What are the Causes of
Ignorance?
First:
Ignorance is not seeing and
not knowing the
4 Noble Truths fully!
The near and proximate cause
is the
5
mental hindrances:
Ignorance comes into being caused by the
5
mental hindrances!
That is right here and now:
Ignorance grows up caused by desire and lust...
Ignorance arises caused by aversion
and ill-will...
Ignorance emerges caused by lethargy and laziness...
Ignorance appears caused by restlessness
and regret...
Ignorance comes into being caused by doubt and uncertainty...
All these 5 factors will obscure, obstruct and distort
the 4 Noble Truths!
So also will these
5
mental hindrances block the manifold and profound
implications and wide-ranging consequences of
these 4 Noble Truths!
The remote and subtle cause
is fermentation ~= assuming and supposing:
Conditioned by
mental fermentation
(āsava) does ignorance emerge:
That is multi-factorially, on the long-term, as a hidden latent tendency:
Ignorance is caused by the mental fermentation linked to sense-desire.
Ignorance is caused by the mental fermentation associated with
various views.
Ignorance is caused by the mental fermentation coupled with becoming
itself.
Ignorance is caused by the mental fermentation joined with ignorance itself!
The often unseen emotional causal component
of ignorance is neutral feeling:
Ignorance is caused by a feeling of neutral indifference, since this
absence
of both pleasure and pain promotes neglect by disabling interest and examination,
which
then
logically results in not knowing the specifics of the object =
ignorance...
Thus the unaware mind will automatically disregard all objects,
that does neither
arouses any pleasure, nor burns with any pain... This
default discarding inevitably
causes ignorance as the object is not offered any attention, or
examination...
Ignorance thus grows in a
fatal positively self-enhancing
feedback-loop!
The Blessed Buddha said:
Bhikkhus, a beginning of ignorance cannot be pointed out in this way:
Before this point in time, there was no ignorance, afterward it came.
But, Bhikkhus, it can be pointed out in this way:
Caused by this, ignorance
comes to be. Bhikkhus, I tell you, ignorance too
has a causal condition!
What is the causal condition of ignorance?
The
five mental hindrances is the
correct answer...
Source: AN X 61, AN X 62
What is ignorance, what is the origin of ignorance, what is the ceasing of
ignorance, and what is the way leading to the ceasing of ignorance?
Not knowing about suffering, not knowing about the origin of suffering,
not
knowing about the ceasing of suffering, not knowing about the way
leading to
the ceasing of suffering, that is called ignorance!
With the arising of the mental fermentations, ignorance also arises.
With the ceasing of the mental fermentations, ignorance also ceases!
The way leading to the ceasing of ignorance is just this
Noble 8-fold
Way:
That is: Right view, right motivation, right speech, right action,
right livelihood,
right effort, right awareness, and right concentration.
Source: MN 9
More on Ignorance (avijjā):
Ignorance,
What_is_Ignorance,
Whenever_and_Wherever,
The_Causes_of_Ignorance,
Indifference_Creates_Ignorance,
What_is_the_Cause_of_Ignorance,
Because_of_Not_Knowing,
Because_of_Not_Examining,
Indifference_Creates_Ignorance
For Details on the Mental Fermentations
(āsava)
please see:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/a/aasava.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/The_Proximate_Cause.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/Cause_of_Ignorance.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/II/The_Three_Fermentations.htm
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/Freed_from_Fermentation.htm
