Ignorance as a Path - pouring water into water

What Im going to talk about here is something quite subtle. I may not explain it clearly, but if you can sift through my explanations and maybe experience directly, non-conceptually, just what Im pointing at I think it can bring some benefit.

I don't know, but maybe you can identify with this experience.

Maybe sometimes you get up in the morning and nothing seems all that clear. It's a kind of subtle disorientation - not so much a disorientation in time and space, but of purpose. You're just not sure or clear on how and why to proceed.

I know this happens a lot in the context of studying and practicing Buddhism. "Last night I had it all figured out, I really understood that difficult passage in the madhyamaka teachings on emptiness.." etc. Then you wake up the next day and things don't seem so clear and this lack of clarity even effects your motivation.

That's how it plays out in a Buddhist context sometimes, and Buddhism may then seem kind of plastic and contrived - maybe even life in general begins to feel a little bit like this "blah"...

I think when is happens -speaking in this context of Buddhism- you can take it as a sign that you may have been trying to "force" someTHING, some understanding into a particular view which you can then easily turn into an ideology, which you can then "securely" latch onto [aka "grab"].

That's a good insight in itself, but to have even that level of insight still requires an initial assessment of the current situation as being "someTHING wrong that needs to be "fixed" or changed or corrected.

In general, as an expedient for those at a certain basic level of the practice, Buddhism views "ignorance" or "lack of awareness" as someTHING to be done away with. It even may become something more then that - almost like a being of some kind, some kind of evil force-THING inside of us that we must destroy or eliminate.

This metaphorical description of ignorance can be useful for a time but it eventually needs to be left behind.

Now I will try to replace that metaphor with others which I hope will reveal a deeper, more subtle and maybe more realistic and effective approach to this phenomenon of ignorance.

According to Buddhism, ignorance can be explained as a mental condition of 'being unaware of or obscured from' the ultimate truth about the nature of experience.

What does this mean in sort of everyday terms?

Ignorance is seeing THINGNESS where no-THINGNESS exists.

When we experience, when the mind perceives or experiences any phenomena, there are 2 possible ways for this experience to develop into a full, coarse, cognitive experience:

One way is based (according to Buddhism) on a mistaken "additional element" (an obscuring element) that is tangentially present in the mere appearing of a perception. This then, is what is commonly referred to as the cognitive condition of ignorance.

The other way is based on the complete absence of this "additional element" (obscuring element). This is what is commonly referred to as wisdom or insight.

So what is this "mistaken additional element"?

Ignorance is seeing THINGS

Knowledge is seeing the dependent nature of THINGS

Wisdom is seeing no-THINGS

When we see THINGS we see illusion. We see what is not there. We see thing-NESS, solidity, existence, objects, particulars, permanence, selves.

When we see the dependent nature of THINGS we see their other dependence, their causes and conditions. We see the lack of thing-NESS in them, we see their voidness of inherent existence. We see their relativity and impermanence. We see no-self.

When we see no-THINGS we see the absolute nature of all experience. We see the voidness of all phenomena. We see how all this IS, ultimately. We see that it is neither existence as a THING, nor is it non-existence as a THING. We see ineffable interdependence-voidness.

What this comes down to is this: When we see THINGS we obscure the basic clarity that is our fundamental experience of interdependence-voidness.

Put another way [maybe more to the point], where there is THING-NESS there is obscuration to the clarity that is our fundamental experience.

When we see NO-THINGS [no-THING-NESS] we have this clarity that is our fundamental experience of interdependence-voidness.

In other words, where there is NO-THING-NESS, there is clarity of experience.

In Buddhism, we take ignorance and make it into THING-NESS. But, why do we do that?

We do it because we have to have a path, we have to distinguish stress from release, pain from joy, enlightenment from non-enlightenment. By doing so, by making ignorance into a bad THING we draw a map to get to nirvana.

That is good as far as it goes. If you don't recognize a problem you can't begin to find a solution.

But what is the nature of an "obscuring element"?

The nature of any phenomena, of any THING is that it is caused and conditioned. Because it is caused and conditioned it is empty or void of being it's own THING. And when the causes and conditions are examined as well, we find they are also empty or void of being self existing THINGS.

By implication then, the ultimate truth is that there can be NO-THINGS what so ever existing as THINGS.

What this means is that, speaking from a descriptive stand point, ALL is ineffable voidness-interdependence. From a purely experiential stand point, ALL is unobstructed clarity.

Can an obscuration exist as a THING that obscures? No. There are no THINGS so no THINGS to act as obstructions to clarity.

The very THING you view as 'ignorance' is itself not a THING and therefore not obstructive.

The very nature of any moment of experience is utterly beyond obstruction.

In fact, the appearance of ignorance [like the appearance of any THING] can be taken as proof of clarity, of un-obstructiveness, of wisdom.
One might even say that the clearer the appearance of ignorance, the clearer the presence of wisdom.

In practical terms, when things seem confusing, unclear, when stress arises in experience, when emotions "afflict" us, we can solidify these experiences into THINGS by judging them as "negatives" - that's one type of path to tread.

The other path though is that we take these "negatives", these "obscuring elements" and we release the THING-NESS of them.

We see them as an oportunity to view the self-liberated [void] nature of all things, of all phenomena, of all experiences.

When we have this "viewless" view of ignorance, of confusion, of affliction, then these -like any and all phenomenal appearance- are an opportunity to experience ultimate truth, directly, non-conceptually.

Let yourself be just as you are. Give yourself a big field to play in. If confusion is present, let it be present. Notice when you are judging "bad" vs "good". Notice your stress - even subtle stress. Notice the voidness that is the nature all these THINGS in your experience.

This is how you use ignorance as a path to wisdom.