difference between Viññāṇa and Sañña (Vism. explanation doesn't make sense)

(from a thread on Dhammawheel)

Re: What is Pajanati?

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Post by frank k » Tue Apr 28, 2020 4:13 am

Ven. Dhammanando, (and anyone else),
Can you think of any EBT suttas that support the Vism. interpretation below on the difference between vinnana/consciousness and sanna/perception? I can't.

What the EBT says, is that 6 consciousness is the rawest form of sensory data. Perception adds labels and ideas from memory built on top of the raw sensory data of conciousness.
So in the Vism. analogy differentiating the child (perception), villager (concsiouness), in EBT terms, they would both be perceptions. The child has a less sophisticated model, and the villager a more complex one, but they are still just perceptions.
consciousness would be raw sensory of the data through 6 sense doors (color, shape, sound it makes, what it smells like).

Dhammanando wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 11:05 pm

Sam Vara wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 15, 2020 2:27 pm

Do you know whether there is a sutta source for the three types of developing "jānāti" the venerable quoted?

They are from the Visuddhimagga ch. XIV.

(ii) IN WHAT SENSE IS IT UNDERSTANDING? It is understanding (paññā) in the sense of act of understanding (pajānana). What is this act of understanding? It is knowing (jānana) in a particular mode separate from the modes of perceiving (sañjānana) and cognizing (vijānana). For though the state of knowing (jānana-bhāva) is equally present in perception (saññā), in consciousness (viññāṇa), and in understanding (paññā), nevertheless perception is only the mere perceiving of an object as, say, blue or yellow; it cannot bring about the penetration of its characteristics as impermanent, painful, and not-self. Consciousness knows the objects as blue or yellow, and it brings about the penetration of its characteristics, but it cannot bring about, by endeavouring, the manifestation of the [supramundane] path. Understanding knows the object in the way already stated, it brings about the penetration of the characteristics, and it brings about, by endeavouring, the manifestation of the path.

4. Suppose there were three people, a child without discretion, a villager, and a money-changer, who saw a heap of coins lying on a money-changer’s counter. The child without discretion knows merely that the coins are figured and ornamented, long, square or round; he does not know that they are reckoned as valuable for human use and enjoyment. And the villager knows that they are figured and ornamented, etc., and that they are reckoned as valuable for human use and enjoyment; but he does not know such distinctions as, “This one is genuine, this is false, this is half-value.” The money-changer knows all those kinds, and he does so by looking at the coin, and by listening to the sound of it when struck, and by smelling its smell, tasting its taste, and weighing it in his hand, and he knows that it was made in a certain village or town or city or on a certain mountain or by a certain master. And this may be understood as an illustration.

5. Perception is like the child without discretion seeing the coin, because it apprehends the mere mode of appearance of the object as blue and so on. Consciousness is like the villager seeing the coin, because it apprehends the mode of the object as blue, etc., and because it extends further, reaching the penetration of its characteristics. Understanding is like the money-changer seeing the coin, because, after apprehending the mode of the object as blue, etc., and extending to the penetration of the characteristics, it extends still further, reaching the manifestation of the path. That is why this act of understanding should be understood as “knowing in a particular mode separate from the modes of perceiving and cognizing.” For that is what the words “it is understanding in the sense of act of understanding” refer to.

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