06-25-2010, 12:01 AM
The Buddha teaches that there is one defilement which gives rise to all the others. One root that which holds them all in place. The root is ignorance (avijja).
[1] Ignorance is not mere absence of knowledge, a lack of knowing particular pieces of information. Ignorance can co-exist with out vast accumalation of itemized knowledge, and in its own way it can be tremendously shrewd and resourceful. As the basic root of dukkha, ignorance is a fundamental darkness shrouding the mind. Sometimes this ignorance operates in a passive manner, merely obscuring correct understanding. At other times it takes on an active role: it becomes the great deceiver, conjuring up a mass of distorted perceptions and conceptions which the mind grasps as attributes of the world, unaware that they are its own deluded constructs.
Notes:
1. Ignorance is actually identical in nature with the unwholesome root "delusion"( moha ). When the Buddha speaks in a psychological construct about mental factors, he generally uses the word "delusion". When he speaks about the causal basis of samsara, he uses the word "ignorance"( avijja).
[1] Ignorance is not mere absence of knowledge, a lack of knowing particular pieces of information. Ignorance can co-exist with out vast accumalation of itemized knowledge, and in its own way it can be tremendously shrewd and resourceful. As the basic root of dukkha, ignorance is a fundamental darkness shrouding the mind. Sometimes this ignorance operates in a passive manner, merely obscuring correct understanding. At other times it takes on an active role: it becomes the great deceiver, conjuring up a mass of distorted perceptions and conceptions which the mind grasps as attributes of the world, unaware that they are its own deluded constructs.
Notes:
1. Ignorance is actually identical in nature with the unwholesome root "delusion"( moha ). When the Buddha speaks in a psychological construct about mental factors, he generally uses the word "delusion". When he speaks about the causal basis of samsara, he uses the word "ignorance"( avijja).