The Mental Factors Employed in the Discernment of Direct Perception, Inference, and Non-Valid Cognition

Among the three types of discernment, it is not fixed which of the fifty-one mental factors will be employed; each specific situation must be analyzed specifically. When circumstances differ, the mental factors employed differ as well. Different people, due to various reasons, employ different mental factors. Even the same person, at different times and in different settings, with different physical and mental states, different levels of knowledge, and different levels of wisdom, will employ different mental factors. The five universal mental factors will all be employed; the five object-specific mental factors are not necessarily all employed; the eleven wholesome mental factors do not necessarily appear; and the fundamental afflictions and the great, intermediate, and minor derivative affliction mental factors also do not necessarily appear—it all depends on the circumstances.

Direct-perception discernment requires sufficient data, which in turn requires very deep wisdom: the determination (adhimokṣa) mental factor must be extremely strong, the meditative concentration mental factor must be present, and the mindfulness mental factor must be complete, so that the mind is continuous without interruption, thought after thought. Inference-based discernment involves relatively shallower wisdom; it must proceed through comparison—without comparison and without a reference point, one cannot know. If there is no relative condition, there is no place to begin. Direct-perception discernment, by contrast, knows directly without comparison, or knows in the very moment, and thus the faculties are sharper. Non-valid cognition is employed when evidence truly cannot be found—when there is insufficient data and no object for comparison, one has no choice but to resort to imagination, guessing, reasoning, and other such means. The more methods used, the more limited the wisdom, the weaker the power of determination (adhimokṣa), and of course the powers of concentration and mindfulness are both insufficient, to the point that one cannot judge directly or draw a conclusion directly.

Inference is like a person whose ability is insufficient to complete a task alone, who must find someone to help in order to get it done. Non-valid cognition is when not even a single person who could help can be found, and one has no choice but to fiddle around on one's own, left and right, and perhaps by luck gets it right. Even if one gets it right, the wisdom is insufficient, and it does not count as direct perception. It is like being unable to see what clothes someone is wearing now, and having nothing to compare against, so one has no choice but to imagine and guess; even if the guess is correct, it is not something directly seen.

Some people lack wisdom and do not know how to guide others step by step in cultivation and realization so as to attain direct perception and see the Way, yet they still insist on guiding others, and so they resort to the process of elimination. For example, suppose there are five roads here leading out of the city to five other regions, and only one of them leads to Beijing. Since he does not know how to guide a person to make the correct choice, he resorts to elimination: first he points to the first road. The other person, hesitating, points at it again and again, not daring to be certain; seeing the doubt in his eyes, the guide hints that it is wrong, and then they move on to the second road. The other person looks at his expression and feels that this one is also wrong, and so the second road is eliminated. In this way, four roads are all rejected, leaving only the last one. The other person then says, "It must be this road—this is the road that leads to Beijing." Whereupon this person says: "Well, that's what you said, not what I taught you. Congratulations on seeing the Way!" Everyone, tell me—does this count as seeing the Way? What wisdom has been born from such "seeing the Way"? Those who deceive people and lead students astray are precisely such people—utter swindlers through and through, cheating you without negotiation, while the other person is cheated and delighted about it—a pair of fools!