Friday, October 10, 2008

IGNORANCE

unification.net

Many religions regard the evils of the human condition as a result of ignorance. Being ignorant of the truth about Ultimate Reality and the purpose of life, people's values become confused, and consequently they act unbeneficially. In Buddhism, this ignorance (mithyajnana) leads to grasping after self, and hence to error. In Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism this blindness (avidya) is what binds people to the Wheel of Birth-and-Death (Samsara). Taoist sages condemn knowledge of worldly things as a source of confusion about true values, and similarly many scriptures warn against the illusory goals and vanities that infect worldly life.

This selection of passages is arranged in roughly the following order: the practical observation that ignorance of Ultimate Reality spurs evil and detrimental behavior. Next, according to the religions of India, it is due to ignorance that humans are bound to suffer on the wheel of Samsara, going through continual deaths and rebirths. Spiritual blindness is the subject of the third group of passages, passages which describe ignorance as a veil that obscures insight. Other passages describe humanity's blindness by such metaphors as frogs in a well and moths drawn to perish in a lamp. In our blindness, we are attracted to the vanities of this world which are ephemeral and deceiving, according to the next group of passages. Concluding passages reason that even evil itself is an illusion or a bad dream.

The fool says in his heart,
"There is no [Sakka]."
They are all corrupt, they do abominable deeds,
there is none that does good.
The Lord looks down from [the] heaven[s]
upon the children of men,
to see if there are any that act wisely,
that seek after [Sakka].
They have all gone astray,
they are all alike corrupt;
there is none that does good,
no, not one.
Have they no knowledge,
all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?
--This mirrors Buddhist mythology on the custom of Sakka the "king of kings" and the Four Great Kings who regularly visit earth (two to three times a month) to check in on human progress in virtue as summarized in Judaism and Christianity in Psalm 14.1-4

The demonic do things they should avoid and avoid the things they should do. They have no sense of uprightness, purity, or truth.

"There is no God," they say, "no truth, no spiritual law, no moral order. The basis of life is sex; what else can it be?" Holding such distorted views, possessing scant discrimination, they become enemies of the world, causing suffering and destruction.

Hypocritical, proud, and arrogant, living in delusion and clinging to deluded ideas, insatiable in their desires, they pursue their unclean ends. Although burdened with fears that end only with death, they still maintain with complete assurance, "Gratification of lust is the highest that life can offer."

Bound on all sides by scheming and anxiety, driven by anger and greed, they amass by any means they can a hoard of money for the satisfaction of their cravings.

"I got this today," they say; "tomorrow I shall get that. This wealth is mine, and that will be mine too. I have destroyed my enemies. I shall destroy others too! Am I not like God? I enjoy what I want. I am successful. I am powerful. I am happy. I am rich and well-born. Who is equal to me? I will perform sacrifices and give gifts, and rejoice in my own generosity." This is how they go on, deluded by ignorance. Bound by their greed and entangled in a web of delusion, whirled about by a fragmented mind, they fall into a dark hell.
--Hinduism. Bhagavad Gita 16.7-16

He who does not clearly understand Heaven will not be pure in virtue. He who has not mastered the Way will find himself without any acceptable path of approach. He who does not understand the Way is pitiable indeed!
--Taoism. Chuang Tzu 11

This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns, and never stops. As long as the individual self thinks it is separate from the Lord, it revolves upon the wheel in bondage to the laws of birth, death, and rebirth....

The Lord supports this universe, which is made up of the perishable and the imperishable, the manifest and the unmanifest. The individual soul, forgetful of the Lord, attaches itself to pleasure and thus is bound.
--Hinduism. Svetasvatara Upanishad 1.6-8

By reason of the habit-energy stored up by false imagination since beginningless time, this world is subject to change and destruction from moment to moment; it is like a river, a seed, a lamp, wind, a cloud; like a monkey who is always restless, like a fly who is ever in search of unclean things and defiled places, like a fire which is never satisfied. Again, [thought] is like a water-wheel or a machine: it goes on rolling the wheel of transmigration, carrying varieties of bodies and forms... causing the wooden figures to move as a magician moves them. Mahamati, a thorough understanding concerning these phenomena is called comprehending the egolessness of persons.
--Buddhism. Lankavatara Sutra 24

