You see where I'm trying to make sense out of what this specif-- specific object is.

AH: Could its specificity be a consequence of its momentariness?

AD: Could you show me that in a text? Could you show me a text?

AH: Talking to me?

AD: Yes, why not?

AH: No, I--

AD: I'm not mad at you. (laughter)

S: No.

AH: No I can't show you that. That's just a speculation.

AD: Well you got to get it out of a text.

S: Louie?

LDS: Yes.

S: It see-- I-- it seems like it's the way they're using 'specificity', (bit of laughter) it's more in contrast to the generality of the generic image which is their conventional [LDS: Yes.] truth. I don't-- they don't seem to say too much about the form nature of it but more about its momentary actuality, you know. That it's in a given moment it actually exists and is effective, therefore it's specific and not a general abstraction.

LDS: Yes but what does that say? I mean, we're still left with a problem of where does this specificity come from? It is-- they talk of it as unique, particular, and it's--

S (simultaneously): Well do they say where it comes from or do they just say that you can tell that it's actu-- that it's-- you can tell that it's ultimate and specific by the fact that it's actually effective in that moment?

LDS: Let me read this. Well you're not saying anything different but, to refer to a text. In the Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism on page 93 he talks a little bit about the two truths. And some of the-- some of the synonyms would be "functioning thing, ultimate truth, specifically characterized phenomena, impermanent thing, product, truly existent phenomena." This is this object that they're speaking of. And, as I said before, I haven't come across a real elaboration of the components of this object. They talk about the causes and conditions, the forces and things that go to-- to go-- its qu-- some of its characteristics would be impermanence, product--

S (simultaneously): They don't seem to deal with the-- with the meaning side at all really.

LDS: Exactly.

S: Well, what do you-- what do you think would be a product of-- what do you mean by product?

LDS: Product of all these processes of Nature, let's say. [short pause] This-- I'm trying to make sense out of this object and its specificity. And, if we think about our g-- our general definition or our general meaning of matter, ok, if you-- if you're thinking, you know, coming from Santayana or other systems, you-- it doesn't seem to me that matter per se, devoid of any kind of form or idea, can account for this uniqueness or this particularity of an object. So, you know, whether they bring it in or not, it seems by implication that the notion of an idea or a form has to be employed to make sense out of this specificity. Now maybe I'm going out on a limb but--

AH: I-- I would like to ask a question about your question. You're asking about its specificity. (But now) this object that we're talking about is an object that is not imputed by thought.

LDS: Right.

AH: So, shall we seek its specificity in terms of thought, in terms of conceptual--

LDS: I'm not doing that, because-- You're s-- you're saying by the use of 'form' or by the use of the word 'idea' connotes thought. But certainly not reflective thought in that sense, I'm not using it that way.

AH: Well, we're looking to find out why the object is a s-- a specific object?

LDS: Let me ask this Andrew. If the object is a product of these process, of the cosmic processes going on, it's some kind of a product of that. Ok. What are these processes constituted by? What is it that the cosmic intelligence is working with that it-- that it can establish these unique processes?

S: Yes Louis, I have a real basic question. This object we're talking about, insofar as they define-- like on page 94 they say--

[Transcriber note: I am using Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism by Geshe Lhundup Sopa and Jeffrey Hopkins, London: Rider & Co., 1976.]

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 94, S reading]: "A pot is called an ultimate truth because it is a truth for an ultimate mind. This ultimate mind is a consciousness which is not mistaken with regard to the object appearing to it."

S: Now, do they actually ever establish any contact between the perceiver of the object and the object itself or are they always talking about an object for the perceiver? And is there a disti-- are-- do they make a distinction or is there a possible distinction between the object in itself as it's materially constituted and the object in conjunction with a knower, or are they the same thing?

LDS: Well, one thing is they speak of an object, a real object, as some-- as an object that is capable of being known or cognized, ok. But they also say that there is no real contact between this object and the cognizer.

AH: But there is a real contact between this object and the ultimate consciousness.

LDS: Yes but the contact--

S: Does that include the sense-cognized, sense direct (perceiver/perceived)?

LDS: Yes, I've been reading Mookerjee who claims that-- his presentation is that any kind of-- any kind of explanation of contact to account for the perception, even sense-perception, is not acceptable to the Sautrantikas. That it can be explained in terms of-- they s-- they seem to reach for an explanation in terms of an image that this object casts of itself that is of the nature of consciousness. In other words, this image and consciousness have an essential identity, so that the two can interrelate. Now that's kind of a-- it didn't seem very convincing to me but they--

S (simultaneously): Does 'consciousness' mean any one of the perceivers that you put up on the board Sunday?

LDS (quietly to himself): Does 'consciousness' mean any one of the perceiver(s)?

AH: Any one that's not mistaken in this case.

AD: Ultimate mind, isn't it? Would you repeat what you just said Louis, of Mookerjee?

LDS: That the-- the contact that-- they don't accept the notion of contact between the perceiver and the object to account for this perception but rather they say that the object in some way, some mysterious way, casts an image of itself that is essentially of the nature of consciousness. In other words, consciousness and this image of the object have an identical nature so that the two can-- can make for cognition, can make for a holistic cognition, synchronized. Now that's Mookerjee's presentation.

SP: These guys seem to indicate the content, you know, when they talk about direct perception. They say that these-- I mean the emphasis on direct cognition and the cognitions prior, like in a sensory cognition, prior to an image, then how wou-- how could you have [LDS simultaneously: Ok, this--] direct perception prior to an image?

LDS: Ok, he speaks of that kind of perception that is sense direct perception as indeterminate. Like, I guess he would go [S simultaneously: See--] so far as to say it's-- it is the presupposition.

SP: Well, yes, Mookerjee would say it was indeterminate but if these guys said it was indeterminate it would violate what they had just said as it being an ultimate truth, namely being specifically characterized.

LDS: Ok, I-- I try to understand that, that was a conflict for me and I'm not sure that I've resolved it but I think what-- I think you can say that it's specifically characterized and yet for the knower, in relationship to this perceiver, it's indeterminate.

SP: But these guys call that consciousness a knowing consciousness, like they think--

RC (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] They do say it's generated in the image of its object.

[short pause]

AD: So then are we saying that on the one side where you have the object you have the indeterminate and on the other side where you have the perception you have the specifically characterizable? [short pause] See I don't have the text so I'm lucky, I'm just going to try to see if I understand what you're saying.

AH: [couple words inaudible]

SP (simultaneously): But then it would be a contradiction between Mookerjee and these guys that [one/two words inaudible]

AD: Well, I was trying to see if we could reconcile them in that way. On the one side-- on the other side of sense-- In other words, the input is taking place, alright, that's the indeterminate object. Now, insofar that it's an input. But on the other side of the input where there's a sense-functioning going on, there is a specifically characterizable characterization of that input, so that you have on the one side the indeterminacy of the object and on the other side the way the ultimate mind or the organ, let me say the sense-organ, the way the sense-organ characterizes that.

S: (Its/It's) specific(--/?)

AD: In the specific characterizable way.

SP: Even though the object itself is indeterminate, say if you touch a fire, you get a burn as opposed to something else.

AD: Yes.

SP: I mean it's-- it has to have some specificness even prior to--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, that's what I mean by specifically characterizable. [S simultaneously: Well, maybe you can explain.] You got a burn. You got a burn. In other words, [LDS simultaneously: You see--] modification of a sense-organ is what we're referring to as specifically characterizable.

LDS: So you're saying it-- this relation is necessary when we bring in a notion of specificity, the relation between the body or the organ we're talking of and the object. I mean that's a possibility.

SP (simultaneously): I think they say objects and--

AD: Contact, that's the [SP assents] contact between(,) (next step).

SP: I think they say objects, like the Vaibhashikas would say, are composed of partless particles. Of course you don't know what a partless particle means but that would almost mean undifferentiated-- [AD: Yes.] there's (this--) you know, it's something out of the-- what we normally think of as the sensible, you know, if we think of the sensible as it has qualities and so forth.

GA: Yes, there's discussion of that in the awareness and knowledge. They use examples of fire and then they use the example of-- and again (in term(s)--) the son becoming aware of the form of his father. I could read-- I could quote.

AD: Sure.

GA: This--

[Transcriber note: I am using Mind in Tibetan Buddhism by Lati Rinbochay and Elizabeth Napper, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, New York, 1986.]

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, pp. 122-123, GA reading]: "This [GA reads: The] sense direct perceiver takes as its object the father's form, and the final nature of that object is the father's form. [GA: And then it says--] In the Sautrantika system, the form of the father has to exist as the [GA reads: a] mode of being, or the status, of the object, and if it did not so exist, right with the object, the sense direct perceiver in the continuum of the son apprehending it could not arise. The son's eye consciousness is itself able to induce ascertainment with respect to this connection -- the relationship between the non-arising of itself if the final nature of the father's form did not exist right with the object -- without having to depend on another prime cognizer."

GA: And this-- it seems like for each level, the sense-consciousness and then the mental direct [AD simultaneously: Would you--] and then the self direct, there's a different apprehension of the object, but in each case whatever it is that's being apprehended is there in the object or it couldn't be apprehended.

AD: Would you repeat that quote again?

GA: This-- this is in-- I think this is in re-- reference to the self-knowing direct perceiver.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 122, GA reading]: "In [the] Sautrantika system, the form of the father has to exist as the mode of being, or the sta…"

AD (simultaneously): Now-- yes now, explain it, the mode of being.

GA: That the-- that there is in the object the form of father. That's not to say that's all there is in the object. But if the form of father were not in the object, the form of father could not be apprehended by the cognizer.

SP: That's what I was wondering but if the characterization takes place within the-- after the--

AD: Input?

SP: --the input, there needs to be some direct connection of the input to the-- to the specific characterization. [students assenting] You know, even though the input isn't a specific characterization, it has to-- it has to be, you know, such a intimate--

AD: That's bringing it back to what Louis said, that the object gives off an intention of itself.

DB: Just here, one-- one line here that, I don't know, might be helpful where he says on 94, third paragraph, that "A thought consciousness is mistaken with respect to the object appearing to it, i.e., a generic image, because a generic image of a house, for instance, appears to be an actual house." Now up--

AD: Well wait, can I [couple/three words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): But that's [one/two words inaudible]

DB (simultaneously): I'm sorry, ok.

SP/S(?): [couple/three words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): I mean here they're-- here they're working-- See, you're one step removed there from the problem. Here they're working with a prime cognizer and they're still not really answering the question. They give the same example to fire, that the color red is right in the fire but the sense direct perceiver would never be able to apprehend red.

AD: Ok.

GA: Yet red is not the true color of the fire, ok, it's a m-- it's a measure, it's a-- it's a form.

AH: Is the prime cognizer--

AD: You're-- you're not going to have it both ways with me, believe me. So read it again.

GA: Ok. Do you want me to read the example of fire?

AD (simultaneously): You can't have your cake and eat it at the same time. Yes, read your quote again.

GA: The one with a-- oh yes.

AD (simultaneously): It's red but it isn't red.

GA: Ok I'll use that one. Because I think this one's easier.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 122, GA reading]: "One can posit as its object of comprehension the reddish colour; however, the final nature of its object of comprehension is the colour of fire. The colour red is only the measure of the appearance of the object and not the measure of its actual status. Thus, a sense direct perceiver apprehending it is not perceiving the final nature of the object of comprehension -- it is not getting at a final object with respect to which superimpositions have been removed. If the colour of the fire were not with the object being perceived -- [GA adds: that is] the reddish colour -- the sense direct perceiver would not arise, but the consciousness apprehending the reddish colour is unable to induce ascertainment with respect to the colour of fire itself, is unable to ascertain the connection between the reddish colour and the colour of fire which is its final nature."

AD: So--

GA: Right. Well, (then) he goes on [couple/three words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): That-- that last sentence for me again?

GA (simultaneously): It does not-- Ok.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 122, GA reading]: "If the colour of [the] fire were not with the object being perceived -- [GA adds: that is] the reddish colour -- the sense direct perceiver would not arise, but the consciousness apprehending the reddish colour is unable to induce ascertainment with respect to the colour of [GA adds: the] fire itself…"

AD: What do they mean?

S: Yes.

S: Are they--

AD: What do they mean?

S: They seem to be suggesting that [GA simultaneously: That there's an independent--] the eye-consciousness has a conjunction with the, you know, with the modification in the eye-organ but not with the actual object.

GA: Right, the eye-consciousness [S simultaneously: But the-- yes.] cannot get at the--

S (simultaneously): But the eye, but the eye-organ has a con-- contact with the actual object. So all the consciousness perceives is [GA simultaneously: Right.] the modification of the organ but not the actual object.

GA: Right, the red is just a measure of something in the fire, like the fact that you receive the impressions of red [S: To--] into the vibrations on the--

SP (simultaneously): [couple/three words inaudible] one of the differences of what you're doing is that they say-- Vaibhashikas say you perceive it directly, because these guys perceive [GA assents, faint] the image in the (eye-/other) (consciousness).

GA (simultaneously): The Saut--

S (simultaneously): [few words inaudible] you see a result. (bit of laughter)

GA: Well the Sautrantikas are always going to bring in this creativity of the subject cog-- of-- of the subjective [one/two words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): But they would say there's a definite nature to the fire that causes a specific modification of the eye-organ, but the eye-consciousness would only apprehend that eye--

GA (simultaneously): Yes, you can't get to the fire.

S: --eye-organ, not the eye(--) fire directly.

GA: I would-- I think so. I think that would-- they would probably say that.

AD: Go ahead Louis.

LDS: Yes, I'd-- I'd like to bring in another quote that I think-- I don't know if it really agrees with that but it kind of amplifies it.

S (simultaneously): Might, might not. (bit of laughter)

LDS: Again from Mookerjee, and his chapter the "Theory of Perception" is by Dharmakirti and Dharmottara. First he asks the question--

[Transcriber note: I am using The Buddhist Philosophy of Universal Flux by Satkari Mookerjee, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1975.]

Satkari Mookerjee [The Buddhist Philosophy of Universal Flux, p. 339, LDS reading]: "What is the cause of this variation of contents in [LDS reads: of] consciousness? [LDS: What is the cause of these variations of consciousness? And the Sautrantikas are going to say--] …it is nothing but the objective reality lying outside the mind but coming in contact with it. [LDS: And the word 'contact' here is sort of metaphorical. Then he says--] … Thus, the cognition of 'blue' has a particular form which is different from that of the cognition of 'red.' The conscient character is common to both; what varies is only the form, that is, the content. So the immediate cause of a particular cognition [(pramanam)] is the form or the likeness impressed on it and not sense-organs… It is the particular form or likeness which determines the character of a cognition and not sense-organ, which is common to cognitions of red, blue, white and so forth."

LDS: So here the-- this particularity or the specificity seems to have to do with the impress, the-- the cast image rather than, you know, what's-- what the sense-organs are actually dealing with. And yet, he's still saying here I think that the particularity is coming from the object though.

GA: Uh-hm.

SP: But I think that's what they would say too, they're just saying that you only get to the sense-organs, you don't get to the object.

LDS: Right.

S: I mean--

AD: That's similar to the Scholastic scheme, you remember the Scholastic scheme?

LDS: Representation.

S: Yes.

AD: Uh-hm. That the object has a first intention [S: Yes.] which impresses itself on the matter of the sense-organs, and that this gives rise to a phantasm, which is still within the body. And it is from this phantasm that the active intellect extracts the form and presents you with knowledge of the object. Remember that scheme?

LDS: Yes.

S: Yes [one word inaudible]

S (simultaneously): As a matter of fact, it seems like their cognizers would be-- very closely follow the scheme of the Scholastics, you know, that first there's the intention of the object, then there's this sense-picture, then a generic image is abstracted from that. I forget the Scholastic [student assents] terms but-- and then it goes into the possible intellect or something.

AD: [one/two words inaudible]

DB: It seems from what I've read in this book here that the-- that the individual, I mean that--

AD: The quote Dave, give the quote.

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 94, DB reading]: "A thought consciousness is mistaken with respect to the object appearing to it, i.e., a generic image…"

AD: Well (you/yes) tell them the page.

S (possibly part of background): Could I have the picture?

DB (simultaneously): Oh. Page 94 at the third paragraph. Says--

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 94, DB reading]: "A thought consciousness is mistaken with respect to the object appearing to it, i.e., a generic image, because a generic image of a house, for instance, appears to be an actual house."

