Right knowledge

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Ground

Sorry but I will not pretend to be a teacher. Why? Because a teacher is a person who intends to make his audience believe. However I do not intend to make anybody believe anything.
What I do intend here is to delineate the route to right or valid knowledge.

Right knowledge is knowledge that is valid as to all the diverse experiences in human life. Right knowledge does not accept some experience in life but reject others. Right knowledge is not belief but is based on rational analysis and rational analysis requires logical thinking. Therefore a buddhist treatise about logical thinking is taken as starting point for the route to right knowledge.

Everybody is free to think about what I am writing, to comment, to ask questions, to investigate themselves the sources that I am referring to or to ignore it or even reject it.

I used the term teacher/student as an example, not as something I believe is necessary for you to be you and present the facts, I wanted you to open up more understanding to actually understand it more directly. I only used that example, because you ignored my first request, but it did get your attention enough to respond.



In the way you are showing how to delineate the route to right knowledge, if one doesn't understand what the "right knowledge" your conveying means, then your right knowledge means nothing until understanding is met.

So for me that request was actually a very logical request..

At times you have the tendency to speak as you know, (it is just very logical to you) not from the space of developing a more unified understanding for others who are not in that stream of processing as you naturally are. So when you speak about logical routes, your own logic will naturally be required to step out of itself to bridge understanding for those not in logical mode of processing, to understand this logical route to "right knowledge" your building on here.

[BlueSky]

I've come to realize something that has simplified tremendously everything the Buddha talked about in regards to practices and truths and even right knowledge.
I believe all he spoke about were just ways to help clear your mind to prepare your mind for the ultimate truth or knowledge which is that you have identified yourself with the unclear mind, ...thoughts,body,consciousness etc.
Paths in Buddhism all lead here. There really is no right knowledge in the path itself other than it being a practice that frees you from all the knowledge you claim to have...bit by bit.
I believe that if you look closely you can see that all
path, all religions, are really about "unlearning". What's left cannot be called knowledge.
Blessings

[Ground]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

...
In the way you are showing how to delineate the route to right knowledge, if one doesn't understand what the "right knowledge" your conveying means, then your right knowledge means nothing until understanding is met.

So for me that request was actually a very logical request..
...

Everybody knows what right knowledge is. E.g. if you go to the doctor because of influenza-like symptoms and the doctor tells you "We have to amputate your right leg because of a wound infection." but no wound can be directly perceived anywhere neither on your right leg nor anywhere else on your body. Would you think the doctor's diagnosis and therapeutic approach is based on right and valid knowledge or based on wrong and invalid knowledge?
Many people will tell you many things and assert that they know. But do you know the criteria to distinguish whether their alleged knowledge is right or wrong?
Dharmakirti says that there are only two means that entail valid knowledge: direct perception and proper inference and that whatever is inferred must also be verifiable by direct perception because inferring something that cannot be directly peceived at any time and any place isn't a valid inference because a non-existent cannot be inferred.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Ground

Everybody knows what right knowledge is. E.g. if you go to the doctor because of influenza-like symptoms and the doctor tells you "We have to amputate your right leg because of a wound infection." but no wound can be directly perceived anywhere neither on your right leg nor anywhere else on your body. Would you think the doctor's diagnosis and therapeutic approach is based on right and valid knowledge or based on wrong and invalid knowledge?
Many people will tell you many things and assert that they know. But do you know the criteria to distinguish whether their alleged knowledge is right or wrong?
Dharmakirti says that there are only two means that entail valid knowledge: direct perception and proper inference and that whatever is inferred must also be verifiable by direct perception because inferring something that cannot be directly peceived at any time and any place isn't a valid inference because a non-existent cannot be inferred.

If this is your way of showing a more considerate awareness of understanding for another who was only trying to understand what the context of your posts was actually conveying in more simple terms, then I guess this is it.

Thankyou for showing something more "tangible" to comprehend what the guts of this is about..

