is
a natural part of our cognitive process when we are faced with a lack of information or conflicting data.
Example: You are offered to invest money in a new project that sounds very tempting. On the one hand, you see the potential benefit, on the other hand, you feel apprehension and uncertainty.
Parable: One day a man was standing on the bank of a river and could not decide whether to ford it or to take a boat. He doubted whether it was shallow enough to make the boat capsize. His doubts paralyzed him like fetters, and he was never able to get to the other side. interfering with decision-making and action.
False cognition (Skt. Viparaya-jñāna; тиб. People She):
It's like a mirage in the desert, a misperception or a misunderstanding of reality. Imagine that in the desert you see a mirage, a shiny surface that looks like water. Your mind mistakenly interprets the visual sensations as water, when in fact it's just hot sand. False cognition is a distortion of reality where our mind mistakes an illusion for reality. This can be due to a lack of information, bias, or simply a perceptual error.
Example: You look at a straight stick that is half submerged in water, and it appears to be broken at the water-air interface. This is an optical illusion – a false perception caused by the refraction of light.
Parable: One night, a man was walking along the road and saw a rope coiled up in the dark. He was frightened, thinking it was a snake, and he ran away. Only in the morning, in the light of the sun, did he see that it was just a rope. This classic Buddhist parable, like a lantern in the night, illustrates how our minds can misinterpret reality, creating fears and illusions there, where there are none.
Understanding these seven types of perception is like a clue to the mystery, helping us to become more aware of how our minds interact with the world and how errors in our cognition can arise. This is the first step to developing wisdom and the ability to see things as they really are. As one wise Buddhist monk said, "To get rid of illusions, we must first understand how they arise." Exploring these seven aspects of our perception is an important step on this path that leads to a clearer and more conscious understanding of ourselves and the world.