DB: Well now, it seems to me that he's not talking there about the-- I'm-- someone sitting down, imagining a house and mistaking that imagined house to be a real one. He's talking about the experience we have every day and he's calling that a generic image. [S: Yes that too.] He's saying that the-- what we know of the sensible world, not just through the conceptions that we have about it but our actual contact with the sense-world and what association we have with that, is a generic image. And, it's in that instance-- I mean it's because of that that we're mistaken about it daily.

S: But, but-- but David, I think the way they word that (Dave--)

AD (simultaneously): What's-- what's the point you're trying to make?

S: Uh-hm.

DB: Well, the point I'm trying to make is that if-- if that's the case, and he does go on to speak later of generic images as being after-images, because they're-- the experience within the-- the sense-organs, the image left in there, I really don't see how-- I have no way of understanding what he means by a direct perceiver at this point, you know, I mean what he means by an ultimate mind or anything. It's-- it's left unexplained.

S: You see David, they posit different-- you're thinking of these all as being aspects of one thing and that isn't quite the way to think of it as I understand it. Like the-- when they say a mind there I think, say, in the instance of perceiving the-- like the color red in the fire, they're saying-- the mind they're talking about is the eye-consciousness, you know, which--

DB: This eye?

S: Yes, that eye, [DB simultaneously: Yes but this--] eyeball consciousness, [DB simultaneously: Right, ok.] which only perceives colors and forms. Now, when you're talking about a generic image, that generic image is in the manas. And the mana-- the manas has the ability to, how do they say, perceive the previous moment. Remember, everything is momentary.

DB: Right.

S: So, I think their explanation would be in one moment you have this eye-consciousness and that's a sense-direct perception.

DB: Right, which we [one word inaudible] know.

S: Because that's based on actual sense content, a material object in the world modifies the eye-organ and the eye-consciousness has an image of that. Now the manas being-- in the next moment being capable of-- of perceiving the previous moment, perceives that image that was in the eye-consciousness in the previous moment. Then the generic image is abstracted from that mana-- from there on in say it's manas.

DB: Right.

S: Then the generic image is in manas.

DB: Right.

S: That's another moment.

DB: Right.

S: So what's your question? (bit of laughter)

DB: My question is--

AD: The generic image also would be spatialized as the world.

DB: That's right. That's the point.

AD (simultaneously): That's what Willy sh-- wanted to add.

DB: That would be spatialized as the world.

AD: Yes.

DB (simultaneously): Ok, then from--

SP (simultaneously): But when they s-- when they [couple/few inaudible student words simultaneous with SP] say a direct perceiver it's in reference to the object of the perception. Like the sense-consciousness wouldn't directly perceive the concepts that are in the manas.

DB (simultaneously): No. Right.

SP: You know--

DB: Right.

SP: Ok, I thought in a sense you were saying well how is this a direct perceiver because you were trying to take one kind of mind and apply it to a different kind of stimulus.

DB: No, all-- all I'm saying is that-- that the manas projecting this-- this generic image is the sensible world that we-- we're speaking of. I mean it seems to me obvious, I mean-- Perhaps it's not, but it seems to me that-- that there's no reason to assume that the initial impulse is sensible to begin with.

S: [few words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): There's no reason to assume--

SP: What does it mean, sensible?

DB: Well, eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, so forth and so on. I mean they refer to the sensible world. But that's a description that's taking place after the fact, so to speak, within the generic image, within-- within the projected amplified image there.

[student assents, very faint]

AD: Don't follow you. Repeat.

[short pause]

DB: Well-- We speak of the generic image as including basically all of our experience, alright, the conceptual as well as the--

AD (simultaneously): As being our experience, yes.

DB (simultaneously): Ok, I mean that's our experience. And uh-- [10 second pause] I guess, I guess my problem is that I don't see why it's necessary to posit, I mean from what they've said here, that the-- the whole thing starts from an initial sensible stimulus, that there's a sensible object which affects a sensible organ which is interpreted by the manas and projected as a generic image.

SP: You want to go into the next school, Chittamatra [one/two words inaudible]

RC: At the end of Chip's quote they had [couple words inaudible] within that state sense-consciousness is the same in all perception. We have all-- it's the same eyeball. If the eyeball is responsible for it then why wouldn't it be the same image you have over and over? The eyeball is affected differently. And that's the substrate or the different-- the selection of the images after which you would get it. [short pause] Could almost be like, in order to have a different perception you'd have to change sense-organs.

AD: Would you start again Aver-- Randy, I don't follow your point.

RC: Well if I heard the last part of what Chip said right, he seemed to be saying that the continuum of consciousness and the sense-organs were-- they were continuous through the variety of perceptions and the variety in perception couldn't be traced to the sense-organ but had to be traced to something making an impression on the sense-organ.

S: Uh-hm.

GA: Yes, it would-- Yes I-- that was what they were saying, the final nature of the object's in the object. It's traced to the object.

LDS: The cause of the variation in the contents of consciousness is derived from the object. The point of the sense-organs being always relatively the same they're saying can't account for the change in form, forms of consciousness, [S: Yes.] but rather this thing that's cast by the-- by the object or impressed on that organ and then, you know--

RC (simultaneously): I think they're saying the eyeball can't explain why is it blue now and red then.

LDS: Right, exactly.

AH: Louis--

LDS: The organ.

AD: So then the specifically character-- characterizable aspect of an object is in the object. Yes. And that the red that you see is really the red of the rose.

S: (Uh-uh.)

AH: Chip's quote [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): No because they always have a little bit interference, (bit of laughter) there's always a little bit interference.

LDS: But this red [few student words inaudible simultaneous with LDS] of the rose that is in the object is what-- Ok. The real red--

AD: The real red.

LDS: --is indeterminate. (bit of laughter) You know-- ok. The whole business--

AD (simultaneously): That's alright Louis, look, as long as we're not [GA simultaneously: They would say--] taking sides, as long [LDS simultaneously: Oh we're trying--] as we understand--

GA (simultaneously): No, no but they would-- they would clarify that a little, they would say that the red is the measure of the appearance but not-- does not refer directly to the ultimate status of the object.

AD: Now--

LDS: But let me say this Anthony.

GA: [few words inaudible]

AD: Well, I'm about ready to ask you what [GA simultaneously: What--] do you mean "measure"?

RC: The rose [S simultaneously: Don't know yet.] is not the eyeball, the eyeball-- [AD simultaneously: Huh?] the eyeball is not the rose. It would [AD simultaneously: Yes.] never be the same color [one/two words inaudible] because they're two distinct--

AD (simultaneously): Exactly, exactly, the eyeball is not the rose, [RC: Yes.] therefore--

S: The red is within the eyeball.

AD (simultaneously): You have an intermediary.

RC: Yes.

AD: Yes, but that's the whole issue!

RC: So the red that we experience is the eyeball's response to the rose.

AD: Then what are you dealing with, the response or with the rose!?

RC: As far as any reflective experience, definitely dealing with the response.

AD: You're dealing with the response.

LDS: But you still have to [SP simultaneously: But it wouldn't have (one word inaudible) like the rose.] account for the differences of responses, you see.

AD: Yes, yes, yes.

LDS: And that's what they're trying to answer. They're saying, there's a change in my-- the forms in my consciousness from one moment to the next. What is accounting-- what is this variation in the contents of consciousness?

AD: But you see--

LDS: Ok, it's a mix--

AD: But you see, I'm not interested in a sequence of images. Any one will do, any one. I don't have to go from moment to moment. Right here and now, this moment, now. The rose I see, alright, [LDS: Yes.] I'm asking you: is that the real rose or is that a modification of the images that I work with?

LDS: You're seeing images.

AD: Yes. That's all I want to know.

LDS: But, the presupposition of that experience--

AD (simultaneously): The presupposition is that the modification is brought about in my sense-organs by something outside of it. But, the only way I know about that something outside is I only have a measure of it. [student assents, very faint] I got a ruler somewhere and I'm measuring it and I say, "Well, it's some kind of indeterminate red, alright, and the modifications that's taking place in my eye is a determinate red."

LDS: Yes.

RC: I wouldn't even say that the object is an indeterminate red.

AD: What would you say?

RC: Well, given that this variation in reds from one rose to another I'd say that the actual color of the actual rose is a specific red. But that your eyeball might not be capable of perfectly reproducing that color.

AD: But then we're back to the same place!

LDS: Anthony's asking, how can you talk about the specificity in the object if you admit that the only thing you know is the specific image.

AD (simultaneously): Responses that you're making.

RC: Well to [LDS simultaneously: So--] me it's no different to say that why should you have red at one moment and blue the next, and one shade of red at one moment and another shade of red at another moment, that the variation within any one--

AD (simultaneously): Look, that doesn't matter Randy. That doesn't matter. You can bring in a hundred million examples, one example is enough. [intensely] Do I perceive the red rose or do I perceive a modification of my responses? That's all I want to make clear. Now their point of view is they're saying something like this. The spec-- the specificity of the object, alright, is coming from the object. [student assents, very faint] They insist on that, right?

LDS (simultaneously): Yes. Yes they do.

AD: It's specifically characterizable because it's the object. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying, ok, fine. But what I respond to, alright, is a response in my system. [student assents, faint] That's all I'm saying. Alright, we make the point clear? [AH simultaneously: Yes but--] That's all, I'm happy.

AH: They're talking about a-- an object and you're talking about an object, but they're not the same object. They're talking about the ultimate object.

SP: I thought they were [S simultaneously: No.] [AH simultaneous with SP and S: (one/two words inaudible) how--] saying the same thing, I thought Anthony was just saying what they were saying.

RC(?): Yes.

AH: Well, I guess I didn't hear it then. See--

S (simultaneously): The ultimate object is the one that modifies the sense. That's what they mean by ultimate object, [student assents, faint] that it has the capability of alt-- of modifying the sense. They're not speaking of ultimate truth in the sense that the Madh-- Madhyamikas are-- would be speaking of it.

AD: See the-- the whole point that will come up eventually will be then we don't know what perception is from their point of view.

S: Yes.

DB: Not only that, we don't know what sense is from their point of view, I think.

AD: Well-- Alright, but the they do have some interesting stuff here, huh?

S: Yes they do.

S: They--

AH: Could I ask one other question? This o-- this rose that's really red, not the-- not the rose that we experience but the actual rose--

AD: The ro-- yes.

AH: The real red and the sense-organs would be on a status of equality, wouldn't they?

AD: What do you mean by equality?

AH: They're presented.

AD: The rose is the rose and the eye is the eye.

AH: But they're presented simultaneously in [AD simultaneously: Yes. Sure.] terms of the (import) of the--

AD: Sure. They're both presented, yes, go ahead.

AH: There's simultaneous presentation of the--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, they're both presented.

AH: --the organ and the red.

AD: Yes. The rose and the-- and the eye.

AH: Now is it at that level that we're talking about which influences which?

AD/S(?): Uh-hm.

AH: And-- and you're willing to say that at that level of simultaneous presentation the sense-organ determines the red.

AD: Not determines, modifies.

SP(?): Right.

S: Well I would [one/two words inaudible]

SP (simultaneously): They always have the [S simultaneously: Yes, go on.] object prior to the consciousness, I think, because the object has to be there before the knowing of the object can be there. I mean, the object provokes the knowing-- the knowing of it and they talk about the knowing as being some sort of like clear matter that takes-- that takes the form of the object. But, it doesn't go and aggressively look for objects because it wouldn't be a knower if it didn't have an object, which means the object has to come to it.

AH: So they talk about three things, the senses, the red, and the knower?

SP: No I'm just-- Like a rose would provoke a knowing a rose, so they would say, you know, the vi-- the-- the form "rose" produces the eye-consciousness of rose. Just logically they start with the object.

LDS: They give the efficacy or the power for that to the rose or to the object, the existential object. Consciousness they speak of as neutral, non-aggressive or however you want to speak it, non-creative.

AD: See this is a very nice presentation because if you missed the Hidden Teaching, (laughter) you got to go through it again. (some more laughter)

RC: It seems like the basis [one word inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): Now, to speak of the Hidden Teaching-- But go ahead Randy.

RC: It seemed like the basic stimulus-response thing, but they're just saying the stimulus is always specific.

LDS/S(?): Yes.

AD: Yes, and that part we can accept, we can [RC assents, very faint] see that. But what we did [LDS: It's the same--] not see is that somehow epistemology hasn't been confronted. Per-- perception per se hasn't been confronted.

LDS: Now--

AD: Because that's a statement of fact: stimulus, response.

[student assents, very faint]

AH: I don't know what it means to say stimulus-response if this object and the senses are simultaneously [one/two words inaudible]

GA: Yes [few words inaudible] (laughter)

S: Skip. (laughter)

AH: I mean what's the [S simultaneously: Right.] sequence if there's a simultaneous presentation?

LDS: What is the sequence?

AH: If there's a presentation of the senses, the bodily senses, and the rose, it's a simultaneous presentation.

SP (simultaneously): The simultaneous is after the point of knowing.

AD: Why you-- why you hang up on that?

LDS: Well, Andrew, why can't we say--

AD (simultaneously): Why you hang up on that? Andrew, an object-- an object is known, alright? Take it from there. An object is known. You see a rose. You happen to be walking, alright, and a rose grows up right in front of you.

AH: Well, I guess I'm really asking which truth are we talking about, the conventional truth or--

AD: [couple/three words inaudible] don't go that way. We're talking about perception. Don't worry about truth, there isn't any. (bit of laughter)

LDS: We're trying to see what this object is that they're talking about, this real existent object, [few inaudible AH words simultaneous with LDS] and-- and the-- and the knowing of that, how we come to know that. Yes--

DB (simultaneously): This is-- this is prior to the g-- the generic image, this is all taking place before that.

AH: Forgive me Louis but I-- I don't really know what you're talking about. You're talking about-- There's two objects, right? A permanent one and an impermanent one?

LDS: Yes.

AH: Which one [one/two words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): We're not right now talking of-- we're not talking about the impe--

AD (simultaneously): No, well, don't bring in permanent or impermanent. There's an object. Don't worry about whether it's forever or for a moment. There's an object.

AH: We're talking about our experience?

AD: Any object, here-- here's an object. Any object, the book in front of you, any thing, any object.

AH: But I thought we were-- I thought we were trying to discuss the notion that our experience is in some way in-- inadequate.

AD: No, no that's not what we're discussing, we're discussing how do you see a table.

AH: Oh, well then I-- I thought-- I thought we were talking about something else.

AD: No. How do you see an object? How do you smell a rose? What happened? Obviously the smell is coming from the rose, I hope so. Alright, so the specifically characterizable smell of a rose evidently comes from a rose and not from horse shit. (laughter)

S: Buddhist eats dung. (some laughter)

AD: Now what we're saying is, "Yes, that's true." Ok. But it does have to go through the nostril, alright. Now what-- does the nostril interfere with that, does it modify it in somehow? If you say yes, [AD claps hands] then the object is not direct.

AH: If the nostril interferes?

AD: Yes.

S: It can be direct for the nostril, right? (laughter)

S: But indirect for the brain processes.

LDS (simultaneously): But what they're saying is the nostril-- nostril does clearly (more laughter) react to or--

AD: Yes, it [LDS simultaneously: It does delimit your--] reacts to but doesn't smell!!!

LDS: But-- d-- oh. (bit of laughter, student words) Well you-- what-- you're implying that you have to bring in--

AD (simultaneously, intensely): Smell is a form! You see an object, that's a [LDS simultaneously: Right, ok.] form, you smell it, [student assents] for the dog, his world of forms is smells!! [LDS: Yes, ok.] Alright, you hear something, that's a form too. A form doesn't have to be a circle in space. A form could be any one of these things.

LDS: But you're saying this form is coming from the object.

S: Uh-hm.

AD: Well--

LDS: Is this, I mean, what you're trying to--

AD: The f-- yes, the smell of the rose is coming from the object, but the point we're making is that there's something in between. Would you mind reading that quotation again and you can see the difficulty that they're faced with. You don't mind, do you? Maybe the one you read about-- [short pause] Because I thi-- I-- I know they have something worthwhile to say, especially with this notion of the generic images, because if they said it, when was it, 1500 years ago, they're that much ahead of a lot of other schools.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 122, GA reading]: "One can posit as its object of comprehension the reddish colour; however, the final nature of its object of comprehension is the colour of fire. The colour red is only the measure of the appearance of the object and not the measure of its actual status."

