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Why does one suffer because of ignorance if ignorance is unintentional?
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It makes no sense that a person would knowingly choose to be ignorant, yet people suffer for "their" ignorance anyway.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge? Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random? Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think this may be another unanswerable question.
(What kind of insane reality is this??) (That is my reaction to this conundrum.)
philosophy
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
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up vote
2
down vote
favorite
It makes no sense that a person would knowingly choose to be ignorant, yet people suffer for "their" ignorance anyway.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge? Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random? Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think this may be another unanswerable question.
(What kind of insane reality is this??) (That is my reaction to this conundrum.)
philosophy
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
up vote
2
down vote
favorite
It makes no sense that a person would knowingly choose to be ignorant, yet people suffer for "their" ignorance anyway.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge? Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random? Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think this may be another unanswerable question.
(What kind of insane reality is this??) (That is my reaction to this conundrum.)
philosophy
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
It makes no sense that a person would knowingly choose to be ignorant, yet people suffer for "their" ignorance anyway.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge? Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random? Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think this may be another unanswerable question.
(What kind of insane reality is this??) (That is my reaction to this conundrum.)
philosophy
philosophy
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
asked 4 hours ago
Angus
426
426
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
3 Answers
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I don't know, I'm not sure what your background is -- I think the question would make sense, if you assume that "suffering" is a punishment imposed by God for sinning, i.e. for deliberately breaking (for "deliberately choosing" to break) one of God's commandments when you should have known better -- perhaps you're arguing that if you don't know then you are innocent and therefore shouldn't suffer.
I think a better analogy is something more like cancer, or any other apparent misfortune -- e.g. people suffer and die because they don't know how to cure it -- it isn't a question of whether it's fair (nor of divine punishment), it's a question of whether you've learned the insight and skill, maybe the habits, to undo the cause or to not do it in the first place.
Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think they have a little. There's a sutta -- Chiggala Sutta: The Hole (SN 56.48) -- which suggests that we are fortunate to have been born human and in a time or place, where we can learn the Buddha's Dhamma.
Some people teach not only that the opportunity (to learn to practice) is rare, and nt only that we're fortunate to have access to the Dhamma, but also that it (i.e. the opportunity and the liberating effects) is a reason in itself for us to be happy.
Perhaps that's somewhat debatable though, a matter of perspective. Some people argue against the doctrine of "free will", saying that the physical world just does what it does and continues to do that, and that "people" are just conditioned i.e. that everything they do or think is just conditioned by one thing or another. I think that "free will" probably isn't a Buddhist doctrine -- but other people say (e.g. here) that an "exercise of free will" is "what makes Buddhist practice possible".
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
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up vote
1
down vote
I agree with ChrisW here. Your question implies that you take it personally, while in reality it is an impersonal process. What seems like "you" and "your suffering" (as well as all other sentient beings with their respective experiences) arises from an accumulation and "clumping" of tendencies.
In the beginning these tendencies don't have any awareness, but over time they develop into something that can reflect and think, and once there is thinking, it starts generating all these ideas about how things are, how things should be, with suffering arising when they don't match.
But of course, only when there's thinking, there begin some attempts to analyze the situation, and to solve the problem of things being wrong. So thinking is both the source of the problem as well as the way to finding solution. While the situation before thinking is both ignorance and bliss, the primordial Eden without the conflict between right and wrong.
In the early phases of this evolutionary process, the emerging intelligence does not have any capacity for deliberate action. Think about a young child, can it plan its own destiny and decide where it's going? Then, as the intelligence matures, it grows stable and learns to plan ahead and execute its plans step by step. Of course, before it gets wise it keeps making all kinds of bad judgements and suffers their consequences. Why is that a surprise to you?
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
One suffers because of ignorance through the lack of seeing. The kind of seeing that is needed to traverse ignorance is obscured by an internal map of reality and that view is biased and distorted to suit your conditioned state. That reality is basically made of all of the inaccurate information that has come through your six senses (this part can get extremely detailed - Abhidharma casts some interesting light upon this). One small way I can describe this is to notice the illusion below.
What should have happened is the mind is initially fooled by the illusion but if one chooses to further inspect the image one will see the finer constituents that make up that illusion. However, imagine this illusion as being your view of reality but instead of choosing to inspect and examine it, you just accept its initial appearance (ignorance).
Reality is the same. The only difference with penetrating the illusion above and penetrating into reality is the degree of chronological time it takes.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge?
For me, the only dependant part is switching focus - that is the choice. That's all you need, the willingness to want to pick it all apart. The rest just shows itself and often in some quite peculiar ways. Like in the illusion above, the knowledge to see how it works is already there, one just has to apply focus to see it for what it is.
Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random?
For the most part, I'd say yes. The motivating governors are stored in their alaya consciousness..
What kind of insane reality is this??
It's incomprehensible to the finite constructs of the conceptual mind.
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
add a comment |Â
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
1
down vote
I don't know, I'm not sure what your background is -- I think the question would make sense, if you assume that "suffering" is a punishment imposed by God for sinning, i.e. for deliberately breaking (for "deliberately choosing" to break) one of God's commandments when you should have known better -- perhaps you're arguing that if you don't know then you are innocent and therefore shouldn't suffer.
