The Major Issue of Direct Perception and Non-Valid Cognition

Yesterday, someone analyzed various data indicators and predicted that a certain stock would rise 10% today, and today it indeed rose 10%, exactly, very accurately. Was this person's prediction yesterday a direct perception (pratyakṣa)? Based on today's stock trends and technical data indicators, this person analyzed and predicted that the stock would fall 2% tomorrow; when tomorrow came, the stock indeed fell 2%. Was what this person analyzed and predicted today a direct perception? Neither is a direct perception; predictions are all non-valid cognition (non-valid cognition). Even if the data is perfectly accurate, the stock market conditions were not witnessed with one's own eyes, and therefore it is not a direct perception. Relying on data indicators to deduce, deliberate, analyze, conjecture, and infer is non-valid cognition. If I predict that you will do something bad tomorrow, but at present you have after all not done anything bad, so doing something bad is not a fact—it is something predicted and conjectured by the solitary consciousness (mano-vijñāna-eka-citta), and therefore it is not a direct perception but non-valid cognition. A direct perception would be seeing him doing the bad deed right on the spot; but if in reality he is actually doing a good deed, then what you saw is also non-valid cognition.

I clench both hands into fists, one fist holding a one-yuan coin and the other fist empty. Then I extend my right fist and ask a person: "Is there a coin in this fist?" The person thinks for a moment and says: "There is a coin." I congratulate him on guessing correctly, but even so, it is still non-valid cognition, not a direct perception. Because this answer was not obtained through his direct observation; it was guessed. If it is said to be observed through direct perception, he did not actually see whether there was a coin in the fist. If he had supernatural powers, what is seen with the divine eye would also be a direct perception; but since he has no supernatural powers, what cannot be seen with the physical eye is not personally witnessed—it can only be guessing, conjecture, and speculation, which is non-valid cognition. Not having seen the fact is non-valid cognition, not a direct perception.

What exactly is a direct perception? Can everyone now genuinely understand it? A direct perception is a dharma that exists right before one, witnessed with one's own eyes, seen truly and without error—only this is direct observation, cognition with the wisdom of direct perception. If it is not a dharma that actually exists, not a dharma seen right before one, but merely something deliberated, conjectured, and imagined by the solitary consciousness, it is purely non-valid cognition. The stock market conditions do not exist right before one; they can only be seen the next day. The current viewpoint and conclusion were not drawn from what was witnessed with one's own eyes; the mental conjecture and estimation are of course imagined non-valid cognition. No matter how accurate the estimation, it is not what was witnessed with one's own eyes, not obtained from directly observing the stock market trends on the spot, so it is one hundred percent non-valid cognition.

At the same time, it is also not inference, because there is no equal comparison between dharma and dharma. Inference is a conclusion drawn from comparing two or more dharmas with each other; it is a relationship of coexistence between two or more dharmas that can be compared with each other. Without comparison, no conclusion can be drawn, and no decision can be made. Can the wisdom-cognition, mental state, and felt experience of personally witnessing something be the same as those of imagining it? Can the mental state and felt experience of watching a loved one gradually dying be the same as imagining the scene of that loved one's future death? Imagining the death of a loved one—although anyone will certainly die in the future, the loved one is, after all, still alive now—can the mental state and felt experience be the same as personally witnessing the death?

Quite a few people, based on the tathāgatagarbha theory they have learned, and based on the various functions, roles, and natures of the tathāgatagarbha they have studied, conjecture that the tathāgatagarbha must be at some place, some realm, some faculty, or some dharma, performing some function—and then they believe they have personally realized the tathāgatagarbha, attained enlightenment and seen the mind, and become a sage. This misunderstanding is simply enormous, and the consequences are also considerable. It is like a poor, lowly person who imagines himself to be an emperor, takes this imagined state as real, and declares himself to be the emperor. When the real emperor finds out, he flies into a rage, sends troops to arrest him, beheads him as a public display, and exterminates his relatives up to nine generations. Imagining the tathāgatagarbha performing some function and then declaring oneself an enlightened sage has far more severe consequences than being beheaded as a public display—one must be extremely cautious in cultivation.

Where does the problem of great false speech (majjhima-musāvāda) lie? It lies in not understanding the difference between direct perception and non-valid cognition, not understanding what constitutes direct observation, not understanding that what is deduced, analyzed, and deliberated is in essence non-valid cognition, not direct observation. Being unable to distinguish direct perception from non-valid cognition makes this problem very serious. Quite a few people are unclear that the conclusions they have reached were guessed and conjectured, not at all the direct perception of personally witnessing; so when they deduce some conclusion, they believe they have realized it directly, when in fact it is not at all—it is non-valid cognition of imagination, conjecture, and inference. Especially for those without meditative concentration (samādhi), it is all the deductive function of the mind consciousness. Even those who have meditative concentration or shallow meditative concentration still have the deductive function of the mind consciousness. Even those with deep meditative concentration, when deliberating, are precisely not in deep meditative concentration at that moment and are using the deliberation of the mind consciousness—all of it is the deductive function of the mind consciousness. Therefore, having meditative concentration does not necessarily mean one's realization is a direct perception.