GA: I-- I say it's from another quote, pull it out.

AD (simultaneously): Yes, yes, go ahead, use it.

GA (simultaneously): You know I think there's another distinction they're making here and that is the red from the fire, and they're di-- distinguishing the direct cognition of the form red as dependent on the form fire.

SP: Yes.

AD: Alright, but (read/we)--

GA (simultaneously): So that's mixed in to this [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Yes. Alright, then read the other [GA simultaneously: Ok.] quotation.

GA: Ok.

LR: Do they mean the element, Chip?

GA: No, the-- an act-- you know, you see a fire and you see red but you haven't gotten-- you've gotten there, you've apprehended red but you haven't apprehended the fire itself. Ok.

SP: But you're just saying they didn't apprehend the red itself either, they apprehend the image [student assents, very faint] red.

GA: Right, I mean yes. You can [LDS simultaneously: The ap--] say that too but ul--

LDS: The appearance that's apprehended does not exhaust the actual nature of the object.

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1980 1106a Ends; Side 2 Begins)

GA: --child, that when you become familiar with the object, you're able to directly perceive not only the object but its utility. Now of the father--

AD: Yes you're saying that they perceive a function, I [GA simultaneously: Yes.] know. Say the [GA simultaneously: Ok.] form of a man, make it [GA simultaneously: Alright.] easy for us because we're simpletons.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 122, GA reading]: "In [the] Sautrantika system, the form of the father [GA reads: of a man] has to exist as the mode of being, or the status, of the object…"

AD: So this man is a mode of being and is the status of the object. Ok? Go ahead.

GA (simultaneously): Yes.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, p. 122, GA reading]: "…and if it did not so exist, right with the object, the sense direct perceiver in the continuum of the son apprehending it could not arise."

GA: And if the form man didn't exist right there with the man, the person apprehending man could never have the-- the perception could never have arisen, there was-- there would be no-- [AD simultaneously: Alright (one/two words inaudible)] no stimulus.

AD: Yes, so the man, the very specificity of this object, man, alright, resides in that object [GA simultaneously: Right there.] and is that object, it's a mode of being of that object.

GA: Yes.

AD: Yes, ok.

GA: Yes.

AD: Alright, go on.

GA: Ok.

Lati Rinbochay, Elizabeth Napper [Mind in Tibetan Buddhism, pp. 122-123, GA reading]: "The son's [GA reads: person's] eye consciousness is itself able to induce ascertainment with respect to this connection -- the relationship between the non-arising of itself if the final nature of the father's [GA reads: man's] form did not exist right with the object…"

GA: Is he saying that the sense-consciousness is able to understand, right in the sense-consciousness there's an understanding that if there weren't something really there, the perception could not arise. [student assents] In other words, an animal-- it's like animal faith. There's an understanding right in that sense-consciousness that that form must exist in some way beyond itself, in some mode. That form must be some mode of the being of the object.

AD: [few words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): Ok. So that, as we started tonight, I was mentioning that I thought or speculated that whatever this-- this object is that you're saying has this form in itself, [GA: Uh-hm.] this existential object has the form in itself, which is exactly not the form that I directly perceive. It's-- In other words, we infer or we presuppose the form is in the existential object to account for the change of contents of consciousness, ok. But, what I apprehend is the form that would be-- that would be appropriate to the form in the object. You know what I'm saying Chip, that--

GA: Yes, I know what you're saying but I think--

LDS: There's a copy in me, let's say.

GA: Uhhh--

[short pause]

LDS: Isn't this similar to the--

RC: I don't think you need a copy for this. I'm-- just that like-- that the rods and cones, for example, in the eyeball are capable of responding like in a-- in a direct pattern to directly shaped images. They don't need to have previously responded that way or they don't need to have known that in some time in the future they would respond that way. Like that form doesn't have to be like actually present in them in any way.

LR: But then all-- all [LDS simultaneously: Yes.] our perceptions would be exactly the same though. Given an object we'd all perceive it the same.

S: Yes I--

RC (simultaneously): No it's even just the opposite of what you were doing.

LR: Well, from what you just said. I mean I-- I'm not-- from what you just said, our perception of an object would all be the same. I don't understand if what they're saying is that-- I mean I understand that what they're saying is that the form is-- the specificity is in the object.

RC: They don't have a perception yet.

LR (simultaneously): But what is the perception?

RC: They don't have a perception.

LR (simultaneously): Is it of that [GA simultaneously: That--] form?

GA: No, perception--

LR: --is a modification of that form?

GA (simultaneously): The perception is of a modification of the sense-consciousness. It's not a perception of the form in the(--) [S simultaneously: They'd say the sense--] supposed "x" in the object.

LDS: The [LR simultaneously: (No but I think--)] form in the object modifies the sense.

GA: They're just saying [LDS simultaneously: You got--] that-- [RC/S(?): Right.] that they believe that there is a form there. And that not only do they believe it, it's inherent in the sense-consciousness.

LR: Yes.

GA: There's an [LR simultaneously: It's available. There could be--] understanding, instinctual, within or innate, yes.

LR (simultaneously): I understand, but what do we perceive is my question.

LDS: What we perc--

GA (simultaneously): We-- what we perceive-- well we--

SP: There's a lot of perceptions, there's a [one inaudible GA word simultaneous with SP] perception-- I mean, they [AH(?) simultaneously: That's (one word inaudible)] take the sense as being part of you so there's-- there's the sense-perception, then--

LR (simultaneously): Right, I understand that in a direct perce-- in a [SP simultaneously: Right, right.] immediate pure perception, [SP simultaneously: Right.] you'd actually perceive the form in the object.

SP: Well, the sense perceives but then-- then the psyche perceives. Then there's a blending of the psyche and the-- and the-- you know, in terms of like reflective conceptions, there's that kind of perception. I mean, there's a-- there's a whole host of perceptions that are taking place at different-- different stratums, different levels.

S: Uh-hm.

LDS: But just talk--

S (simultaneously): So what are you asking?

RC (simultaneously): (May I (say/ask you)) more of what I was trying to get at?

LDS: Yes, go ahead.

RC: It seems to me that they want to allow for the sense-- what allows the sense-consciousness to be direct and new is that it has-- it can respond-- it can have a specific response to a specific object. [student assents] Just as that object never has been and never will be again, so that specific response never has been and never will be again.

LDS: Good.

S: Yes.

RC: Maybe you could talk about the ordering of generic images and stuff like that with references to forms in the soul or whatever.

LDS: That's what I was driving at Randy.

RC: Yes.

LDS: Ok.

RC (simultaneously): But it seems that the specificity of the sense-experience is what you're really allowing for here.

LDS: But to make that intelligible to me, or for us--

RC (simultaneously): Ok. Fine.

LDS: Ok, now you speak of this existential situation of the object, the real existential object, and the real existential body or organ, that-- that there (are) some kind of interaction between those two, which I really don't appreciate, or we really don't-- it's kind of useless in a sense. I mean I hate to speak that crudely but-- It's only after the generic image is elicited that I can then become or-- or have an appreciation, even if I have to determine it and delimit it, at least then I can begin to relate to what-- whatever the experience has elicited in me. That's the function of that generic image. It makes intelligible that indeterminate [RC: Yes.] knowledge that was prior, so that then we can talk about some kind of useful-- useful knowledge.

RC: Yes, it's as if they're saying that sense continually confronts the novel. When you get into your reflective consciousness you're always dealing with dead things.

S: Yes.

S: Yes.

S: I once-- yes.

DB (simultaneously): I think my problem is--

LDS: Is that too simplistic?

GA: I wouldn't say they were dead, I think-- I would say a little bit of the opposite of what you just said in both directions, I--

AD: [couple/three words inaudible] (laughter)

LDS: Double reverse?

AD: Go ahead.

GA: I mean on the [one/two inaudible RC words simultaneous with GA] one hand, even in the sense-consciousness there is some u-- u-- utilitaria-- I mean there's some--

LDS (simultaneously): Yes, I didn't mean to make it a blanket--

GA: Well, you can know things are wet or know that fire burns and [student assents] things like that which are worthwhile. (some laughter) But-- and then on the other hand, I don't think that the-- the generic images are completely dead. I [RC simultaneously: But (couple/few words inaudible)] think that their point would be in fact that they're alive, that they're creative.

LDS: They are the living image.

RC: I was thinking more like Moon and (Sun).

GA (simultaneously): That the living meaning and expression of the object comes, is brought out in the generic image, although once you've had one it seems to get-- you get stuck with it. Maybe it's-- it's dead from-- in a way, in the sense that you're stuck with it.

S: Do they say the meaning comes out in generic image?

LDS: The intelligibility.

GA (simultaneously): Well this generic image is the intelligible. I mean it--

DB (simultaneously): But it's also, from their perspective, the sensibility.

S: [one word inaudible]

LDS: What is, what is?

GA (simultaneously): I mean it's not--

DB: What we see. I mean, according--

GA (simultaneously): No, that's a mixture. When you see-- when the generic image is mixed with the appearance then [LDS simultaneously: That's right.] that's the obscured consciousness. But the sense-consciousnesses by itself is-- could be separated from the generic image, I mean it would be possible.

DB: Yes, but we don't know that.

GA: Well, you could sit down and try. (bit of laughter)

AH: Isn't it separated in regard [DB simultaneously: Yes but don't--] to the fact that it's not ever mistaken?

LDS: What isn't?

AH (simultaneously): Sentence-- Well [one/two words inaudible]

GA (simultaneously): Now it could be-- well--

AH: This ultimate mind which is never mistaken with regard to the object appearing to it. In all other instances there's a possibility that it would be mistaken in regard to the object here.

GA: (Well/Or) except the other-- for the other ultimate or prime cognitions.

S (faint): Right.

LDS: Uh, if--

GA (simultaneously): We shouldn't go-- go back to it.

AH: I thought that was one of the key points, that there's (a fact) whether or not it was mistaken in regards to what was appearing.

LDS: What's this, the generic image?

AH: Well the consciousness, whatever level we're talking about.

SP: Well--

LDS: Well, it can be-- I mean--

S: Could we--

LDS: You're asking what the mistake is.

AH: Well they're saying you can separate the generic and your conceptual consciousness that follows it from the existential situation. Because on the one hand, the existential situation, there's no possibility of mistake regarding the appearance. In all other instances, possibility of mistake is-- is a character.

LDS: Yes. Oh I think that would be-- Bert--

BS: I was just wondering how this would be explained, if it's a good question. If the form-- if the forms of the object that are known exist as different modes of being of that very object that is known, how could that be any other than the very sense-organs that are perceiving?

LDS: First of all you say "exist as different modes of that object".

BS: Once more?

LDS: You said the phrase, "If these forms exist as the different modes of that object," which I don't understand that--

BS (simultaneously): Yes, that you perceive. Your mode of perception picks up a-- a form of the object that they say is inherent in the object as different modes of its being, or they said a mode of its being. (Whether/When) you take each sense-organ individually then they're modes of its being, before this generic image which will interfere (with that/without) [one word inaudible]

LDS: See, I wouldn't say the form is a mode of the being of the object, I would say it is the being of the object. That's not really all that important, go ahead with what you're--

BS: Well, that might amount to the same thing, but wouldn't the sense-organ itself then be part and parcel of this object in its, [GA simultaneously: Yes, the physical--] quote, "original form".

GA: I think you're probably-- Yes, the physical sense-organ would seem to be an extension of the object, otherwise it-- Is that what you're saying?

BS: Well I--

GA: That the sense-consciousness might screw up?

BS (simultaneously): This is just my personal view, I couldn't call it an extension, I'm saying the object itself, you may call it a modification, or they-- apparently they're calling it a modification. But this modification would have to be like one of the possible modes that this object has inherent within itself. [GA simultaneously: Actually (couple/three words inaudible) saying.] Otherwise it couldn't just be perceived differently.

AH: Bert that's what I was trying to say earlier, the simultaneous nature, object in the [one word inaudible]

GA: No what--

LDS (simultaneously): They're simultaneous but I don't think we could say, as Chip was--

GA: Yes, I don't think so either, yes.

LDS (simultaneously): You can't say that one's an extension of the other.

GA (simultaneously): We're sort of importing the point of view of the Hidden Teaching.

BS: Well I didn't say it was an extension.

LDS: No, I know, I was just correcting--

GA: I'm saying.

AD/S(?) (very faint): Uh-hm.

LDS: But they're really discrete.

BS: What?

LDS: The-- the organ and its object.

BS: Why?

AH: Yes, I would ask why.

LDS: Why are they discrete?

AH: I see no reason--

AD (simultaneously): They better be, otherwise you won't be able to see anything else.

S: [few words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): We spoke of them before as existential-- existenti--

AD (simultaneously): Once you see red that's all you ever going to see.

GA: Yes. [few words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): We spoke of them as existential units, you know.

BS: But what is that? And how does that contradict it?

LDS: I mean, [S(?) simultaneously: You would see (couple words inaudible)] isn't your body and the organs of your body as much an existential production of the forces of Nature as the object? I mean, don't you have as much a-- a right to existence as the object?

AH: The senses do. I may not, I may not.

LDS (simultaneously): That's what I'm talking about, the sense, the body. I'm talking about that part of you, the existential part of you, that you're-- you know, that's out of your hands.

AH: Saying your body belongs to Nature, I would agree.

LDS: Ok. What about the object?

AH: That also belongs to Nature.

LDS: Does that make them the same or does that make them distinct?

AD: (I see/Bless you).

AH: They both belong to Nature.

LDS: But that doesn't make them identical.

AH: But they certainly have some sort of similar status.

LDS: Oh, they have a similar status, I'll agree with that. But they obviously can't be d-- they can't be identical or there's no relationship between the two. You got one thing then.

AD: Alright Louis, we had enough of this now. (bit of laughter)

HS(?): That's what you think.

AD: I think, I think the point is made clear. By point here I mean the difficulties. That's all we can do. Now you can be a Sautrantika and believe like they do or you can be yourself and try to understand what they're saying and go on to the next phase.

LDS: So are we satisfied with what they mean by this object?

AD: Well obviously we are satisfied because we can't understand. (laughter) But, we do understand [LDS simultaneously: No--] to some extent. We see the difficulty. We see how they're trying to solve it. And each one has to go from there.

LDS: But I think what we've said tonight, and you know, I'm not saying we've resolved it, no, we haven't, but I don't think it's anything novel in terms of other work that we've done, you know. The--

AD (simultaneously): Oh no, it's nothing novel.

LDS: The notion that the form is in the object, inherent in the object, and I was trying letting, you know, you--

AD: Insofar that there's-- there's an object, naturally it's the product of the cosmos and anything that's a product of the cosmos will be produced according to the intelligibility that's in the cosmos. Yes, yes, we got it. But the point of-- the confrontation with epistemology is all I'm concerned with.

LDS (simultaneously): Yes, the epistemological thing [student assents] is always a problem.

AD: Is there an input of the form of man? Or is it, like sometimes it seems to be suggested there, that the totality of sensory experiencing which goes on from the function of the sense-organs builds up within us, through the psychic additions, what we would call a generic image and what we-- that these gene-- generic im-- images are the-- the-- let's say the outcome of all that sensory experiencing, and from that-- those generic images which are our private world, aright, we, so to speak, perceive those generic images when we're looking at an object because that's what's most applicable.

LDS: Yes, that's the point.

AD (simultaneously): [one/two words inaudible] epistemology, that's [LDS simultaneously: It--] all.

LDS: It's the most applicable, why? Because if you remain back at that direct sense-perception, that situation, you don't go anywhere. I mean, there's no-- there's no possibility of having an ex-- of having experience, in terms of making it intelligible, until that generic image is built up and functioning. Now, maybe at a later stage, eventually you want to transcend that situation.

AD: Yes.

LDS: But first you have to go through the building up of generic images and making intelligible your direct experience.

AD: To yourself, uh-hm. Alright tho-- that's all I would like, I would like that kind of a discussion. After you read, you know, a page of Tibetan-- that English-Tibetan you got in the Buddhist [one word inaudible] (some laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Topic(s)? (more laughter)

LDS: I like some of Mookerjee's quotes be-- just be-- sin-- not because they're right necessarily.

