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

Among the three types of discernment, it is not fixed which of the fifty-one mental factors must be employed; each case must be analyzed specifically. Different situations call for different mental factors, and different people, for various reasons, employ different mental factors. Even for 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, the mental factors employed are not the same. The five universal mental factors will all be used; the five object-specific mental factors are not necessarily all used; the eleven wholesome mental factors do not necessarily appear; and the fundamental afflictions and the great, middle, and minor derivative afflictions likewise do not necessarily appear—all depends on the circumstances.

Direct-perception discernment requires sufficient data, which in turn requires very deep wisdom: the mental factor of determination (adhimokṣa) must be extremely strong, the mental factor of meditative concentration must be present, and the mental factor of mindfulness must be complete, so that the mind is mindful moment after moment without interruption. Inferential discernment involves relatively shallower wisdom; it must proceed through comparison—without comparison there is no reference, and 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; this belongs to sharper faculties. Erroneous cognition is resorted to when evidence truly cannot be found—when there is insufficient data and no object for comparison—so that one has no choice but to employ means such as imagination, guessing, and inference. The more methods used, the more limited the wisdom and the weaker the power of determination; of course, the power of concentration and the power of mindfulness are also insufficient, such that one cannot judge directly or draw a conclusion directly.

Inference is like a person whose ability is insufficient to accomplish a task alone and who must find someone to help in order to get it done. Erroneous cognition is when not even a single person who could help can be found, and one is forced to fiddle around on one's own, left and right; perhaps by luck one gets it right, but even if one gets it right, the wisdom is insufficient—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 still not something directly seen.

Some people lack wisdom and do not know how to guide others step by step in practice and realization so as to see the path through direct perception, 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, only one of which leads to Beijing. Unable to guide a person in how 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; then, reading the hint in his eyes that it is wrong, he moves on to the second road. The other person looks at his facial expression and feels that this too is wrong, and so eliminates the second road. In this way, four roads are rejected one by one, leaving only the last road. 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, you have seen the path!" Everyone, tell me—does this count as seeing the path? What wisdom has such "seeing the path" produced? Those who cheat people and lead students astray are precisely such people—out-and-out deceivers, no two ways about it—and the other person is cheated happily along with them: a pair of fools!