About Ignorance
November 22nd 2009 -
(From an installment of the teaching on Gampopa’s Jewel Ornament of Liberation given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche at Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in November 1997. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso, transcribed by Julie Markle, copy-edited by Basia Coulter. Copyright 1997-2009 Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, and Peter O’Hearn. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission.)
When we use the word ignorance, we get the idea or image of something bad, some sort of negative and invisible influence that affects all of us. But in fact, if you consider the way things are, all things without exception are interdependent. Because we can say, “over there,” we can also say, “over here.” Because we have the concept of east, we have the concept of west. Because we can experience summer, we can call something else winter and so on. Therefore ignorance itself is a part of this interdependence. And the existence of ignorance is itself an indication of that which is relative to it, that is awareness-wisdom.
It is easy to say that ignorance is an impure mind and that awareness-wisdom is a pure mind. But when we say this, we need to remember that we are not talking about two different minds. We are talking about two different aspects of the same mind. And therefore while we might tend to think of it this way, it is not the case that you accomplish awareness-wisdom by first eradicating ignorance and then creating some kind of new state of wisdom. The two go together just as the front and back of your hand go together. It is easy to identify the front of one’s hand. The front of one’s hand is the side that is softer and has all those deep lines on it. And the back of one’s hand is the side that is harder and has rather small wrinkles on it. But while the front and the back of one’s hand can be distinguished in this way, it is not the case that they are two separate hands. Nor is it the case that only one of them is your hand and the other one is not. They are both equally your hand. And they are the same hand.
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Ignorance refers to that which impedes the recognition of the mind’s nature. It is characteristic of our minds that we possess the innate potential or innate qualities of awareness-wisdom, which is to say that faculty or characteristic of the mind that makes liberation and omniscience possible. For liberation and omniscience to be attained, this nature, this awareness needs to be recognized. The recognition of it is impeded by ignorance. Nevertheless ignorance itself should not be considered to be something permanent, indestructible, and unchanging. Ignorance can be removed. And the process of the path, the accumulation, and the purification aspects of the path, in particular, are the process by means of which this ignorance is gradually diminished and removed. This is something that anyone who wishes to, can actually accomplish. From that point of view, ignorance is not so terrible at all. It has the quality of its own destructibility.
Ignorance is in a sense an aspect of the kleshas.* And, as is well know, there are said to be three ways of working with the kleshas in general: abandoning them, transforming them, or recognizing their basic nature. Practically speaking, as beginners, we need to concentrate primarily on abandoning the kleshas. Because if we neglect the purification of the negative karma we accumulate through actions impelled by the kleshas, the circumstances will not exist within our minds that will allow us to transform the kleshas into wisdom or to recognize their basic nature. Theoretically, of course, it is possible to transform the experience of kleshas into wisdom and to recognize their nature. But for this transformation and recognition to occur, the individual doing these practices has to have the power and freedom to do them. And that power and freedom itself comes from the attainment that is the result of having purified to some degree the obscuration of the kleshas themselves. We cannot transform the kleshas or recognize their nature until we have already worked with the kleshas by abandoning them to a great extent. While there is the presentation in a theoretical context of taking the kleshas on the path, and in fact making the kleshas themselves the substance of the path leading to the result, it is very hard to apply this in practice.
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Although the nature of our minds is in fact always pure wisdom, because this is obscured by ignorance we need to methodically and patiently apply methods that will remove this obscuring ignorance. The principal and most effective method for doing so is the process of letting go of or abandoning ignorance. And this was very much emphasized in the teachings of the Buddha, which are classified into the three baskets or Tripitaka. Among the three baskets (the Vinaya, Sutras, and Abhidharma), in the Vinaya, the Buddha taught in great detail on how to tame the mind. In these teachings, he said that the mind is basically like a wild horse that has to be tamed by someone who has a special skill in training horses. In the same way, the wild horse of our mind needs to be tamed by the bridal of the individual liberation discipline which has to be applied to one’s life in a way that is appropriate to one’s specific situation in general. And especially has to be applied in emphasis to whichever of the five kleshas (attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride, and jealousy) is strongest in one’s own individual case. If you apply the discipline and training appropriately, then in fact it becomes very easy to tame the kleshas.
*Kleshas refer to mental states such as attachment, aversion, ignorance, pride, and jealousy that defile the mind and lead to unwholesome actions. See an article Kleshas on Wikipedia for a more extensive explanation.
Tags: awakening, awareness, ignorance, kleshas, nature of mind, purification, transformation, wisdom