Understanding the origin of what is taken for sammuti

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[Sarah] Ajahn, I think Alan was asking about sammuti, not nimitta and sammuti sacca as conventional truth as opposed to paramattha sacca.

[A. Sujin] But without the understanding the origin of what is taken for sammuti and sammuti sacca, how can there be the understanding of the meaning of it? For example now, is there any doubt about reality and nimitta? Without nimitta can there be sammuti? So, how come the idea of sammuti, how to understand it? Without understanding that without reality there is no nimitta and when there's no reality, no nimitta, how can there be sammuti?

So, what conditions sammuti? Without reality, can there be sammuti? And without the nimitta of a reality can there be sammuti as citta and cetasikas? And without the nimitta as shape and form, how can there be the king or the violin, the piano and so on? But when there is the understanding of what conditions the moment of thinking about sammuti, what sammuti is, it has to be the understanding of the truth. Without the absolute truth, without reality there would not be sammuti at all.

So, what is sammuti? The nimitta is taken for something and that is paññatti, even there is no word, but the shape and form is taken by sañña, to know that this is different from that, so the snake it's not the bird and so on. And that is the paññatti, without words: even dogs and cats understand what is there, paññatti of nimitta, but when it's not dogs and cats there's more thinking about that, to be[come] sammuti.

Who is the teacher, who's the baby, who's the mother and who's the father and so on, that is sammuti, but without paññatti can there be sammuti? And when there are many many different ideas there can be sammuti of different kinds, different levels of different things: this is the real diamond and that is the fake one, sammuti all the time. When there is the nimitta and when there is that reality... without realities there cannot be anything at all.

Sammuti for everything because of paññatti of different shapes and forms because the arising and falling away is so very very fast, so there can be the idea of what's the image of that which arises and falls away, appearing. So, from reality there is the nimitta and from nimitta there's paññatti and from paññatti it conditions sammuti.

Paññatti as Khun Sarah, and sammuti, name: when we talk about this word we have the thinking, the thought of Khun Sarah, not the other, and that is sammuti of shape and form which is made known as Khun Sarah.

That's why there must be reality and then nimitta and then paññatti whether it is the sound [sadda-paññatti], the word, attha [-paññatti, meaning] of the shape and form and the sammuti, who's who. The musician, the carpenter, the farmer, all are sammuti. Without sammuti at all what could be... [Can] the animal world know sammuti, who's who? But there is memory of different shape and form to be taken as this is the person who gives me the food and so on, as much as there can be, but no understanding whether it is Alsatian or it is Persian cat or whatever.