As for Dharmakirti, I am sure you are he reborn..hehe
None in this World will easily grasp the deep utterances in this work. It will be absorbed by and perish in myself just as a river is absorbed and lost in the ocean. Even those endowed with a tremendous Power of reason cannot fathom the depths. Even those with exceptional intrepidity of Thought cannot perceive its highest Truth-Dharmakirti

[Ground]

Step 4 (following Step 3

Dharmakirti continues:

Its object is the individual character

I.e. the object of direct perception is the specifically characterized particular phenomenon.

And then he drifts into ontological speculation:

The individual character of whatever object-entity is the difference of cognitive image due to nearness and remoteness (of that entity).

That alone is absolute existence.
Because it is a given thing, to wit, has a character of purposive activity.

So he thinks that there is something about the directly perceptible which is absolutely existent. Its uncommon specifics are not necessarily prefectly perceived e.g. due to nearness and remoteness of it. Nevertheless since the directly perceptible itself casts its conscious image he considers it to be 'a given thing' and since it is such a given thing it can be the object of purposive activity.

His ontological speculation should be put aside for the time being.
Given or not, absolute existing or not, only what is directly perceptible can be an object of purposive activity.

Only directly perceptible phenomena can perform functions which is why rational purposive activity should focus exclusively on such phenomena. But to say that anything about these phenomena is absolutely existent doesn't appear convincing. E.g. a directly perceptible bread can nourish my body but once I have eaten it what is there that is absolutely existent? Molecules and atoms? I think for the time being it should suffice to say simply that bread exists because if it didn't I could not eat bread. And of course only directly perceptible bread performs the desired function. Merely thinking 'bread' does not perform the desired function of bread because the mere thought 'bread' is not a specifically characterized phenomenon but a generality of bread. The latter fact is referred to by the next quote:

Different from it is the generality character.
This is the object of inference.

So inference which is a thought entails a generality of which there are multiple specifically characterized phenomena as its instances. And since specifically characterized phenomena are particular directly perceptibles what is inferred can be verified by means of direct perception.

Specifically characterized phenomena originate directly from direct perception whereas their corresponding generalities originate in-directly from direct perception since they depend on their instances which are specifically characterized phenomena.

And indeed the direct-perception cognition is an authority-result, because it has the form of the object-entities cognitive dawning.

Its authority is the likeness to the object-entity.

By dint of this, there is success of the object-entity's cognitive dawning.

Success of purposive activity is possible only when the object of purposive activity can be directly perceived.

[Ground]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

None in this World will easily grasp the deep utterances in this work. It will be absorbed by and perish in myself just as a river is absorbed and lost in the ocean. Even those endowed with a tremendous Power of reason cannot fathom the depths. Even those with exceptional intrepidity of Thought cannot perceive its highest Truth-Dharmakirti

Unless you can provide the source text of Dharmakirti and its translator from which this is quoted I have to doubt its authenticity. I could not find reference in google. Only a page with the dubious name 'www.theosophytrust.org' shows up which however firefox does not allow to open due to security issues.

Empirically there is no well-known figure in the context of buddhism who is not ascribed quotes to which cannot be found in authentic texts. The most prominent figure in this context certainly is 'the buddha'.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Ground

Unless you can provide the source text of Dharmakirti and its translator from which this is quoted I have to doubt its authenticity. I could not find reference in google. Only a page with the dubious name 'www.theosophytrust.org' shows up which however firefox does not allow to open due to security issues.

Empirically there is no well-known figure in the context of buddhism who is not ascribed quotes to which cannot be found in authentic texts. The most prominent figure in this context certainly is 'the buddha'.

Doubt away. Your only doubting yourself..hehehe.


Seems I have this uncanny knack to go direct to source...you need to catch up..