AD (simultaneously): Well, you know-- no, Mookerjee is quite astute, I'm not--

S (very faint): Yes but--

LDS: Not because he's right, but [BS/AD(?) simultaneously: Still (one word inaudible)] because at least he's more clear I think.

AD (simultaneously): No, he's quite astute.

AH: Anthony?

AD: If you could read through that book, he's really astute.

AH: Anthony, could you say once again how this view avoids the confrontation with epistemology?

AD: Because the modification of the sense-organs, first of all-- the problem we have here is that sensation itself is never explained and this is the whole problem.

LDS: Yes, I never found an explanation.

AH (simultaneously): Just-- you're not distinguishing between pure sensation or--

AD: No, I'm not distinguishing, I'm just saying, sensation is never explained, alright.

S (faint): Yes.

SP: That just seems to be the starting point. They don't like go into how-- the "how", the-- of the stimulation.

AD: Can bring-- bring about these sort of additions, you know, the [SP assents] sum. [RC simultaneously: (Which one?)] But, I think the worthwhile thing that you can see the introduction of a subjective factor in knowledge, alright.

S (simultaneously): Yes, I agree.

LDS: And then the Chittamatrins are going to really drive that point home.

AD: See, I wouldn't disagree when they say that the form of the man is built up by the cosmos and that that has a form, a specificity, etc., and all that. It's a-- [student assents] It's just how is the transmission-- if it's outside the sense-organ, how does the transmission take place? If the form is outside the sense-organ, how does it get inside the sense-organ?

LDS: Yes.

S (faint): David knows.

AD: But if we make these things clear, that's fine. Then we go on to the next position, see what-- what else they have to say. Go ahead David.

DB: I'm-- I'm still not clear whether by "generic image" here they mean to include just the thoughts that I might have about a sensible object or that I say, "Well that pillow's blue, it's about four years old, and it's on the floor." Now that would all be part of my generic imagery, conceptualizing innate mind. But it seems that--

AD (simultaneously): No that-- conceptual [GA simultaneously: Those are thoughts about the thoughts.] entity in your mind is not generic image.

LDS: No, that's within the generic image.

GA: Those are thoughts about the thought.

DB: Right, ok, alright, [couple inaudible GA words simultaneously with DB] but it's still, it's still--

AD: Good, very good, that's it, that's what I want.

LDS: Yes.

DB: It's still part of the realm of conventional truth within that distinction in there, alright?

S (simultaneously): Yes, right.

DB: And my problem is, what do they mean by--

GA: In fact, they go into a long discussion about verbalization about the image. (GA laughs a bit)

DB: Right, ok. But now are they calling this thing here which-- Is that-- I mean that blue that I see-- I mean, without characterizing it, the blank phenomena that I'm actually (associated/associating)--

AD (simultaneously): I don't know what you said.

DB: Now what'd I say?

AD: No, I don't know, I don't know what you said, "that blank phenomena".

[couple students at once, few words inaudible]

DB (simultaneously): Alright, well--

GA: [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): You just stopped me cold. (bit of laughter)

GA: In a blue pillow.

DB: Say that the blue pillow, alright--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, the blue pillow.

DB: --without me knowing enough to be able to say "the blue pillow," now, is--

AD: Wait a minute, (some laughter) what are you talking about?

AH/S(?) (faint): I think we're just talking about--

DB (simultaneously): Alright. I'll read the quote again because that's where it comes from and that's the basis of my lack of understanding. They say--

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 94, DB reading]: "A thought consciousness…"

DB: Now that's what I'm operating with [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): That's a reflective consciousness.

DB: Right.

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 94, DB reading]: "…is mistaken with respect to the object appearing to it, i.e., a generic image, because a generic image of a house [DB reads: pillow], for instance, appears to be an actual house [DB reads: pillow]."

DB: Ok now, I know enough to distinguish between "I have a thought in my mind of a pillow," I'm not going to say, "Oh well that's a real pillow," alright. But I will say-- well, take this one if you want, "This is an actual pillow," (some laughter) alright. I'm going to say--

AD (simultaneously): The blue that you see is a generic image and that simply means that it is your own psychic tissue that you are [GA assents] perceiving.

DB: Right. That's [GA simultaneously: They would--] what I-- that's-- Ok.

AD (simultaneously): That's a generic image.

DB: That's what I thought they were saying. Ok.

AD: And that gets externalized as the world that you see. Let me-- let me repeat what we said last week. As a child you have an oceanic psychic mind. It spreads out to assimilate the environment in which it finds itself. As it assimilates this environment, there is a variety of associations, feelings of various nuances, that come into you and structuralize your psychic substance, alright? This psychic substance is the matter of the world which you spread out in front of you as, so to speak, the product of that. This is what you perceive. This psychic substance is what envelops or gives you the object that you call the blue pillow.

DB (faint): Right.

AD: That's all. That's all he's saying. And that shows how subjective, how much of a suje-- subjective factor they've brought into epistemology. You never, under any conditions, perceive the object directly. And that's the point they're making. So what is it you perceive then?

DB: My own psyche.

AD: Yes, the way it's been assimilating its environment. This is the generic image or the generalities, the meanings, that you're working with.

DB: Ok, now, that-- that being the case, I find it very difficult to postulate any structured activity beyond that as the--

AD (simultaneously): Well then you-- then you mi-- then you (miss/missed) the point.

RC: It's the one you picked up.

AD: Then you just missed the point.

DB: Probably.

AD: When I assimilate psychically the environment I'm in, think of that plastic-- think of it as a sort of plasticity, a malleability that this psychic subs-- stuff has.

DB: Right.

AD: It assimilates what it gets next to. So it imports into itself, alright, let's say, the musk of a tree, the smell, alright. Let's say that smell arouses a certain feeling. It's mixed in with all of this here, alright. It gets dropped somewhere in the storehouse of your own unconscious. Again it comes out when you need it. [short pause; AD slams book shut or slams book on table] You never read your Jung very carefully. [GA simultaneously: Yes (one/two words inaudible)] Because you never come into contact with the object, you come into contact with the modifications of your own psyche that are going on continuously and this is what you call the blue pillow!

DB: Right, and-- and--

AD: No, no, it's not ripe yet for you Dave.

DB: Well, what I don't understand is if this--

AD (simultaneously): This is something you've got to smell out like a bloodhound.

DB: Well it seems to me, all I'm trying to say is that given this-- given the fact that all of our experience is going to take place within the psyche, the images that are built up within the psyche are from prior experience, alright, but whatever, they're going to be characterized by modification of-- of this psychic material. And the psychic material is capable of being apprehended visually and through the tactile senses and so forth [AD simultaneously: Uh-hm.] and so on. I mean, I just don't see postulating an objective existence to the sense-organs beyond that.

AD (simultaneously): Yes, because you want to become a Yogacara now. (AD laughs, laughter)

DB: No, I just-- I'm-- I don't-- I'm not insisting on Yogacara but just based on their presupposition--

AD: Well what was it the psychic was assimilating to begin with then?

DB: Exactly. (some laughter)

S (amidst laughter): Exactly.

AD: That's the point, that's the point.

DB: I mean, what was (it/that)?

AD (simultaneously): That's what I mean when I say there was no confrontation with epistemology. [short pause] This is only a description of what happens. [GA simultaneously: Yes, it's a-- yes.] What's important to understand here is though that your psyche is what you experience. And like Jung pointed out a long time ago, if you believe that the way you understand cognition is cognition, you got a lot to learn. So when you live in a dream world and you experience all these sights and sounds and smells and odors, it's your own psyche. Now think of that psyche, alright, extending and amplified or, let's say, imposing itself on this material energy.

DB: Right.

AD: Ok. It doesn't know material energy, it only knows the way it interprets that material energy. But that material energy has a specificity, a process of its own, [DB: Right.] which can't be confused with another process of its own.

DB: Yes.

AD: Ok.

DB: My only problem is that in trying to equate that material energy with some kind of sensibility prior to this apprehension by the psyche doesn't seem to be justified.

AD: Well why?

DB: Well, I mean it-- it seems--

AD: There's a lower order, according to these people, of the psyche, and that's the sensory.

GA: There's still an appearance.

AD (simultaneously): It is the sensory processes that eventually supply the material which the psyche can build up images from.

SP: Yes, like if the [GA simultaneously: In fact (one word inaudible)] sense-organ is defective, the psyche is going to have defective input on which to build its knowledge.

GA: They [couple inaudible DB words simultaneous with GA] (talk/talked) about the two as being mixed, not as your-- they don't say you only get the psychic, you get the psychic appearance mixed with the sense appearance. I mean they don't--

LDS (simultaneously): I mean there's a difference. They tell you about the example of hallucination. I mean you can see a distinction between something that is-- that is presented to you without any-- any choice on your part and such things as hallucinations, dreams, and so on. There's a big difference.

DB: Well see, I'm not-- I'm not trying to argue for a solipsistic basis for this whole thing. All I'm trying to do is say that since all we know is an interpretation within our psyche of an "x," of this material energy, alright--

AD: But try to remember that the stimulus [DB: Yes.] which affects the sense-organ does have a specific character.

DB: Yes, granted. [couple inaudible SP words simultaneous with DB] I'm not-- I'm not trying to argue about-- I'm not-- I don't disagree with that.

GA: [couple words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): So then what the psyche assimilates has some specificity in it.

DB: Has to.

SP: Why not just call that the world then? I mean what's important-- yes you're objecting to the term 'sensibility', but it seems like if you're going to say "I have experience" why not call the source of your experience the world? I mean--

DB: Oh, yes, ok. See, it just-- it just seems to me that--

AH: That there's nothing under, or nothi-- no need to postulate--

AD: That's exactly what the Yogacara school is going to do. They're going to say, "Well there's no need for that external object, let's get rid of it."

DB: No, it's not that-- I'm not trying to say that there isn't an-- an external, objective, really s-- specifically characterized object. I'm not tr-- I'm-- I don't want to deny that. I mean that seems inevitable. All I'm trying to do is that it seems that-- that the character of that--

AD: Character of what?

DB: I--

S: The external object.

DB: Of this external object. Alright, I mean, to say it's material energy is one thing, to say it's in some sense a visual object is quite another.

[short pause]

S: Well, what do you want to say David, that the posited material energy, that all you can posit is that it's completely indeterminate in nature?

DB (simultaneously): No!

S: No I'm just asking. I really don't know what you were--

DB (simultaneously): No, it's very reasonably specifically determined. Alright? I mean it actually-- there is actually a quality there that your sense-organs are going to be forced to respond to in a very particular way. (It's like--) or I'm sorry.

S (simultaneously): What's your-- what's your question?

AH: David?

DB: What?

AH: Would you say that the sense-organs are part of the generic image?

DB: No.

AH: Well that's the [DB simultaneously: I'm saying-- I'm trying to s--] answer to-- that's the answer to your question.

DB: I'm trying to say that the-- the way they're discussing sense-organs are prior-- are prior--

AD (simultaneously): The way-- the way you see your sense-organs are part of the generic image.

DB: Yes, right.

LDS (simultaneously): That's the point David.

DB: And-- and what I'm trying to say is that the description of the functioning of those sense-organs is within the generic-image. Consequently, I don't see why--

LDS: There's-- I mean-- David, they would admit to you--

AD (simultaneously): David, you don't see why-- [couple/three inaudible SP words simultaneous with AD] Let him finish so we get it over with. You don't see why-- I think you're beginning to see.

DB: No I-- I just don't see why these sense-organs have-- I don't see how they could possibly have anything to do with what I'm familiar with as being sense-organs, that's all.

S: Right.

AD: You don't see-- I-- I didn't hear what you just--

SP: What about if someone pokes you in the eye and you lost vision?

DB: Yes.

SP: Well there's a poking in the eye, he cognized it in the generic image, [DB simultaneously: Right.] but you have no further visual sense.

DB: Right.

SP: So it obviously had something to do with the real sense-organ.

DB: Ok. I'm just trying to understand what's the status of that real sense-organ because, from the way I understand it reading this-- reading this book, it's not that much different from what I ordinarily conceive of it to be. But the power they're giving it seems to be a good deal more than the way I ordinarily conceive it.

AD: Well, just subtract the five senses, [DB: Right.] see if you've given it enough power.

S: Uh-hm.

DB (simultaneously): Ok, but now these five senses aren't physical. Are they?

SP: How could you lose a [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Now, now tell me, what's this got to do, David? [DB simultaneously: I'll-- I--] We're running around in circles.

DB: I'll drop it. Well, I guess what I'd really like to do is understand what they mean by calling the sense-consciousness that functions in my eye, that I'm never directly in contact with, alright, which is going about determining the experience I have, they're calling that the ultimate mind and yet at the same--

SP: An ultimate mind.

DB: An ultimate mind.

AD: Yes.

DB: Alright. And yet at the same time this--

AD (simultaneously): Well imagine just an eyeball, alright, [DB simultaneously: Right, ok.] just an eyeball, alright, going around prick-- picking-- picking up impressions. What would you call it? [DB: See that's--] Wouldn't you call it an ultimate mind if it's some kind of knowing? [DB: See that's--] The concept of mind that you're working with is not a generic concept of mind. You got mind restricted to the use that you understand, again, working with generalities and generic images. 'Mind' is a generic concept. I can say that this one-cell animal which has one sense-organ, alright, is an ultimate mind. And I can say this creature here which has twenty different kinds of sense-organs is an ultimate mind. It's some kind of knowing taking place. You're battering words around.

[short pause]

LDS: It's true David, they are-- they are presupposing this direct knowledge and that is indeterminate. And that's what's-- that's what's bugging you. Why [DB simultaneously: No!] do they posit-- why do they posit that to begin with if that's exactly what we don't apprehend? But we do ap-- they're saying that we do apprehend it. But that is not what we appreciate, we only-- we only turn our attention to the elicited images.

SP: I would think it's only indeterminate from the point of view of psyche.

LDS: I guess that's what they're saying Da-- Sidney, that from our point of view it is indeterminate.

SP: But not from the-- from the point of view of a sense-organ, the sense stimulus wouldn't be indeterminate.

LDS: Right.

SP: It would be indeterminate from what we normally consider our stable--

LDS (simultaneously): From the conventional point of view it's indeterminate.

SP (simultaneously): That's (impermanent).

DB: That's a good point that should be brought up.

RC: In the sense that we can't determine what it really is.

LDS: There's no relationship really anymore, I mean-- There is a relation but it's a relation that we don't appreciate. We only appreciate the triple relation of subject, object, and the interval between or the relation between. But, that's the determined situation that we find ourselves in conventionally that makes sense to us. So the other is called by them the indeterminate, because you then-- you don't have this triple relation of space, time, causality and all that, which I didn't really--

AD: Alright Louis, now do you think you can write all this down? Or at least summarize it?

LDS: Yes I think I remember what (we/was) said here. I'll write it down [couple words inaudible]

S: But Louis--

LDS: But I would like to-- bef-- before we go on I (was/would)--

AD: What you want to do is bring out the perplexities and the complexities of the problem and not a solution to it. Because there may not be any.

LDS: I would like one question, clarification. We came across the same problem when we studied the Hidden Teaching and PB mentions on page 303 at the top in the hard bound copy (laughter) that the image produces our experience and is not produced by our experience, ok. Now, the image that he's speaking of there, I-- I have been paralleling with this notion of generic image. But--

AD: The generic image of what?

LDS: Of any object.

AD: No, that would be the generic image of the cosmic soul.

LDS: Ok. That's the primordial image that PB's speaking of there, not this generic image that can be built up in a lifetime.

AD (simultaneously): No, in the same way, the individual human being, alright, goes through the same process of building up specific meanings through the generic images that he is, so to speak, going through.

LDS: Ok, ok. The pro-- ok.

AD (simultaneously): We don't want to bring that in.

S: Louis?

LDS (simultaneously): The s-- the problem is--

AD: Because they didn't understand the Hidden Teaching, so no sense bringing in another unknown.

LDS: Ok.

AH: Anthony, is that an epistemological solution? PB doesn't avoid--

AD: No, that-- the solution is not there.

LDS: No, there's no solution in there.

AD: Solution's not there, because what you come out with is just the cosmic soul as the knower. [AH/S(?) simultaneously: You mean he--] And that doesn't explain epistemology.

AH: In the Hidden Teaching.

LDS: The pr-- the--

AD (simultaneously): No, the Wisdom.

LDS: The problem is stated in the Hidden Teaching.

AD: Yes.

LDS: The problem is stated, not resolved.

