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F ORUM TEACHINGS | EASTERN HORIZON 533
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Criterion of Knowledge:

How to Know the Truth?

Criterion of Knowledge: How to Know the Truth? insight gained by introspective awareness to all other

things animate or inanimate.
Buddhism envisage a universe with many domains
of sentient existence spread out in boundless space
I would like to include another important criterion
and time, a universe in which sentient beings, due to
called sutamayā (derived from hearing or learning).
their ignorance, roam and wander from life to life.
This is essential for the practitioner to have the right
We also learn that throughout beginningless time,
view so that the practice of introspective awareness
many Buddhas in the past have arisen and turned the
can result in impactful insights and inferential
wheel of the Dharma, and that each Buddha attains
understanding.
enlightenment after cultivating spiritual perfections
over long periods of cosmic time. When we approach
Min Wei: In Buddhism, direct perception as correct
the Dhamma we are likely to resist such beliefs and feel
knowledge means a direct cognition which could not
that they make excessive demands on our capacity for
possibly contain any error, whereas conceptualization
trust. Thus we inevitably run up against the question
was often considered to be the root of all evil and
whether, if we were to follow the Buddha’s teaching,
mental afflictions in the lives of ordinary human beings.
we must take on board the entire package of classical
Buddhist doctrine. The question is therefore: how do we
Direct perception literally means to have direct
know what is true? We ask our three dharma teachers
awareness of something without intermediation from
for their comments.
conceptualization or predispositions. This is a natural
mode of function for the five sense consciousness.
Traditionally Buddhism has posited two ways to Direct perception is the easiest way to comprehend
access knowledge (pramāṇa): direct perception, and since it involves our senses directly. What we see, feel
inference (anumāna). Can you explain with some or hear helps us form a perception of things as they
simple examples this criterion for knowledge? are. Our awareness is a result of sensory inputs that

our sense organs — eyes, nose, ears, skin — send to
Aggacitta: Rudimentary, non-interpretative awareness
the brain that interprets the sensory input and helps us
of what one’s six senses perceive falls under the
identify things.
first criterion. This can be linked to the Buddha’s
instructions: (1) In the seen, there shall be merely
However, inference contains two aspects: inference for
the seen; in the heard, merely the heard; in the
oneself and proof for others. For instance, seeing smoke,
sensed, merely the sensed; in the cognised, merely
we know there is fire.
the cognised. (1) (2) Having perceived anything with
any of the 6 senses, one should not grasp at its signs
Dharmakīrti asserted that direct perception and
and features. (2) Another example is spontaneous,
inference are the only valid kinds of knowledge and
intuitive understanding or insight (e.g. of the three
that, in the processes of the mind, cognition and the
characteristics and causality) resulting from the
cognized belong to distinct moments. According to him,
continuous practice of such bare awareness.
the object of inference is universal and the object of
perception may be perceived by the five senses, by the
Inferential knowledge includes the extrapolation of the
mind, and by self-consciousness.