Intoxicated by the wine of illusion, like one intoxicated by wine; rushing about, like one possessed of an evil spirit; bitten by the world, like one bitten by a great serpent; darkened by passion, like the night; illusory, like magic; false, like a dream; pithless, like the inside of a banana-tree; changing its dress in a moment, like an actor; fair in appearance, like a painted wall--thus they call him.
--Hinduism. Maitri Upanishad 4.2

Owing to delusion, one again passes through cycles of birth and death. In this unbroken chain of births and deaths, delusion keeps cropping up again and again.
--Jainism. Acarangasutra 5.7-8

Few see through the veil of Maya.
--Hinduism. Bhagavad Gita 7.25

Long is the night to the wakeful; long is the league to the weary; long is Samsara to the foolish who know not the sublime Truth.
--Buddhism. Dhammapada 60

This world is as a juggler's show,
Wherein various disguises he assumes.
As he puts off his makeup, ended is His expanse [of creation].
Then is left the Sole Supreme Being.
How many various guises has He assumed and cast off?
To where have they gone? From where did they come?
From water arise innumerable waves;
From gold are shaped ornaments of various forms;
Many are the kinds of seeds sown:
As ripens the fruit, again is left the Sole Supreme Being.
Into thousands of pitchers falls reflection of the one sky;
As the pitcher is broken, the sole Light remains.
While thoughts of Maya last, doubt, avarice, and attachment are found;
When illusion is lifted, only the Sole Supreme Being is left.
--Sikhism. Adi Granth, Suhi, M.5, p. 736

Within the Essence of Mind all things are intrinsically pure, like the azure of the sky and the radiance of the sun and the moon which, when obscured by passing clouds, may appear as if their brightness had been dimmed; but as soon as the clouds are blown away, brightness reappears and all objects are fully illuminated. Learned Audience, our evil habits may be likened unto the clouds; while Sagacity and Wisdom are like the sun and the moon respectively. When we attach ourselves to outer objects, our Essence of Mind is clouded by wanton thoughts which prevent our Sagacity and Wisdom from sending forth their light.
--Buddhism. Sutra of Hui Neng 6

Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking themselves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind.
--Hinduism. Katha Upanishad 1.2.5

Confucius said, "In vain I have looked for a single man capable of seeing his own faults and bringing the charge home against himself."
--Confucianism. Analects 5.26

Blind is this world. Few are those who clearly see. As birds escape from a net, few go to a blissful state.
--Buddhism. Dhammapada 174

On a certain occasion the Exalted One was seated in the open air, on a night of inky darkness, and oil lamps were burning. Swarms of winged insects kept falling into these oil lamps and thereby met their end, came to destruction and utter ruin. Seeing those swarms of winged insects so doing, the Exalted One saw the meaning in it and uttered this verse of uplift,

They hasten up and past, but miss the real;
a bondage ever new they cause to grow.
Just as the flutterers fall into the lamp,
so some are bent on what they see and hear.
--Buddhism. Udana 72

Men think much of their own advancement and of many other worldly things; but there is no improvement in this decaying world, which is as a tempting dish, sweet-coated, yet full of deadly gall within.... It is as intangible as a mist; try to lay hold of it, and it proves to be nothing!
--Hinduism. Yoga Vasishtha

The Tathagata [Buddha] knows the polluted minds of beings for what they are. For he knows that the minds of ordinary people are not actually polluted by the polluting forces of perverted views, which, being nothing but wrong ideas, do not really find a place in them.
--Buddhism. Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines 12.3

The power that is not good--that is, the power that causes misfortune--is, after all, only a bad dream.
The life that is not good--that is, disease--is, after all, only a bad dream.
All discords and imperfections are, after all, only bad dreams.
It is our bad dreams that give power to disease, misfortune, discord, and imperfection.
It is like being tortured by some demon in our dreams;
But when we awaken, we find that there is actually no such power,
And that we had suffered at the hands of our own mind.
--Seicho-no-Ie. Nectarean Shower of Holy Doctrines

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