AD (simultaneously): But there again, you see, he approaches it from another point of view. I mean PB is more or less trying to point out that what you do know is what is thought into actuality, and there you can use the word "imputation of thought," alright.

LDS: From the Madhyamika point of view, [HS(?), very faint: Yes, the Madhyamika.] that notion of imputation.

AD (simultaneously): Yes, there-- there thought imputes existence.

LDS: Yes.

AD: But we're talking about at a different level [LDS simultaneously: Yes.] altogether.

S: They're--

LDS: We're staying right in the cosmos.

AD: We're staying in the cosmos as creatures within the cosmos, alright, whether we speak about an animal which has one sense-organ and that's all, the entirety of the animal, or a creature with twenty sense-organs and with a mind, they are both minds, try to remember that.

LDS: Yes.

AD: Because a single-cell animal will feel very insulted if you say it doesn't have a mind. No matter how you turn that word 'mind,' [LDS: Yes.] it is some kind of ultimate knower, [LDS: Yes.] ultimate mind, yes. So they use the word 'ultimate mind' and you see what happens? Their brains blow up. Bring in all these accessory words and you got nothing but confusion. Leave 'em out. [LDS simultaneously: So what--] Soon as you say ultimate truth you know what's going to happen? Everybody's going to think "that which is independent of all human ideation" and out comes a whole definition that they memorized somewhere else.

LDS: So Anthony, what we're saying then is we're within that primordial image, we're talking-- from the Sautrantika point of view, we're within this-- the primordial image. Now we start to begin to talk about the production of the individual, his body, [AD simultaneously: Yes.] his mind and so on working through that body, and we're talking about the objects within that primordial image that are built by that cosmic intelligence, ok? So now we begin to say that the individual going through this build-up of imagery-- in other words, he builds an apparatus, let's say like an apperceptive apparatus, to make intellig--

AD (simultaneously): Bring that cosmos into himself.

LDS: To bring it into himself and make it intelligible.

GA: I think-- they kind of-- when-- they never mention the word 'psyche' or anything like that but they get into a really intricate discussion of how this generic image arises and how--

AD (simultaneously): You got-- you got a quote on that or two?

GA: Oh, this would be all night.

AD: Well [GA simultaneously: (This/His) discussion's ridiculous.] why don't you give us one or two quotes. [one/two inaudible student words] Go ahead.

GA: You're going to--

AD: Give me a quote (Gabriel). (laughter) What the hell do you think [GA simultaneously: Hold on.] the seminars are about?

GA: (Oh no/Hold on). (bit of laughter) Ok, I--

AD: You want a minute or two to find it or--

GA: I could-- Ok.

AD: Go ahead. In the meantime--

GA (simultaneously): If I could just really quickly summarize it and then bring in quotes, because it's--

AD (simultaneously): Go ahead. Ok. [GA simultaneously: I-- I might need different (one word inaudible)] Alright, fine.

S: I try. (S laughing, bit of laughter, student words)

S: David--

S: That's right.

S (faint in background): Think of the interception.

GA: When they start to-- to get involved with the ob--

AD: The only time I used to wear a watch was when I had to go to work and I had to be there at 11 and leave at 7. After that I took the damn watch off. (laughter) Because I can't time my thinking, I don't know how long it's going to take me to figure something out. And I don't want to punch in and punch out.

GA: Um-- Ok. They define-- the generic images that arises they speak of as being defined in its meaning as the opposite of all that is negated. In other words, you have that blue pillow there. Everything else-- the way you understand that that appears to you as a meaning of blue pillow is as-- first of all, this-- within the psyche everything is negated that isn't blue pillow. [AD/S(?), very faint: Uh-hm.] And the positivity of the image blue pillow is-- does not refer to any positive blue pillow that exists because there is no such thing. It is actually the opposite of everything that isn't blue pillow. So they-- they get into this very [one/two word inaudible] process.

AD (simultaneously): So what you're saying is that the psyche has a tremendous selectivity [GA assents] to bring about the appropriate image.

GA (simultaneously): The psyche-- that they rec-- the-- the stimulus comes in and it immediately-- when they say it negates everything that isn't blue pillow, they're saying it relates it to everything in the psyche, the whole psyche is brought to bear. (That) again--

AD (simultaneously): Now, don't you do this in conscious understanding? You're writing somebody a letter and you're trying to express an idea to him. Don't you have to exclude everything else that's irrelevant [GA: Exactly.] and just find the words (for the/that are) appropriate thing? Now doesn't your mind have to do that to find the appropriate images--and by images here we mean any kind of feeling, nuances, [GA assents] impulses--and bring that to bear on the object so that it can give you that object?

GA: Yes. So what-- when they're saying the positivity of that generic image that appears, they speak of as the opposite of the negation of the object, which is the object you end up with as appearing.

AH: Say that again Chip.

GA: Ok. An object appears. How do we understand this? In order to appear, it-- in other-- in order for blue pillow to appear, it has to exclude everything-- Well, let's put it the other way around. Everything that is not blue pillow has to be excluded, right? In other words, the whole psyche, all your imagery, simultaneously, that you've ever built up is brought immediately to bear. [student assents, faint] And that pillow as presented is actually, they say, the opposite from all that has been negated.

AH: Yes. That was the last thing you said?

GA: That the positive appearance of that blue pillow is the opposite of negation. That's just a way of saying that the psyche pr-- produces this image.

AD (simultaneously): Well that's the-- their way of expressing it, you know, that's their way.

GA: But, the reason that logic is important is that it coincides with the logic of how they define the object. The true object, ok, the cosmic object, also is a negation of everything that isn't the object, ok, and also is the opposite of everything that-- that is not the object. So you can get to know, you can reason about that object. Remember, they define the ultimate truth as that which cannot be broken down in reasoning on its own continuum or reasoning on its own entity. So we can say things about the object. We can reason about it by s-- by-- with this reverse logic, that this object, this ultimate truth, is the opposite of its negation. For instance, a negation of the object would be permanence, the opposite of which is-- is dependent arising. So we can say, "That object is a dependent arising." We can say a lot of things about the object. In fact, we can put together the gen-- meaning-generality that's produced within the psyche with that object by seeing that those two logics coincide. That there-- that within the psyche-- let's see-- that there's a parallel process within the logic of the psyche and the logic of the cosmic mind, ok, and that what the psyche imputes to the-- Ok, the-- ok, let's say, the-- [short pause] The hard thing is to put the two together--

LDS: Think I can do it.

GA: --without gotting-- or getting into the chart or something.

AD: Existentially, the cosmic soul produces an object with the same acts of exclusion that [GA simultaneously: Yes, that the psyche--] the psyche builds up a psychic image with the same acts of exclusion in order to give you that object. [GA simultaneously: Right.] It's really not complicated, they-- [GA simultaneously: Yes, it's isn't that complicated.] they insist on making it complicated.

LDS: I think one of the important--

GA (simultaneously): But what I'm trying to say is that they do bring in a way of handling the relationship of the object to the generic image that I think is very-- that there's--

LDS (simultaneously): They're saying there is a utility, there's a valid utility to the reasoning process which is not directly apprehending the existential object. And what you're saying, there is valid realizations that can be had within conventional reflective consciousness about the existential object.

GA: Ok. What I-- yes, and I [LDS simultaneously: That's--] think I'm saying more than that. That the exclus-- the process of exclusion that goes on within the cosmic mind that produces the object, ok, [S: Yes.] is the actual stimulus that goes to the sense-organ and that sets off in the psyche that same process again of exclusion of everything in the psyche that isn't that stimulus which finally presents you with an image. And that image makes you aware of the actuality of that object.

AD: He's saying, [LDS simultaneously: But--] again, that there's a psychic subjective counterpart to the objective psyche's process of creating something.

LDS: Ok, one little emphasis that they put on that, the difference between the negation of the existential object of everything that isn't it and (a/the) negation that the conventional generic image is working with. The one is an explicit negation, an explicit exclusion, that is, the generic image explicitly excludes everything other than the object that it's relating to or that it's trying to apprehend, where the cosmic-- the cosmic soul's production of the object includes the notion of negation of everything other but not explicitly. In other words, the negation that the actual object implies is in-- is like a negation by implication and not so-- or by incident rather than explicit.

[Audio File 1980 1106a Ends]

[Audio File 1980 1106b Begins]

GA: --to other perceivers. Otherwise it would have negated everything explicitly just to this subject. There's-- [LDS: Ok.] if the-- if the object itself explicitly negated, then it could only have one perceiver.

AD: Yes.

LDS: Its negation is an incidental. In other words, it is what it is and by being what it is it-- it incidentally or nec-- necessarily excludes everything else. But, that is not--

AD: Alright, you want [GA simultaneously: Uh-hm.] to say that that's incidental, alright, [GA simultaneously: Uh-hm. But--] and in the psyche [LDS: The psyche--] it's purposeful.

LDS: Yes.

GA (simultaneously): Right. [AD simultaneously: Ok.] But it's that very fact of negation by the object's being what it is, that's the inroad that the psyche [LDS simultaneously: Opens, it opens--] has in order to come-- [LDS simultaneously: To that.] in order to be able to exclude from itself all other contents and come up with something that actually refers to the actuality of the object.

AD (faint): Go ahead.

LDS: And they say we're given this--

GA (simultaneously): And if that object didn't exclude everything else, there wouldn't be that opening for the psyche.

LR (simultaneously): Aren't you saying [LDS simultaneously: Ok.] something else too? I-- I may be wrong but, it seems like what you're at least implying or what could be implied-- inferred from what you're saying is that, the fact that the psyche undergoes the same process of selectivity to come up with an image that, say, the cosmic soul does to create an object, the fact that those two processes are parallel, [GA: Uh-hm.] is what allows for the possibility of correct reasoning or correlation between an image and an object.

LDS: Not quite.

AD (simultaneously): Yes, that's included too.

LR: Is that what [one word inaudible]

AD: Your reasoning participates in cosmic soul's functioning. Ok. Now, the [GA simultaneously: That's (one word inaudible)] next point, ok Louis? What's the next subject?

LDS: The next-- well, that was really chapter 3, "The Notion of Exclusion". (some laughter)

GA (amidst laughter): Well that [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Oh, that was the chapter on exclusion?

LDS: Yes. I mean there's more--

GA (simultaneously): It comes up in "The Two Truths" but [LDS simultaneously: It comes up in there but--] that's-- that's explicated [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): By the way, some of you have read some of these books on psychology where they speak about the objective psyche, the subjective psyche. Maybe you ought to go back and review those things. Because I'm not going to go back and review them.

S: Louis?

LDS: Yes.

S: Could I just ask you a question? What is the object of a mental direct perceiver?

LDS: What is the object of a mental--

AD: That's premature.

LDS: Yes, I think it is too.

AD: Premature. Let's-- [S simultaneously: (Oh ok.)] let's go to the mental perception, alright, and then we go to the conceptual consciousness, alright, and then we try to answer some of those very specific questions but, let's see if we can get some specific-- some outline of their theory.

LDS: Well actually, Chapter 2 was "Permanent and Impermanent Phenomena" but I-- seems like we've talked quite a bit about the-- the impermanent anyway.

[10¼ second pause while LDS flips through pages; faint background student talking]

LDS: Exclusion, let's see what else I've got. [short pause, flipping through pages] Chapter 4 is "External Objects," which again is going to be more of the same. But then-- that's where they get into the minute particles, these partless particles, atoms which make up the external object, ok, compose it. Uh-- [short pause, flipping through pages] Chapter 5, "Consciousness". [20½ second pause, flipping through pages] We could get into, you know, some of their descriptions of consciousness, and there's three-- three stands on that and--

[11 second pause while LDS flips through pages]

AD: Well Sid, what do you think he ought to follow up with after this?

S: (Well--/What?)

AD: Your opinion.

SP: Well, he mentioned several topics that we haven't-- I mean he said they talk about impermanent, permanent and we've gone into impermanent but we haven't gone into their meaning of permanent very much. I mean not that it's a big thing but that's another thing just [one/two words inaudible] [AD simultaneously: Alright.] just--

AD: Permanent, let's cover it at least.

SP: Manifest and hidden phenomena is the topic.

[17¾ second pause; faint background talking/whispering, AD involved]

LDS: Ok. I don't have a lot on that but I-- we had to juxtapose it with some of the other assertions of other schools to-- to kind of get a-- an idea of where the Sautrantikas are coming from on permanent phenomena.

AD: Alright, let's work on that and you could figure on counting on help on some of the other people that are around.

LDS (faint): Ok.

AD: This is not a game of one-upmanship, this is a game we got to understand these things. Otherwise next September I'll leave. I won't be around to be embarrassed. Go ahead, start.

LDS: Ok.

[Transcriber note: The list of chapters above is from Presentation of Tenets, "The Sautrantika Tenet System", by Jang-gya-rol-bay-dor-jay. However, I have no direct access to this text and it seems, based on the limited access I do have and on comments made in the class, that LDS is reading from his own notes, probably on this text. This needs to be checked.]

[Notes, LDS reading]: "The non-Buddhists and the Vaibhashikas [LDS: The earlier school] assert that the permanent phenomena exist forever and this is opposed to the Sautrantika and the later Buddhists who assert that that who's nature does not disintegrate is permanent. So, this definition is drastically different in (implication) because such notions as emptiness or the reality of an object such as a pot exist only for the duration of the occasion of the pot. But the emptiness or reality of the pot does not have a nature of disintegration. Rather, it is a non-affirming negation, it is therefore considered permanent."

LDS: Ok, now that's the Tibetan. What are-- what are they saying here? First, [AD simultaneously: Will you--] the-- the early schools, the early schools are calling a permanent phenomenon something that exists forever.

[Notes, LDS reading]: "…the Sautrantikas and later Buddhists…"

AD (simultaneously): Could you give us an example?

LDS: Uh--

S: Akasha.

LDS: Space, akasha--

AD: Ok.

LDS: Emptiness.

AD: Ok.

LDS: Now the later Buddhists, Sautrantikas and so on, are going to call the permanent that which does not disintegrate. Now, what seems to be the difference in saying this, if something doesn't disintegrate makes it permanent?

LR: Which one is Sautrantika?

LDS: That it does not disintegrate. Ok? Now, they say-- (Give/The) example of a pot: it exists only for the duration of the occasion of the pot. But, the notion of emptiness, for the Sautrantikas, which is considered a permanent phenomenon for them, or permanent, I shouldn't say permanent phenomenon, but a permanent, does not have a nature of disintegration. But, that actual pot that we attribute the emptiness to-- Ok, the pot-- the pot has a duration. The emptiness that we're saying the pot really is, is-- is a non-- Wait, let me say this again. The pot is a disintegrating entity. Its nature is disintegration. It's-- it arises for one moment and disappears the next or is constantly going through the transformations. The emptiness that we attribute to that pot, ok, is not disintegrating. But, that emptiness for that specific pot will only last as long as that pot does.

AH: It's-- it's not disintegrating because it's a non-affirming negative.

SP: It's not disintegrating because it's not in matter [LDS: See--] whereas the pot is a-- is a functioning in matter.

AH: That's what I said, a-- a non-a-- non-affirming negative.

LDS: You don't have a positive entity when you talk about emptiness, for the Sautrantikas. It's a-- it's an--

S: What do they (need that--)

LDS (simultaneously): It's what you come to if-- in reflective consciousness about that object. You say the object is empty. Empty of what? Empty of-- of self-nature.

AH: I understand that.

LDS (simultaneously): Ok, and all that. But that's-- that is not a positive-- what you've come to in the notion of the emptiness of the pot is nothing positive. Ok?

AH (simultaneously): It's not empty of some other existent thing.

LDS: Right. So, this notion of emptiness that we characterize the pot with, the nature of the pot, is-- is a principle that has nothing to do with matter or anything impermanent or anything with the nature of disintegration. But yet we're talking about the emptiness of a specific thing, pot. Ok?

AH: So where is the permanent phenomena, the notion of emptiness?

LDS: The empti-- the emptiness would here be called the permanent phenomenon. But it only lasts for the occasion of that pot, that specific emptiness. [S simultaneously: So for--] So for them there's multiple-- there's multiple emptinesses.

SP: That is also like the examples like they-- I mean they call the generic images permanent.

AH: Occasionally.

