Discussion about non-faulty awareness

Regarding the two:

1. Lower schools posit an established base is: That observed by valid cognition.
2. Svatantrika posit conventional truths as: That posited through the force of appearing to a non-faulty awareness.

Isn't that the same? Wouldn't that mean that the lower schools realise emptiness due to understanding the Svatantrika measure of the object of negation and positing its opposite as existence?

They are not the same:

• All schools agree with 1 but the lower schools see this as a discovery of the object's mode of abiding (which does not depend upon being posited by an awareness)
• Therefore, it is possible to realise 1 without realising 2 in relation to a particular basis
• Svatantrika say:
  • Realising only 1 (by way of "discovery") is the object of negation, i.e. conceiving objects to be established from the side of the object's mode of abiding without being posited through the force of appearing to (a non-faulty) awareness
  • In order to realise 2, it is necessary to realise that objects are not established from the side of the object's mode of abiding without being posited through the force of appearing to (a non-faulty) awareness; i.e. realise emptiness.

So what is the meaning of non-faulty awareness?

རང་གི་སྣང་ཡུལ་ལམ་ཞེན་ཡུལ་རང་གི་མཚན་ཉིད་ཀྱིས་གྲུབ་པའི་ཆོས་ཤིག་ལ་མ་འཁྲུལ་བའི་བློ་དོན་མཐུན་ཞིག་ལ་འཇོག།
A factually-concordant awareness that is unmistaken wrt its appearing or conceived object's establishment by way of own-character.

Illustrations: མཚན་གཞི།

• Eye consciousness apprehending a pot བུམ་འཛིན་མིག་ཤེས་དང་།
• Inference of sound being impermanent and so forth སྒྲ་མི་རྟག་སོགས་ཀྱི་རྗེས་དཔག་ལྟ་བུ་ཡིན།

གཟུགས་སོགས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་རྣམས་འཕྲལ་གྱི་འཁྲུལ་རྒྱུའི་གནོད་མེད་ཀྱི་བློའི་དབང་གིས་བཞག་པ་དེ།
གཟུགས་སོགས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་ཀུན་རྫོབ་པའི་ཡོད་ཚུལ་མཐར་ཐུག་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར།
(Sera Me Perfection of Wisdom): Phenomena (forms and so forth) are posited through the force of an awareness that is without the faults of superficial causes of error because that is the final mode of conventional existence of phenomena (forms and so forth).

གཟུགས་སོགས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་རྣམས་འཇོག་བྱེད་ཀྱི་བློ་དེ་འཕྲལ་གྱི་འཁྲུལ་རྒྱུས་མ་བསླད་པ་དགོས་ཤིང་ཕུགས་ཀྱི་འཁྲུལ་རྒྱུས་མ་བསླད་པ་ནི་མི་དགོས་ཏེ།
གཟུགས་སོགས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་རྣམས་རང་གི་མཚན་ཉིད་ཀྱིས་གྲུབ་པར་སྣང་བ་དེ་ནི་འཕྲལ་ཕུགས་གང་གིའང་འཁྲུལ་རྒྱུས་མ་བསླད་པའི་སྣང་བ་མ་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར་དང་།
དེ་ལ་བདེན་འཛིན་ལྷན་སྐྱེས་ཀྱི་བསླད་པ་ཡོད་པའི་ཕྱིར།
This awareness that posits phenomena (forms and so forth) is necessarily unaffected by superficial causes of error but not necessarily unaffected by deep causes of error because 1) the appearance of phenomena (forms and so forth) as established by way of own-character is not an appearance that is unaffected by both superficial and deep causes of error and 2) it is affected by the innate apprehension of true existence.

For Prasangika, such an awareness does not exist because it would be mistaken; because it has the appearance of phenomena existing by way of own-character.

So what are the illustrations of non-faulty awarenesses wrt unreal conventionalities?

Example of the illusory horses and elephants:

• Yogacara-Svatantrika: Although the eye-consciousness to which that appears is mistaken, its self-knower is a valid cogniser wrt the eye-consciousness it experiences. More generally, since all sense-consciousnesses are mistaken (due to the appearance of external existence), it is their self-knowers that establish the appearance.
• Sautrantika-Svatantrika: Similarly, since that eye-consciousness is mistaken, instead they posit: the eye-consciousness apprehending the place or space (ས་ཕྱོགས་སམ་བར་སྣང་ལྟ་བུའི་གཞི།) that is the basis for that appearance or where that appearance use to be.

Those two valid cognisers (the self-knower and the eye-consciousness) are then posited as the valid cognisers that are later able to induce a subsequent cogniser thinking "I saw an elephant!"

• This is problematic for SS if one posits a dream-elephant instead: what is the valid cogniser inducing the subsequent cogniser thinking "I saw an elephant!" upon waking? (dream-consciousnesses would be pervaded by being mistaken)
• None of this is a problem for Prasangika and they don't need self-knowers because all awarenesses are pervaded by being direct valid cognisers wrt their own appearances. Therefore, although the eye-consciousness apprehending an illusory/dream elephant is mistaken wrt its appearing object (an actual elephant), it is unmistaken wrt the appearance of elephant. Therefore, it can induce a subsequent cogniser thinking "I saw an elephant!"

Up a level: Measure of the object of negation (Svatantrika)