Ignorance

[AЯAB]

What does the word ignorance/ignorant mean in context of Taoism and Buddhism?

 

 

Much Love,

 

Arab

[doc benway]

What does the word ignorance/ignorant mean in context of Taoism and Buddhism?

 

 

Much Love,

 

Arab

I'll make a comment about ignorance and Daoism.

Ignorance is generally defined as lack of knowledge or a condition of being uninformed.

And yet, this is essentially the condition that Dao De Jing advocates -

 

ref Chapter 48

 

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired.

In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped.

Less and less is done

Until non-action is achieved.

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

The world is ruled by letting things take their course.

It cannot be ruled by interfering.

 

And yet how can we come to Wu Wei and Dao without awareness of what it is and some idea of how to get there?

So I think this is a worthwhile topic to explore.

Practicing Wu Wei and approaching the condition of a sage requires that we first acquire knowledge, conditioning, desires, and all of the baggage and distractions that help us develop the experience and wisdom of life and that we then learn that we need to drop it all.

 

We need to first become adult and become jaded and disturbed and violently disgusted with where social and cultural conditioning take us before we have the personal insight and power to rebel and drop it. A child is not a sage but an adult, who has had the experience of living in the world, can become a sage by becoming "child-like."

 

So we need to first come from a place of ignorance to knowledge and then return to a state of, maybe I'll call it, "informed ignorance" where there is knowledge which is suffused with the understanding that the knowledge is the obstacle.

 

Just some improvisational thoughts...

 

 

As far as Buddhism goes it's even simpler:

Buddhism=ignorance

 

 

Just kidding! Just kidding!

 

I couldn't resist.... I actually have a lot of respect and love for the tradition and it's followers.

 

 

But I'll let our Buddhist scholars address that beautiful tradition.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

This comes to mind

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwMc0TjW_6Y&feature=related

[Vmarco]

[goldisheavy]

What does the word ignorance/ignorant mean in context of Taoism and Buddhism?

 

 

Much Love,

 

Arab

 

Don't know about Taoism or Buddhism, but I like to think of ignorance as a result of ignoring something.

[Aaron]

In Vajrayana, the term ignorance is not implying a lack of object-ive, sciential knowledge, such as one plus one equals two. The dark age of ignorance is a cultural, religious phenomenon that believes the falsity of perception and conception are reality.

 

The breath of duality's reality, the uninterrupted pulse of both emptiness and form, is not what obscures our real essence. Attachment to the skandhas, our HUMAN-NESS, for our identity, is the ignorance that muddies the diamond we are. People of faith are pretty much ignorant about everything. The religious masses actually understand little about religion. If they understood religion, they would not be religious. The ignorance of religion teaches that its adherents should be attached to a phenomenal self. This attachment produces selfishness. The nature of attachment is selfishness. However, this is neither the natural nor the true state of humanity.

 

Here's an interesting youtube that references HUMAN-NESS:

 

In the Majjihima Nikaaya Sutra, Buddha said, “Your ignorance and delusion are nothing strange, for it is difficult for logical thinking to understand peace.”

 

V

 

I don't know if this makes sense. It seems to contradict itself, because believing that perception and reality are illusions is every bit as much a construct of belief in itself. So in order to truly follow this line of thinking one must not believe in anything, not Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or even rational thought, but rather that nothing is real. But even believing that means I've fallen into the trap of belief and hence ignorance, so perhaps the only liberation from ignorance is the cessation of thought and existence?

 

Aaron

Edited July 22, 2011 by Twinner

[Otis]

Don't know about Taoism or Buddhism, but I like to think of ignorance as a result of ignoring something.

I'll buy that.

[Otis]

I don't know if this makes sense. It seems to contradict itself, because believing that perception and reality are illusions is every bit as much a construct of belief in itself. So in order to truly follow this line of thinking one must not believe in anything, not Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or even rational thought, but rather that nothing is real. But even believing that means I've fallen into the trap of belief and hence ignorance, so perhaps the only liberation from ignorance is the cessation of thought and existence?

 

Aaron

To me, it's about balance (like all things).

 

It is not necessarily to get rid of one's beliefs, but to hold on to them so lightly, that they can be discarded in a second, when evidence to the contrary comes along. To always acknowledge: this is just the best model I have, thus far.

 

Certainty is the emotional component of belief that makes one attached to an idea, that makes one want to defend it, to reject others. Without certainty, belief is just rules of thumb, useful pointers. With certainty, it is dogma.

 

Certainty, like other forms of attachment, is like a form of panic. It is grasping, neediness, tension.

Edited July 22, 2011 by Otis

[Adishakti]

Ignorance is forgetting we all ride the same subway.

 

 

 

What does the word ignorance/ignorant mean in context of Taoism and Buddhism?

 

 

Much Love,

 

Arab

[Simple_Jack]

.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Simple_Jack

[Harmonious Emptiness]

Imo, ignorance is to ignore the obvious while not acknowledging that this is being done. An example common to the mundane world would be racism, where people judge a entire group of people based on their selective limited experience while ignoring all the other people of that group they encountered who were just living their lives like everybody else.