SP: Yes. [AD: But--] But see, all permanents are occasional, that's their point, that it's [LDS simultaneously: That's the point.] not-- that it doesn't last forever. So like for instance, the space inside of a pot [LDS, faint: Yes, I was going to (one/two words inaudible)] doesn't disintegrate as the pot does. I mean the pot's disintegrating moment-by-moment. The space inside of the pot isn't in that process, and yet when the pot's broken, the space inside the pot is no longer something that can be pointed to.

AD: Sid, can I ask you this here? If we take the pot, alright, [SP assents] it's the disintegrating pot, alright, [SP assents] that's not what's permanent. Now, this is according to Sautrantikas, right? [SP assents] That's not what's permanent about the pot. What's permanent about the pot is the emptiness.

SP: Yes, that's one--

AD: That's part, that's part, ok?

SP: Yes.

AD: Now, the nature of that-- the emptiness of that pot, is not permanent.

SP: It's only permanent as long as the pot is in existence.

AD: Alright, now could we say it a little differently? Could we say it in a way that we can understand it because this is-- this is like a puzzle now.

SP: Hm. (SP laughs a bit)

AD: Alright, what are they saying?

SP/S(?) (simultaneously): Yes.

SP: Uh--

LDS: Univer-- they're talking about universals.

SP (simultaneously): That-- that the un-- yes. That experience is provi-- is given to a recipient.

AD: Of a pot.

SP: Yes. Or anything in general.

AD: Well let's say a tree, ok?

SP (simultaneously): And that-- yes, yes.

AD (simultaneously): Let's say a tree. [SP simultaneously: And that--] The experience of a tree is given to a recipient. And we know this tree is growing, right, [SP: Yes.] keeps growing, then gets cut off, it's burnt up, and it's gone.

SP: It's given at each instant, like if the-- if it [AD simultaneously: Uh-hm.] were (stopped/stop) given in one, you know, then there wouldn't be a tree but every moment there's a modification of experience. [AD: Uh-hm.] So, these are real-- these are impermanent-- this is impermanent [AD simultaneously: Ok.] phenomena. Now, we get ideas about the trees or we get-- these are relatively permanent images because these ideas aren't in this natural process of continuous presentation. Like for instance, an idea can sit in the psyche for a long [AD simultaneously, faint: Uh-hm.] time and then be recalled. [AD, faint: Alright.] It isn't like that it's continually given as experience of it.

AD: Now, they do not mean, they do not mean that for instance this emptiness which is the permanent pheno-- the permanent emptiness of the disintegrating pot, [SP: Uh-hm.] or-- Let's use the example of the tree. They do not mean that insofar that the tree, which is a phenomena, it's manifesting, it's growing, and then-- [student assents] Alright? They do not mean that the emptiness of that tree is the Idea of Tree.

SP: [one word inaudible] no, no.

LDS (simultaneously): Oh no, no.

GA: No, not at all.

SP (simultaneously): In fact, the--

AD (simultaneously): No I-- I just want to make a real strong contrast.

SP: Yes, they never go outside of experience and yet emptiness is specific, like they say the tree lacks self-existence because it's depending on all these factors and processes. So you could say there's an emptiness of that tree. But as soon as that tree's gone, it would be senseless to speak of the emptiness of the tree because it's-- there's no tree to be empty. So--

AD: So emptiness here refers to the process.

LDS: No.

SP: Yes wait--

AD: Go-- go ahead.

LDS: Emptiness refers to what you have reasoned about that process. In other words--

AD: What you have reasoned.

SP (simultaneously): (No.)

LDS: Yes, it's not a part of the process is the point. It's not part of that existential situation at all. What you've come up with in the notion of emptiness is a negation, not anything positive. So, you know, it's a content of thought, it's a-- it's--

AD (simultaneously): Now, are we back again to saying that the emptiness of the tree are the generic images?

LDS: Yes. Pretty basically I think.

AH (simultaneously): I would [SP simultaneously: No, well--] never say that's the mode of existence of a tree.

SP: See they say-- they'd use emptiness as an example of a permanent phenomena. They also use generic images as examples of permanent phenomena. Like red is a generic image, it's not emptiness, it's real.

AD: Well can't-- can't my reasoning about a tree also be of that nature?

SP: Yes.

AD: And therefore wouldn't that be in itself empty? Now do they mean by empty, like for instance we have-- I have the thought of the table on-- standing over there. [SP assents] When I forget the thought of that table, let's say it sinks into the unconscious, [SP assents] let's use an incorrect mode of speaking, alright. That means that the image or the picture of that table has now become a motion in my psyche. [SP assents] And that's what they mean by emptiness.

SP: I-- I think that-- yes, subjective-- I mean in terms of [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): It's become subjective, that means it's become simply a motion in the psyche, [SP: Yes.] almost equivalent to what Jung says, when a thought is forgotten it is only the outer thing that's forgotten. [SP: Uh-hm.] But the entirety of the psychic activity-- How did he put it? I'm trying to--

SP: I think that the complexity of this line of reasoning about exclusions and negatives and reverses is trying to show that an object isn't just a simple object but it's the result of all this what's unconscious to us workings of the psyche and presenting something that's, you know, based in a relational sense with a-- with these totality of a multitude of factors [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): So then basically we're-- we're back in the old Hindu cradle, right, the vasanas.

LR: I'm sorry, I didn't catch what they meant-- what you said they meant by emptiness. You said something like the subjective process or the perception.

AD: The reasoning that's going on in me about the tree, alright-- On the one hand you have the real phenomenon, the tree itself, which is a disintegrating process, the reasoning that I have about that is what they seem to be referring to as the emptiness aspect of it.

LR (simultaneously): How so? I don't catch it.

AD: Because when the thought of that tree, alright, is no longer persistent in my psyche, it sinks into the psyche as a motion. It's no longer available as accompanying that tree that I perceive now. This is what I've been able to pull out from what you're saying.

SP (simultaneously): But-- well, I know. I-- maybe I'm confused I think.

AD (very faint): Go ahead.

SP: Let me just [couple/three words inaudible] Like-- you say-- you looked at a visible tree and you say the tree is empty because it's the product of a lot of influences.

AD: Yes, of vasanas. They're [SP simultaneously: If someone--] potentialities for experience.

SP (simultaneously): Yes. So the emptiness is in reference to the tree. Like you would say the tree is brown, you also [AD simultaneously: Yes.] say the tree is empty.

AD: Well naturally, there had to be a selected concert of certain vasanas [student assents] that assemble together to make that tree available to me the way it is.

SP: Now if someone chopped the tree down--

AD: Uh-huh.

SP: I'm only saying that from a place of externally, if someone chopped the tree down, you couldn't talk about the emptiness of the tree any more than you could talk about the brown of the tree because there isn't a tree.

AD: Correct.

SP: So that's--

AD: So then what you're talking about is the emptiness of the raw potentialities of experience which presented that tree as a generic image.

SP: You have to say it again please.

S (very faint): Yes, I see.

AD: Basically, all the thoughts or samskaras or tendencies which in the psyche made possible, alright, the accompanying reasoning of that tree, when that tree is burnt and destroyed, alright, the specific vasanic processes that (accompanied/accompany) that appearance are no longer required. [AD snaps fingers] They lapse back into the unconscious, they become part of the motion of the psyche. [SP assents] So that emptiness which accompanied that perception no longer necessary for it, alright, [AD snaps fingers] is empty and is not an emptiness in the sense that it endures but an emptiness that sinks back into the unconscious.

LDS: I think that's a little more profound than their notion of emptiness.

AD: Well then, let me hear it again.

RC: Are you tracing [S simultaneously: Louis?] this one-- are you trace-- tracing like all permanence back to emptiness, is that what you're doing?

SP: No, that's what I was trying to just [S simultaneously: No.] say, that emptiness was a-- an [one/two words inaudible]

DB (simultaneously): No, it's any thought.

SP: Oh.

LDS: Yes, I mean it come-- it's come to through thought.

S (simultaneously): They say that emptiness is imputed by thought.

LDS: Yes.

S: You know? That was sort of accord with what you're saying.

AD (simultaneously): That's what I'm saying, yes, [S: Yes.] yes. Your samskaras are basically empty. So, that kind of thought can impute to the tree some-- something of what its contents are. Because, as I said, we're getting back right to the cradle of Hinduism, the samskaric theory, without which no-- no Hinduism or Buddhism could be understood. What is this, what is this samskara which can come up upon you and compel you to a course of activity or feelings or perceptions despite your will? Let me recommend Eliade, if you didn't read it already, and if you read it go reread it. [Note: See Mircea Eliade, Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, Ch. 1, pp. 41-46.] Now, if those-- if all those accom-- if all those processes which are imputed by thought and in this case, alright, and then when they lapse, alright, they are-- they were empty to begin with. And, when they lapse, alright, then they're no longer any kind of permanent emptiness. It's an emptiness that was just necessary while that experience was gon-- going on.

SP/S(?): Yes.

SP: Are-- I guess-- You-- you're approaching it from the point of view of the psyche.

AD: Yes. Yes.

SP: Seemed like you could approach it from two-- both subjectively and objectively, and that, just as you're talking about singly-- about this process of vasanas, this is what we were talking about this exclusion before, also the world singles out presentations for the consciousness.

AD (faint): Uh-hm.

SP: And so they would say that there's an emptiness--

AD: There too.

SP (simultaneously): --objectively also.

AD (simultaneously): Yes, there too.

LR: What would that be Sidney?

AD: That will be the cosmic soul's functioning and producing a thing. When that thing no longer exists, there's a recollection of it in the cosmic soul. But it is now empty and not applicable to anything specific. It's lapsed.

AH: Was it empty before Anthony, before it lapsed?

AD: Well, if you were the Intellectual-Principle it was empty. If you were a creature with-- within that, it was full.

AH: Full of what?

AD (intensely): Full of what made you be what you are.

AH: But that--

SP: The-- their description of emptiness is the fullness. In that it's a combination of a lot of qualities, it's empty of being-- of standing apart from those qualities that con-- that [student assents] constitute it.

AD: But that again goes back to their epistemology of the generic image. Look how strange it is. You ever read Remembrance of Things Past? He spilled something and he wrote a novel that went on for two thousand pages. (some laughter) You've read Proust, didn't you? Alright, there-- there you can see how the recollection, how memory can compel you to go through certain experiences. Now, after the lapse of these experiences, what happened to it? It's n-- those-- those vasanas which are empty and were accompanying that process, when that-- when that object, that experience, is no-- is gone, they lapse back into the unconscious. They're empty, they disappear now. But while they were accompanying that process, alright, you can refer to them as empty. They're just the potentiality for experience, they're not the experience.

RC: It seems like you're saying they're always empty but sometimes they're empty (of--)

AD: A certain number of these vasanas, alright, or these motions, because that would be a good word because there you can't really impute anything to motion, you get a certain number of these motions, alright, you make a pattern of them and they accompany the experience you have, alright, the experience lapses, [RC assents] they lapse too. But when they were accompanying that experience that was the emptiness accompanying that experience and concomitant with that experience. [GA simultaneously, faint: So the point--] No, I don't think the Sautrantikas [SP simultaneously: I just looked-- I just--] are far from the truth.

LDS: So--

GA: When are-- wouldn't that be their two notions of negation?

AD: Well that-- that-- that is--

GA (simultaneously): I mean you have an affirming negation when the emptiness is referring to--

AD (simultaneously): Well I'm trying to avoid that terminology Gabriel.

GA (simultaneously): Well I'm trying to understand what it--

AD: The exclusion and the negation are all-- are included in the very way I'm speaking, I'm trying [GA simultaneously: I know.] to give Louis that way of speaking.

GA (simultaneously): I'm trying to pull out what-- what-- the way they're included in what you're saying, so--

AD: Well, if you-- if you gather a number of abstract motions together to-- to accompany the process or the experience, this combination of certain motions has to exclude all the other motions.

GA: Sure.

AD: They want to call [SP/GA(?) simultaneously: They--] that the principle of exclusion, go ahead. [SP: (But--/Yes.)] Call it the principle of selectivity, go ahead.

SP: I think maybe that's the meeting point of the psychic reaction and the object is in this-- these inner motions, and when the thing is popped out to an experience that's when it's not the-- that's when the generic image is not the object.

AD: Say it again, Sid.

SP: Well--

AD: Say it again, just repeat.

SP: You know, I have this image of a pillow and the image of the pillow is false in the sense that it's not the real pillow. Now the point upon which this pillow is-- this pillow is singled out in my conscious-- the conscious experience by these inner motions, these inner discriminations. Now, also objectively a pillow is presented and it's sort of the inner motions of the world that-- the meeting point of my psyche and this world is in this realm of the inner motions.

AD: So, we're back, [SP: So--] we're back again then to the subjective psyche, alright, is the counterpart to the objective psyche. And that's very true in art, alright. You can get an inspiration, but if you don't know how, so to speak, to put that inspiration in a certain mode that it draws out the necessary vasanas within you, alright, to properly describe or depict that inspiration, you got no art. That's how basic it is.

SP: Uh-hm.

AD: Yes. Imagine that--a great work of art is selecting the vasanas that will respond to it.

[short pause]

LDS: So Anthony--

RC: It sounds like they're saying that the very stuff of like this generic images is empty in the sense that it's neither the--

AD: It's no thing.

RC: Right, it's neither the form nor consciousness.

AD: It's no thing, yes, it's no thing.

RC: And yet--

AD: We're talking about the psyche, yes.

RC: It provides a base in which those two can somehow--

AD: Come together.

RC: Come together.

AD: (Good.)

SP: That's where in the Tantric system I think they talk about the inner and outer airs, sometimes talk about these-- this inner and outer motility that's, you know, it's bringing out into some crystallized final form, you know, that's selecting image.

AD: Louis, are we getting a picture of what's going on or do I-- do I misunderstand them?

LDS: Ok, let me just go over-- I think I'm beginning to follow your explanation now. They speak of, you know, the occasion or the base for this emptiness and we're talk about example of the tree, ok. The existential tree, this process, is-- you know, its growth, maturity and decay, ok, is empty. The process was empty. But it was a specific process that was empty. So you're saying that the vasanas that--

AD (simultaneously): No, no, no. No--

LDS: Wait a minute.

AD: Start again, start again.

AH (simultaneously): Process-- I'm sorry.

LDS: There's a-- there's a specific tree out there that I'm looking at, existential tree.

AD: A real tree, ok.

LDS (simultaneously): It's in-- it's in this motion, it's in this process. Ok. Now the tree we say is empty. Empty of what? Well, empty of being any kind of--

AD: No, I wasn't talking about the tree as empty. If I follow what Sid was saying, what is emp-- the emptiness that accompanies the object which is let's say the production of the cosmic soul, and that's a process, I'm not worried about that.

LDS: Ok.

AD: What is empty are the inner thought-processes or vasanas within me which (accompany/accompanied) that.

LDS: Ok, you're right.

AD (simultaneously): That's what's empty.

LDS: See, I don't know if that's-- I mean I follow your explanation but I'm not su-- it's hard to relate it to what I've been reading.

AD: Alright, then let's bring it out. Let's try--

SP (simultaneously): I thought there was an inner and an outer emptiness, like the psychic emptiness that you were talking about and the-- and the objective emptiness in the fact that the world has the same selective process.

AD: Going on, yes.

GA: Well see I think that that emptiness they wouldn't speak about until you got to a yogic direct perceiver who could perceive that type of emptiness.

AD: Let's leave out yogic direct [GA simultaneously: Well--] perceivers, [LDS simultaneously: Yes.] let's keep that--

GA (simultaneously): That's saying that that g-- the generic emptiness-- that isn't the generic emptiness.

AD: It's not generic emptiness.

GA: The generic emptiness is a thought of-- a thought about it. It's not a thought about but--

LDS: It's a-- it's a part of what you've come to through--

GA (simultaneously): [one word inaudible] it-- it's a-- a realization of space or emptiness as an image of something, like the space in a pot or--

AD: Oh come on, you got to give me better examples than that.

SP: Well the topic that we [couple inaudible GA words simultaneous with SP] started out was the to-- (well/wait--) there's two topics that are con-- conflicting here. We started out with a topic of permanence versus imperm-- what relative permanence was, that that's a-- you break a pot and the space inside a pot is an example of a relative permanence. And only then-- now we're talking about emptiness. And I think you're getting confused going back and forth and--

LDS: Well I brought the no-- the example of emptiness in as a-- as a permanent phenomena, ok.