[Jeremy Bong]

The blind men touching the elephant experience is of their wrong perception and ignorance. But seeing and touching can also be wrong. The only perception is right when right, wisdom , analysis and have acquired adequate of knowledge and experience or understanding...... Not only it's because of direct perception. Your explanation has a lot of assumptions and left out a lot of essential facts or factors that supports the right answer. So the right knowledge can be attained.



Quote: .......... one is in possession of perfect knowledge and is on his way to attaining the Transcendental Intelligence of the Tathagata如来佛 ..........

[Bohdiyana]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

I believe all he spoke about were just ways to help clear your mind to prepare your mind for the ultimate truth or knowledge which is that you have identified yourself with the unclear mind, ...thoughts,body,consciousness etc.
Paths in Buddhism all lead here.

In a movie theater, one does not have to look at the screen or pay attention to the sounds. But to do this, one has to be aware one in in a theater and not turn over one's attention and experience to the present environment. One has to be awake and aware, present to what is, aware of what is. It is this present awakeness, this energetic assertion of a free self, that allows one to take the attention off of the present phenomena and cease that from owning experience and perception. The conceptual is not delusion, imaginary, or fictional if one's attention is on it. It is real perception and experience. One can lose oneself in a movie and experience it fully, physically, mentally, and emotionally. While immersed in the movie, one becomes the reality of it's creators. Reality becomes the movie.

The movie is a metaphor for our normal perception of the world and ourselves and our normal experience. Our attention is fully invested in the story of ourselves. That is where our attention is. On the movie our lives has created. The creators are our memory and past and thought and from that our story is woven as now. But we don't have to let this movie determine or be our experience, reality, or perception. But then how can we stop it? It is here, we are sitting in the theater. We have to know it is here and our attention is on it. If we don't know, it means we have let ourselves become it. It is us. We are the movie. If we are not aware our eyes are on the screen, and our ears are on the soundtrack, that is our reality. The awareness of what is, is the only thing that can lead to freedom.

Consciousness is said to illuminate itself like a lamp that illuminates objects in a room as well as itself. Dharmakīrti defends the Yogācāra theory of "awareness-only" (vijñaptimātratā), According to Dharmakīrti, an object of cognition is not external or separate from the act of cognition itself.

Are we experiencing the movie or aware of the fact we are paying attention to the movie so that awareness and detachment from the movie is our experience? One is separating oneself from the object of perception (cognition) there. One can be absorbed in the movie, experiencing that, perceiving that, or one can be aware one is identifying with the movie which ends the identification. When what the self is identified with changes, experience changes. One can identify with the objects of cognition or identify with that which is aware of itself and the objects of cognition.

How an object of cognition is experienced, is determined by the nature of the perceiver. What now is, how now is experienced, is determined by what we are aware of. Have we surrendered ourselves to the movie, so that it's story is our reality, or have we risen above all that and emptied ourselves of it's content by paying attention to what is going on now at a deeper level of seeing and self awareness?

One can sit in a movie theater and be fully immersed in the movie. Metaphorically, how does one sit in the theater with the movies sound and images blocked? With ear plugs in that block all sounds and a blindfold on that blocks all images? How does one get complete freedom from the movie? By keeping one's attention off of those things, which requires staying awake, noticing and being aware of when our attention goes on those things, when the ear plugs fall out, when the blindfold slips off. If one is aware with right knowledge, we find out a different movie is playing. One where we are free of conflict and self caused suffering.

[Bohdiyana]

Originally Posted by Ground

Dharmakirti says that there are only two means that entail valid knowledge: direct perception and proper inference and that whatever is inferred must also be verifiable by direct perception because inferring something that cannot be directly peceived at any time and any place isn't a valid inference because a non-existent cannot be inferred.

Paraphrasing Dharmakirti: To experience liberation (valid knowledge), one must pay attention to the actual (direct perception) and not the imagined (conceptual.)

Right knowledge is not a mental response, it is an aware response.

Right knowledge has a self, but not a person.