 

In the context of Buddhism, the obvious that people ignore is 1) our lack of fullfillment, and 2) the simple fact that we cause our lack of fulfillment by ignoring that we don't need to be anything more than we are.

[Otis]

There's some great neuro-science information on why to "be like a child" in the PBS special "The Brain Fitness Program" (available from Netflix). It is primarily aimed at an older audience, but the questions of brain plasticity are universal.

 

In particular, the first 4 minutes of this video are very informative and useful:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQTbw787lFI

 

There is a case, not included in the online version, about a victim of a massive stroke who learned to walk again, not by trying to arrive at the "right way of walking" that he used to know, but by starting over again, allowing himself to be an infant, and crawl, get to know what his body is capable of. It is that willingness to constantly start over, to be a beginner, that keeps the brain's ability to stay plastic, and heal itself.

 

The music in the doc is kind of yuck, but otherwise, I highly recommend seeing the whole program.

[doc benway]

The Tao Te Ching does not advocate a state of "ignorance." When it talks of "being like a child," it is talking of the "purity" and "simplicity," that is realizing your "essential nature." The use of the metaphor of being like a child, reflects the above.

 

As for the above paragrapgh you typed: It sounds like it's saying that more and more is let go (conceptual elaborations, afflictions of the mind, etc.) as you realize more and more the equality and selflesness of Tao.

 

Just my thoughts, though.....

I agree with you.

Sages are also often compared to fools and simpletons.

And once we have lived with the experience of all of our conditioning and suffering and desires, in order let all of that go, it feels to me as if we are ignoring these impulses and thoughts and seek sort of a state of ignorance.

Semantics perhaps.

[Harmonious Emptiness]

[Simple_Jack]

I agree with you.

Sages are also often compared to fools and simpletons.

And once we have lived with the experience of all of our conditioning and suffering and desires, in order let all of that go, it feels to me as if we are ignoring these impulses and thoughts and seek sort of a state of ignorance.

Semantics perhaps.

 

Hmmmm...I wouldn't say "seeking a state of ignorance;" more like you're seeing through fundamental ignorance, and realizing innate wisdom. You are definitely "cutting through" afflictions that cloud our self-nature and with realization the guessing and the need for conceptual elaborations, gives way to actualized spontaneous presence. Ignorance is "replaced" with primordial wisdom.

[doc benway]

Hmmmm...I wouldn't say "seeking a state of ignorance;" more like you're seeing through fundamental ignorance, and realizing innate wisdom. You are definitely "cutting through" afflictions that cloud our self-nature and with realization the guessing and the need for conceptual elaborations, gives way to actualized spontaneous presence. Ignorance is "replaced" with primordial wisdom.

Sounds good

[Vmarco]

[Aaron]

Yes,...believing that perception and reality are illusions is a mental construct,...just as any belief would be. And yes,...it is a good idea to not believe Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, or even rational thought. In fact, that's what Short Path Buddhism instructs,...to not believe in anything. Shakyamuni said, “Do not accept anything by mere tradition. . . Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures. . . Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your preconceived notions.” Buddha taught irreligion.

 

Descartes said, "All that I have tried to understand to the present time has been affected by my senses; now I know these senses are deceivers, and it is prudent to be distrustful after one has been deceived once.” So it would be a good idea to not belief the senses either.

 

Basically, liberation from ignorance is the ability to recognize the false as the false. If you authentically observe a belief, that belief will effortlessly dissolve,..because who wants a belief that they know to be false.

 

That isn't to say that cessation of thinking isn't a great idea. My longest period without thinking was one lunar cycle,...and probably my most productive and blissful month in this incarnation. I should mention however, that I'm a slow unlearner,...that month came 23 years after my first lengthy thoughtless period of several hours.

 

As I mentioned in the Heart-Mind thread, there are many transformational triggers to shut-down the ego. You were aware that thinking comes from ego?

 

Finally,...keep in mind that liberation from ignorance is not recommended for most people.

 

Here's what a Canadian said about waking up:

 

Waking up is not necessarily pleasant:

you get to see

why all this time,

you chose to sleep.

 

When you wake up

the first thing you will see is

Reality does not exist for you,

you exist for it.

Shocking as it is

when you let it in,

there is rest.

 

You do not have to labor anymore

to hold together a reality

that does not exist;

forcing something to be real

that is not real.

 

You and this life you have been living

are not real ...

In letting it in,

even through the shock... pain... shattering,

there is rest.

 

Reality is when

all you want to know is

what is true ...

just so that you can

let it in

and be true.

 

Reality is not a safe place for you -

the you that you have created.

 

It is the only place where

you would die;

where there is no room for

your hopes, your dreams.

 

Once you have let it in,

once you begin to re-awaken;

to let Reality wake you up,

nothing can get it out.

That is the beginning of your end.

Waking up can be much more painful

than the agony of your dream,

but waking up is real ...

 

And there will be integration:

a merging of Reality and you.

 

 

You and Reality will become one

in a world that does not

accept nor want one.

 

 

Nicely said. I don't necessarily ascribe to the notion of ego, but rather the self, i.e. those things that arise from the body. I described this a bit more in the Heartmind thread as well.

 

Aaron

Edited July 23, 2011 by Twinner