AD (simultaneously): Alright, then let's go over that section again that you did Louis.

LDS: Ok, I want to read on [few inaudible AD words simultaneous with LDS] farther from that.

AD (intensely): Look, try to understand this. I'm not committed to any school. I got to think these things out myself, I got to have my own terminology. I don't want to memorize another thousand words. My vocabulary's too big now.

AH: Say Louis?

LDS: Yes.

AH: Could you rere-- reread that part about why--

AD (yelling from back): Let him repeat the whole thing!

LDS: Let me read this through, I di--

AH (simultaneously): Just the thing about a non-affirming negative?

LDS: Yes, I'm going to get into that.

AH/S(?) (very faint): Ok.

AD: Non-affirming negative. You see what I mean?

LDS: Ok, the [couple inaudible AH words simultaneous with LDS] earlier schools-- the earlier schools and other non-Buddhist schools assert that permanent phenomena exist forever, eternally. That's their-- this--

AD (simultaneously): Give me a s-- give me an example.

LDS: Space, universals [one word inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): How about vasanas!?

LDS: Vasanas. I don't know about vasanas.

AD: Why, isn't it beg-- beginningless ignorance?

LDS: Yes but ignorance can end for the--

AD: But it exists forever! It ends for you.

LDS: Yes, I see.

SP: That's the stand they would take within you like, but they don't talk about forever. I mean that's when they distinguish their permanence from other philosophy's permanence because they say other philosophy-- about-- let me [one word inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): Yes, they talk about universals as not their school. [SP: Ok.] In other words--

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 95, SP reading]: "They should not be confused with the permanent, partless, independent universals of other philosophic systems. The permanence of a generic image is that of occasional permanence."

AD: Look, [SP simultaneously: They're working (couple words inaudible)] look, [LDS simultaneously: The point is--] they're saying, they're saying something like this, aren't they? They're saying the thought which lapses is permanent.

SP: Yes.

AD: It didn't-- it wasn't annihilated.

LDS: And it [SP simultaneously: Right.] doesn't have-- it's-- it's not constituted by this notion of-- of disintegration as the existential object is.

AD: Yes, [LDS: Ok?] that's what we're saying. We're saying that when you have an experience, after the experience, boom!, it goes back, the samskara endures.

LDS: Ok, I agree, I think [S simultaneously: Yes.] that follows, that--

S: And the sa-- and the samskara maintains the same nature until it's-- until it's recalled again.

AD (simultaneously): Until it's brought up again and--

S (simultaneously): Yes, so while--

AD: Yes [couple words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): And while it's latent it's permanent in that it undergoes no modification in its latency.

SP: Yes, yes, I think that's right.

LDS (simultaneously): Ok, that's like what they mean by occasional permanence. But that samskara can be modified, to some ex-- you know--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, don't worry about that, that's-- [LDS simultaneously: That's what they're going to--] that takes a Manvantara.

SP: But I-- I think what would distinguish this from other schools is that when the person died, those generic images which were permanent went also, because they're only speaking from the person's--

AD: Yes.

LDS: That apperceptive organ is--

AD (simultaneously): But from our point of view they would say, "No, they go into the storehouse, [LDS: Yes.] humanity's storehouse."

SP (simultaneously): Yes, yes, that in Jung--

LDS: Yes. But they want to stick pretty much to individuals.

AD: Ok, good enough.

BS: Well how would that thought be empty? In that--

LDS: No, see, that's the point Bert. The notion of emptiness is [few whispered inaudible student or AD words simultaneous with LDS] one thing; the nature of these generic images is another. That's where I think we're getting a little bit mixed up. I brought up the notion of emptiness as an example of a permanent phenomenon for the Sautrantikas. And I talked about it as-- It's a-- it's a phenomenon or a principle that comes by way of reasoning, the reasoning on your experience. If you take an object, I don't care what object you're speaking of, or yourself, you come to the realization that there's an emptiness about every existent thing that you know because you see it's a con-- a-- uh-- a result of processes that are ongoing, it never stands still for one moment. Therefore it's empty. But see, that's a realization within reflective thought.

AD: Yes.

LDS: That notion of emptiness for them is a notion as the-- that comes from the result of reflective thinking. It's not the emptiness that the Madhyamikas and--

AH: Prasangikas.

AD: No don't-- we won't worry about them, we won't worry about them.

LDS (simultaneously): But I'm just saying.

AD: Yes.

LDS: There's a distin-- a big distinction between these two notions of emptiness.

AD: But this notion that comes up in reflective consciousness, is that the functioning of vasanas too?

LDS: Oh definitely, yes.

AD: Then isn't that, so to speak, empty?

LDS: Yes.

GA: Yes.

LDS: They would say that.

AD: Back again.

S: Uh-hm.

AH: Empty because it's permanent?

AD: It cannot be annihilated.

AH: So they're speaking of emptiness in this school as--

AD: Did you ever try to grab a vasana? What did you use, a-- a fish hook? A net? Let me know, because I'd like to try.

AH: So they're speaking of emptiness in a very different way than some of the later schools.

AD: Well I-- that's why I'm not worried about later schools, I'm only worried about Sautrantika now, to understand them.

AH: Seems that they're saying--

AD (simultaneously): I don't want to get caught up in an a hu-- in words.

LDS: Maybe I should read through this again and see if--

AD: Please. Go ahead Louis.

LDS (simultaneously): --we can make a correlation.

AD: You got the patience, we got the time.

LDS: Ok. Ok so, the other earlier schools assert a permanent everlasting object or phenomenon for their notion of permanence. Sautrantikas are going to talk about--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, the school-- the other schools--

LDS: Vaibhashika and not-- other non-Buddhist schools.

AD: Yes--

LDS: Samska-- Samsk-- Samkhya--

AD: Yes--

LDS: Yes.

AD: What do they do?

LDS: They talk about this permanent phenomenon the way they describe it.

AD: They talk about an object.

S: No, they have three permanent objects, Vaibhashika. Space or akasha, which they say undergoes no modification, therefore is permanent. And-- and it-- it's [one/two words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): But I'm asking, what [S simultaneously: Yes.] are they talking about when they say permanent object?

S: Are--

LDS: The Sautrantikas or earlier schools?

AD: No, the Sautrantikas, what are they talking about?

LDS: They're talking about occasional permanence. They're not talking about anything everlasting. Ok, so--

AD (simultaneously): They're talking about this ashtray?

LDS: No.

RC: No I--

AD (simultaneously): What are they talking about?

RC: They're talking about the ashtray I experience and the one I'll remember tomorrow.

LDS: They're talking about generic image. With the-- they're talking within the generic image of all these im-- of all these permanent-- permanent phenomena.

AD (simultaneously): Start again Louis.

RC (simultaneously): The one you picked up is not permanent.

AD: Start again Louie.

RC: Yes. It's already gone.

LDS: They-- their definition of an impermanent or a permanent phenomena is that whose nature does not disintegrate.

AD: Alright. What was the Sanskrit word, you remember?

LDS: No, [S simultaneously: Yes.] I don't have it down here.

S: (You don't?)

AD (simultaneously): Asamkrita?

S: Yes, asamskrita. A-samskrita.

AD: That-- Alright, go ahead.

LDS: Ok, this is different from the earlier definition that the other schools give. Then I use the example.

[Notes, LDS reading]: "…because such notions as emptiness or the reality of an object such as a pot exist only for the duration of the occasion of the pot. But, the emptiness or reality of pot does not have a nature of disintegration such as the pot does. Rather, this notion of emptiness is a non-affirming negation or the eliminating of its object of negation."

LDS: Ok, [S simultaneously, faint: Yes but--] so what's that mean?

AH: I think-- I think (that's a hard one).

LDS (simultaneously): I'm using their terminology first.

[sounds like couple students at once, few words inaudible]

S (simultaneously): So in o-- in other words Louie, in order to-- that what-- what they mean by the emptiness of the pot is that when you-- when you start to reason on the pot, [LDS simultaneously: Exactly.] then-- then you say the pot has no inherent self-existence.

LDS: Right.

S: I-- now I don't know about--

LDS (simultaneously): Now that's a negation, that is--

S (simultaneously): I don't know about the non-affirming negation but--

LDS (simultaneously): What they mean is their notion of emptiness is nothing positive such as you would have in the Madhyamika system. See, what you-- through a process of reasoning and analysis of an object, you come to the fact that it has no self-inherent existence, [S simultaneously: Alright.] ok. [S simultaneously: So--] That's a-- that's a process that you've come to through reflective thought.

S: Alright, so in my understanding I say that pot has no inherent self-existence. Now, then, since they say you're negating that pot?

SP: But whether [one word inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): You're negating--

S (simultaneously): You're negating the self-existence of that pot?

SP (simultaneously): Whether [LDS simultaneously: Yes.] this is positive or negative doesn't bear on the permanence or impermanence because another [S simultaneously: Yes.] example is red or green. Those are examples of permanent phenomena.

AH: I think it would be--

LDS: Well what's your point? I don't understand what your point is.

SP: Well because when you get onto emptiness and start analyzing emptiness, you've gotten off of the point of permanent phenomena.

LDS: No, emptiness is one example of permanent [S simultaneously: May--] phenomena.

SP (simultaneously): I know.

GA: That's what he said.

S (simultaneously): Maybe you're suggesting a simpler example?

SP: Yes, I was just suggesting a simpler example, just-- Like, a memory image is a permanent phenomena.

LDS (simultaneously): Yes ok, I see, ok.

AH: I think it-- I think it might be productive to find the difference between a non-affirming negative and an affirming negative in a technical sense. A non-affirming negative as emptiness is spoken of--

LDS: Yes.

AH: It's empty-- it's not empty of some other existent thing. That's a non-affirming negative. An affirming negative, it's--

GA (faint): Not going to solve anything.

AH: There's like a (masa--)

S: David [one word inaudible]

AD (faint): [few words inaudible]

LDS: An affirming negative is where you negate one thing but [few inaudible AH words simultaneous with LDS] you imply something positive.

AH: But you imply something positive that's being negated. The non-affirming negative, the way they use it in terms of emptiness, it's empty of self-nature and it means that-- that's what they're talking about, a mode of a-- of the existence of that object. And there's like nothing else. It's not empty of some other existent thing, like you use a lot of examples, you say that the-- the forest burned and now it's empty of trees, that's not what they mean. It's not as if the forest is empty of trees.

SP: But I don't see what that issue has to do with permanence.

S: Permanence.

LDS: Ok, see we're not-- we're getting hang--

AH (simultaneously): (The problem) is in a sense that an incidental relationship to the pot, but at the same time the nature of all existent things is empty. And insofar as that's true it's permanent.

LDS: No I-- I don't think you have to go that way Andrew to get to their notion of what a permanent-- See I use(d) that example and we're getting [AH simultaneously: Louis?] hung up on emptiness. Because [S simultaneously: (Since/Sid's)--] it is different, it's a different use of emptiness.

S: Sidney, how is a color a permanent phenomenon?

SP: Because, the image that you have-- Well he just gave me a quote to read, maybe I should-- Should I read this to you?

AD (very faint): Go ahead, it's your choice.

SP: Is it? Ok.

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 99, SP reading]: "There are two types of permanence, occasional permanence and non-occasional permanence. An occasional permanence, such as the past of a table, depends on the cessation [SP reads: occasion] of the table, but once the cessation occurs, the past of the table which is the state of its having ceased exists unchangeably."

SP: You know, like you visit a-- a new city. You go to see the Lincoln Memorial. You come away and the Lincoln Memorial is a permanent image in your psyche, it doesn't change. Like, for instance, if you were there, you may see erosion taking place on the actual memorial but the image, you know, you got it and then you're stuck with it, that's your-- that's you image. Until you go back and see it again and then maybe you get a new image. But it's permanent in that it doesn't--

AD: It can't erode.

SP: Yes.

RC: It doesn't undergo momentary change, doesn't dis-- [SP: Yes.] disintegrate moment-by-moment.

SP: Yes. A good example is if you s-- if you meet someone five years ago, or you met someone five years ago, (laughter) should you time travel, [AD simultaneously: That's (one word inaudible)] if you met somebody five years ago that-- and you haven't seen them for the past five years, your image of them is of them at age 10, say, when you saw them. But when you see them again, they're age 15, so they went through all this change, whereas your image, the day before you met them, even though it was five years later, is the image from five years before. [student assents] So it's occas-- it's a-- it's a permanent image.

[student assents, faint]

AH: And how does--

RC (simultaneously): And its permanence is directly related to the occasion on which you got the image.

SP: Yes.

AH: But how does that explain emptiness as being a permanent phenomenon?

AD: No, the second one, let him finish the second one.

SP: [three/few words inaudible]

LDS: Where are you Sid?

SP: Oh I'm in this page 99 and this-- Randy just handed it to me so I just read it. But--

S: Practice and Theory, (for sure).

SP: Yes, occasional permanence I think, maybe it means that it's provoked by an occasion and that-- and that, you know, it exists as it was provoked by that occasion until a new occasion disrupts it or displaces it. [short pause, AD talking to someone in far background, flipping pages] You know, when you run into somebody and you say, "Oh my goodness, you've changed so much," because your image didn't-- didn't go through this modification that the actual person went through. [short pause] And likewise-- so, yes, so then we have to get back to emptiness. That's why I was saying emptiness is a hard example because they started out trying to explain how generic images don't have this dynamism, you know, that the actual world process has. But it doesn't have the spec-- (I don't--)

LDS: It's not-- it's not constituted by disintegration and so on and they'll-- this process of mutation.

SP: When they talk about specificity of the object and impermanence, they're almost like equatable. And permanence and generic image are almost equatable.

LDS: Yes.

SP: And they definitely don't mean by permanence what we normally think of as permanence, that-- That's the point just, I think, that they don't mean by permanence our usual conception [AD or student assents, faint] of permanence, that we have to-- It's a-- the permanence isn't--

LDS (simultaneously): They're saying the psychic images--

SP: The permanence isn't objective because everything to them objectively is impermanent. So [LDS assents] permanence has to be a subjective [LDS: Exactly.] factor.

LDS: They throw the whole permanent side back on the subject, within the psyche.

S: Well they don't really mean permanence in any sense that we would use the word, as perpetual and-- [AH simultaneously: Louis--] They mean enduring, but not permanent in that it never [SP assents] goes away.

LDS: Yes, it can lapse, it can lapse.

RC (very faint): Well, yes, go ahead.

SP: (Jeff/Yes), why don't you read because you have more [one/two words inaudible]

[short pause]

RC: Yes, you read the occasional permanence and then general space, for example--

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 99, RC reading]: "…which is the lack of obstructing contact, is a [RC emphasis] non-occasional permanence; it exists forever unchangeably without a beginning…"

[AD talking to someone in background, very faint]

RC: This-- it seems from this quote that the occasional [S simultaneously: So--] one has a beginning as related to the-- the-- like hypos-- hypostasizes that moment when the image came up. [LDS: Yes.] And you could-- it seemed that that would cover the way Sidney was trying to talk when he was like saying an emptiness of a specific appearance persists with the appearance and lapses when the thing ceases to be a material unit any longer [LDS: Yes.], cea-- when it ceases to be a substrate for cognition that emptiness also ceases to be permanent.

AD: Any other besides [RC: There's three or four in there.] space?

SP: Well space is a different one than the one I was describing because space has a more objective character than-- than a memory image, which I would use.

S: What were you going to say about the color before, would that be a non-occasional permanence?

S: No.

DB (simultaneously): That would be occasional.

S: That would be--

(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1980 1106b Ends; Side 2 Begins)

SP: Also, a person's generic image might change during a lifetime.

Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Jeffrey Hopkins [Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, p. 95, SP reading]: "Though permanent, a generic image does not eternally exist, available for occasional usage by beings, nor does it exist eternally in individual minds, sometimes noticed and sometimes unnoticed. Rather, a generic image which represents the elimination of everything that is not a particular object is formed at some time and then dwells in latency until the proper conditions are assembled, such as a person's catching sight of a fire. At that time, a thought consciousness is produced with a generic image as its object which is then confused with the actual object, and the person thinks, 'This is a fire.'"

SP: I think you have to go over this, over that. But it-- but they're saying the generic image is permanent, like that-- that the way-- that the type of image you've built up over your lifetime sits latent until you come across an objective event which draws-- [student assents] pulls forth that image and, in that sense, that image is permanent.

LDS: They're saying that in--

SP (simultaneously): [couple words inaudible] an objective contact and pull it out of the psyche and back into operation.

AD: You don't think that's a pretty close definition of samskaras [students assenting, very faint] [SP: Yes.] that you just read? [couple words inaudible]

SP (simultaneously): Yes, no I-- yes, you-- what you were saying was hitting it right on the nail.

DB: So-- so in other words the-- you could think of the-- an individual's natal chart is being constituted by what they're calling these--

S (very faint): Come on.

AD: Dave, get another example.

DB: Oh ok. Well say an individual's born and he's got certain heredity from his parents, certain functioning that is derived from the makeup of his parents. Well, that would be constituted by certain images and they would be, relative to his life, permanent phenomena.

AD/S(?) (very faint): Yes, but I don't--

S (very faint): I didn't follow.

AD (faint): I don't-- I don't know what you said. Say it again, I-- [DB: Well--] I can't (follow you).

S: Uh-hm.

DB: The determinations of heredity-- you know, say you're born into a family-- Well, I mean it's basically just what has been said before, it just seems that that would be a-- an example. You inherit something from your parents, a particular way of functioning, alright, a particular way of perceiving the world.

AD: Well, alright. You get a body from your parents, good.

DB (simultaneously): (Yes/Right). Now-- now that body would be constituted by a particular determination of these vasanas, samskaras, and that would be for you permanent--

AD: I don't think that's what they're saying. Given the body, alright, the operations that are going on in that body bring about certain impressions which leave behind traces in the body. If you want to use physiological term, those traces add up, they go on piling up and then you have a whole bunch of them.

DB: Right.

SP: Yes.

AD: That's what you-- that's what's going to be the underlie of the generic images, the tissue of meaning that has validity to you. [DB: Right.] And it's very individual, so the redness that you know is not the redness I know.

DB: Yes. Ok I--

AD/S(?) (simultaneously): Well--

S: [one/two words inaudible]

SP (simultaneously): Yes, that's the-- the point, they're trying to (distinguish it) from universals in the sense that all people participate in it, but it's-- it's very specific in this particular individual.

DB: Well I was saying instead of them being built up that they were there to begin with. And I don't-- I mean--

AD: Alright, that's-- [DB: So--] that's not important. Let's go on Louis. Back again, start again, go over it again.

LDS: Ok, I used that-- that example of emptiness which kind of threw us off but-- It seems how that's the way I wrote it up, I'll read through it again.

AH: Louis, did you mean emptiness as a-- as a concept?

LDS: Yes.

S: Alright.

[short pause]

[Notes, LDS reading]: "First of all, the permanent phenomenon is defined as having a nature that does not disintegrate. And this definition is drastically different because such notions as emptiness or the reality of an object such as a pot exist only for the duration of the occasion of the pot, but the emptiness or reality of pot does not have a nature of disintegration. [LDS: Ok.] Rather it is a negation through-- [LDS: you know] realized through thought. Or in another way, they speak of suchness…"

LDS: Or emptiness. Suchness and emptiness they speak of--

AH: I don't think you're talking about it as a concept but go ahead.

[Notes, LDS reading]: "As another way they speak of suchness as always being(,) permanent. But it is not contradictory to speak of many suchnesses for them or many emptinesses, such as of a table, a chair, etc. So you can speak of multiple emptinesses which appear with their bases or objects and disappear but the emptinesses or the suchnesses do not disintegrate themselves simply because they are not positive actual things produced by causes and conditions as are the objects that they are accompanying."

S (very faint): (Guess--)

AH: I think that's quite different than what we've been saying Louis.

LDS: No that's-- that's what I was saying, I don't if-- what the other--

AD: Louis, do you think you can translate that in a different terminology?

LDS: Ok, if I was following what you were saying earlier, I think now I see some correlation. That-- Ok, in my-- in my knowing, grasping of any object, what I have to draw on to make intelligible that object are these vasanas, ok, elicited by that real existential object. Now, that group of vasanas, let's say a group of vasanas is called up to understand that object. The vasanas for that occasion of that object are empty, ok, but they're there in specific relation to that object now. When that object lapses, let's say, those va-- those vasanas now are not elicited, they're not conscious, but they-- they lapse, they go back into, you know, you might call a-- an unconscious or-- go [AD simultaneously: Yes.] back into the psy-- psyche unnoticed. Now, they've been a-- they've been empty in both cases, that is, when they were conscious and being applied to a given content, and they're also empty when they go back into the unconscious. In one sense they're potential, in the other sense they're actual. In one sense they're being employed, in another sense they're not. But they're there to be called up, given an occasion. So-- I-- this seemed-- this seemed to be the way you were speaking of their notion of emptiness. And that's relatively permanent.

AD: Now you use the word 'suchness'. Do [LDS simultaneously: Yes.] they use that word too?

LDS: Oh, that's one of the words he used as a synonym in Mookerjee, [GA simultaneously: Yes, they use 'suchness'.] or that--

GA: And here too they [LDS simultaneously: And it was in there, suchness.] equate, emptiness, reality, suchness are equated. This is, you know, a much different level.

AD: Than we ordinarily [GA simultaneously: Yes.] understand.

GA: I think like they would-- just to try and elaborate that a little bit. When the vasanas are constituting the object, and we know that the object also-- we know at the same that its reality is this emptiness, now that emptiness doesn't disintegrate from moment-to-moment so we'd have to call it permanent. But on the other hand the object at some point or other will disintegrate completely or for some time. In other words, the pot could be broken. So, that emptiness of that pot is now-- ceases also, so it's an occasional permanence. We had to say it was permanent because emptiness doesn't disintegrate moment-to-moment. On the other hand, when the pot breaks, the emptiness is gone too. So they don't-- they haven't jumped quite to the level of vasana I think you're relating it too.

AD: Well, I think they have because the vasa--

GA (simultaneously): You think so?

AD: Oh yes, samskara theory is the bedrock [GA simultaneously: Well I don't (want to--)] of Hinduism.

GA: I don't mean they don't have it. But I mean in that instance of speaking of permanent and impermanent that they're relating it directly to the pot.

AD: I could see it as a legitimate application, you know, to phenomena, but I definitely see it as a very legitimate, valid way of explaining experience. [S: Um--] Samskaras doesn't have to be just used the way the Hindus use it.

GA (faint): No.

LDS: But when you say [S simultaneously: I--] samskaras, Anthony, you weren't saying that the-- the object--

AD: Look, a habit, tell me. I got the habit of eating, tying my shoes, alright, combing my hair, brushing my teeth, alright. All these are habits, a hundred million varieties of habits, alright. Now, could you tell me anything definite about a habit?

LDS: Can I tell-- tell you anything--

AD: I mean, is it a thing?

LDS: No.

AD: No. Because if you said it was a thing then I would say, "Well you mean it's this-- it's got a commonality when I brush my teeth and when I tie my shoes?" So when we say disposition, we're really speaking about something as abstract and obscure as we could possibly imagine.

LDS: Yes.

AD: Yes. [intensely] That's empty. But yet we use the word 'habit' with the familiarity as though it's full, we know everyday what we mean when we say 'habit', don't we? We know what we mean when we say 'disposition', 'tendency'. We know, right!? Baloney!

LDS: Ok, so what-- what are we saying?

AD (simultaneously, intensely): Those-- those words are mysteries!! [LDS: Yes.] Like the word 'from' prakriti comes buddhi. That's a mystery, the word 'from' is a mystery.

LDS: Yes. But--

AD: Go ahead.

LDS: One thing. You-- when we speak of these vasanas that you're bringing up now, we're not-- we're not saying that the object itself, existentially, is constituted by vasanas. Not-- not in this example, I mean--

AD: Yes, yes.

LDS: A higher level of the notion of vasanas might--

AD (simultaneously): Yes, yes. Yes, [LDS simultaneously: Ok.] I follow, follow.

LDS: This is what you're saying, that the vasanas that we're talking about are in terms of the psyche, in terms of the individual and his world of experience. The existential object is a production of Nature, and we're not talking about vasanas on that level right now.

AD: Yes, we're not-- no.

LDS: Ok. So I think Chip that-- that may-- I don't know if I'm relating to what you were bringing up--

GA: I--

LDS: But I think that--

GA: I think the emptiness of the vasanas-- yes--

LDS: I mean, are you-- I'm agreeing now with what--

AD: No, you shouldn't agree, you [GA simultaneously: I think that--] should go your way.

LDS (simultaneously): No, I'm trying-- I think I see your point finally.

GA (simultaneously): I still think-- I still feel that their example is in terms of particular object.

AH: I think so too.

GA: And that that emptiness is less subtle than the emptiness that Anthony [LR simultaneously: Yes well, can I--] is speaking of, the vasanas themselves.

LR: But there's two-- there's two--

GA: Both emptiness, both-- you could [LR simultaneously: It seems to be two things.] use both as examples but I-- I'm just making a distinction.

LR (simultaneously): (Now) two way-- [couple/three inaudible student or AD words simultaneous with LR] two things that are coming up in terms of this vasanas. One is, the vasanas themselves are empty, they lapse when the object or the experience no longer (coming).

GA (simultaneously): Right, and that's another kind of emptiness.

LR: But-- and that's I think what Anthony is saying.

GA: That's an [S simultaneously: Yes.] emptiness they call disintegration.

LR (simultaneously): But now-- but there's the other way of interpreting that is, you know when you were speaking of the motion of the vasanas which congregates into certain patterns that formulates our perception. Now, you could say that-- you could also say I think that the vasanas are empty of those forms. In other words, when the vasanas congregate to make a certain experience, they themselves are empty of that congregation or form, formation. When that formation or experience lapses the vasanas are what they always were. They don't have that form, this intrinsic--

GA: And that particular emptiness is-- lapses.

LR (simultaneously): So in that sense the vasanas (will/would) be empty. Empty-- empty there meaning empty of any of the--

AD: Thinghood.

LR: --conglomerate.

GA: Uh-hum.

LR: Yes. And I think we have to distinguish those two-- those two things because I think there's a lot of confusion coming in in those two views. You know, you say the vasanas are empty of any thinghood or any conglomeration, and the other thing is the vasanas (are/uh)--

AD (simultaneously): Well, let's look at this way, Mary. Imagine that in art, alright, some composer is capable-- capable of stringing sounds together in such a way that a response is brought out from me. Now, this response that is brought out from me has a pattern, alright. It evokes certain unit m-- meanings. By unit meanings I mean like vasanas. But each one, alright, in itself is empty. It has no substantiality, no thinghood. It's only a predisposition. I accumulate, add so many of these together. Do I get something, [LR, faint: Yes.] or do I still remain with emptiness?

LR: Uh-hm, both, I mean, you do get something, you get an experience.

AD: Yes, both.

LR: And that ex-- I mean--

AD: No. You don't get both. Because the combination of ten or a hundred vasanas which compel you to feel something, alright, are still in their nature empty.

LR: Yes they are, but that doesn't mean they don't deliver an experience.

AD (simultaneously): And when they're ma-- put into a schematic form they still are empty.

LR: Of?

AD: Of any thinghood.

LR: Ok, that's what I was asking about.

AD: Well, aren't we getting-- I think what-- what you're trying to say is that, if I understood you, what you were trying to say, if we combine them in a certain way--

LR (simultaneously): They do not have any shape or form in themselves. So therefore they're empty of form.

AD (simultaneously): They remain empty while they're accompanying that experience.

LR: Yes, (I think--/uh-hm.)

AD: They were empty to begin with and they're empty when they lapse.

LR (faint): That's what I was trying to say.

AD: And the compelling feelings that you endure--

LR: Yes?

AD: Empty too. I don't know Louis, I think, I think this might be a very good way to approach the subject [one word inaudible] I think you have enough help here to batter it out [one/two words inaudible]

BS: [couple words inaudible] let us handle what you want.

S (simultaneously): Let [couple/three words inaudible]

LDS: Ok, I just want to clear one thing with Anthony. For Sunday night--

AD (simultaneously): Depends on what the cosmic object is.

LDS: For Sunday night, cover the-- what we earlier did tonight, and then get into this notion of the permanent phenomena and maybe explicate this notion of emptiness the way they're speaking of it. We're killing two birds with one stone by doing that because on one--

AD (simultaneously): I'm lucky if I kill one bird with one stone. (laughter) [LDS: We're--] Even if I get close to him. (AD laughs, bit of laughter)

LDS: We're bringing out the notion of-- their notion of permanence and at the same time bringing out their notion of emptiness.

S: (For sure.)

AD (simultaneously): Yes, but then you have to say in English what they mean by permanent because right away [LDS assents] we have associations with the word 'permanence' [LDS assents] which absolutely block [LDS assents] any understanding.

LDS: Right. I think Sidney's example of, you know, the generic image and memories and other very familiar examples can be used to show them what they mean by a permanent thing. Examples, and then maybe get into this notion of emptiness as one of these permanent things and then explicate emptiness along your lines.

GA: Um--

AD: Now, when we were speaking before about the thing being composed of vasanas, you mean dissipated essences, don't you?

LDS (simultaneously): Yes.

AD: Yes.

GA: See, I still--

LDS (simultaneously): That's what I meant when I said the existential object.

AD: Yes, that's what I mean when I say the human being is a counterpart to what's going on upstairs.

LDS: But what you said earlier tonight was we only described-- we only described the problem. We didn't resolve the fact that, how is this connection, how is this relationship resolved between the individual, the subject, relating to this existential object? He's-- he's got a counterpart in him of the forms in that object. But, what the problem is, is what is this process that elicits-- what is the relationship between him and these existential objects that calls up this process? In other words, the-- what do you call it-- the problem of knowledge--

S: What's the problem?

S (very faint): (Epistemology/Epistemological).

AD: Well when a stimulus op--

LDS (simultaneously): Epistemo-- the epistemological problem.

AD: When a stimulus operates on us, let me see if I follow, why this response and not another?

LDS: Yes. We haven't solved the problem of this relationship between my image of this real existential object-- What is the modus operandi of that process? They don't elaborate that. They say there's no real contact or, you know, somehow the sense-- the sense-organ gets stimulated and then this image is called up, ok. But-- but relationship--

AD (simultaneously): Maybe some-- maybe sometime it's better to leave a question like that unanswered but-- I mean a question like that unanswered but to really bring it out [LDS and another student assent] so that if an answer does occur in the system we'll recognize it, or in other systems. They would say, "Well, this is what's missing in them" and they give their version of that same problem. You remember the way PB would handle it.

LDS: Yes, he handles it in the Wisdom.

AD: Well, he tries to show in his way, you know, that the object out there isn't out there, something that mind constructs. In other words, weight or hardness is something thought or given existence by the thinking itself. There, the term imputation is really meaningful [LDS assents] for us. Whereas when they speak about-- you know like, he gave the example, well the hardest stumbling bock-- block of mentalism is when he tries to understand that the nature of reflective consciousness and the c-- of reflective consciousness and the consciousness which gives rise to the object are one and the same consciousness, he says "This is where the stumbling block comes." Now maybe you could show that the Sautrantikas have this problem, that, you know, they're making a bifurcation in mind itself and saying there's one part of mind, reflective mind, alright, and that we're acquainted with, but the generic concept of 'mind' they can't understand.

SP: Yes, I think [LDS simultaneously: Ok.] that's why they break it down in those kinds of consequences.

AD: Oh yes.

SP (simultaneously): Because your mind is given things you don't even think is your mind.

LDS: But they don't-- they don't seem to bridge the gap the way PB did with that (cosmic--)

AD (simultaneously): No, no, [LDS simultaneously: See--] I-- I just [LDS simultaneously: Oh.] gave that as an example, not--

LDS (simultaneously): I know.

AD: Alright. (Go ahead.)

S: [couple words inaudible]

LDS (simultaneously): But that's the way that they leave it sort of-- oh that's the way the problem is brought out.

AD: Well that's the way they solve it, they think that that's the solution and we just have to understand them. Then maybe a higher school has another solution and a higher school other than that. But once you begin to see the relative position of each school and contrast the positions they're taking, [AD snaps fingers] got it made. You go crazy. (laughter) Ok, that's pretty good. Sid, Gabriel, why don't you work on it like that?

SP: Ok, a lot of people just got the books for the first time and later today [few words inaudible]

AD (simultaneously): Oh [one/two words inaudible]

[Audio File 1980 1106b Ends]