I think a better analogy is something more like cancer, or any other apparent misfortune -- e.g. people suffer and die because they don't know how to cure it -- it isn't a question of whether it's fair (nor of divine punishment), it's a question of whether you've learned the insight and skill, maybe the habits, to undo the cause or to not do it in the first place.
Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think they have a little. There's a sutta -- Chiggala Sutta: The Hole (SN 56.48) -- which suggests that we are fortunate to have been born human and in a time or place, where we can learn the Buddha's Dhamma.
Some people teach not only that the opportunity (to learn to practice) is rare, and nt only that we're fortunate to have access to the Dhamma, but also that it (i.e. the opportunity and the liberating effects) is a reason in itself for us to be happy.
Perhaps that's somewhat debatable though, a matter of perspective. Some people argue against the doctrine of "free will", saying that the physical world just does what it does and continues to do that, and that "people" are just conditioned i.e. that everything they do or think is just conditioned by one thing or another. I think that "free will" probably isn't a Buddhist doctrine -- but other people say (e.g. here) that an "exercise of free will" is "what makes Buddhist practice possible".
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
I don't know, I'm not sure what your background is -- I think the question would make sense, if you assume that "suffering" is a punishment imposed by God for sinning, i.e. for deliberately breaking (for "deliberately choosing" to break) one of God's commandments when you should have known better -- perhaps you're arguing that if you don't know then you are innocent and therefore shouldn't suffer.
I think a better analogy is something more like cancer, or any other apparent misfortune -- e.g. people suffer and die because they don't know how to cure it -- it isn't a question of whether it's fair (nor of divine punishment), it's a question of whether you've learned the insight and skill, maybe the habits, to undo the cause or to not do it in the first place.
Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think they have a little. There's a sutta -- Chiggala Sutta: The Hole (SN 56.48) -- which suggests that we are fortunate to have been born human and in a time or place, where we can learn the Buddha's Dhamma.
Some people teach not only that the opportunity (to learn to practice) is rare, and nt only that we're fortunate to have access to the Dhamma, but also that it (i.e. the opportunity and the liberating effects) is a reason in itself for us to be happy.
Perhaps that's somewhat debatable though, a matter of perspective. Some people argue against the doctrine of "free will", saying that the physical world just does what it does and continues to do that, and that "people" are just conditioned i.e. that everything they do or think is just conditioned by one thing or another. I think that "free will" probably isn't a Buddhist doctrine -- but other people say (e.g. here) that an "exercise of free will" is "what makes Buddhist practice possible".
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
up vote
1
down vote
I don't know, I'm not sure what your background is -- I think the question would make sense, if you assume that "suffering" is a punishment imposed by God for sinning, i.e. for deliberately breaking (for "deliberately choosing" to break) one of God's commandments when you should have known better -- perhaps you're arguing that if you don't know then you are innocent and therefore shouldn't suffer.
I think a better analogy is something more like cancer, or any other apparent misfortune -- e.g. people suffer and die because they don't know how to cure it -- it isn't a question of whether it's fair (nor of divine punishment), it's a question of whether you've learned the insight and skill, maybe the habits, to undo the cause or to not do it in the first place.
Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think they have a little. There's a sutta -- Chiggala Sutta: The Hole (SN 56.48) -- which suggests that we are fortunate to have been born human and in a time or place, where we can learn the Buddha's Dhamma.
Some people teach not only that the opportunity (to learn to practice) is rare, and nt only that we're fortunate to have access to the Dhamma, but also that it (i.e. the opportunity and the liberating effects) is a reason in itself for us to be happy.
Perhaps that's somewhat debatable though, a matter of perspective. Some people argue against the doctrine of "free will", saying that the physical world just does what it does and continues to do that, and that "people" are just conditioned i.e. that everything they do or think is just conditioned by one thing or another. I think that "free will" probably isn't a Buddhist doctrine -- but other people say (e.g. here) that an "exercise of free will" is "what makes Buddhist practice possible".
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
I don't know, I'm not sure what your background is -- I think the question would make sense, if you assume that "suffering" is a punishment imposed by God for sinning, i.e. for deliberately breaking (for "deliberately choosing" to break) one of God's commandments when you should have known better -- perhaps you're arguing that if you don't know then you are innocent and therefore shouldn't suffer.
I think a better analogy is something more like cancer, or any other apparent misfortune -- e.g. people suffer and die because they don't know how to cure it -- it isn't a question of whether it's fair (nor of divine punishment), it's a question of whether you've learned the insight and skill, maybe the habits, to undo the cause or to not do it in the first place.
Do people not have any freedom or autonomy?
I think they have a little. There's a sutta -- Chiggala Sutta: The Hole (SN 56.48) -- which suggests that we are fortunate to have been born human and in a time or place, where we can learn the Buddha's Dhamma.
Some people teach not only that the opportunity (to learn to practice) is rare, and nt only that we're fortunate to have access to the Dhamma, but also that it (i.e. the opportunity and the liberating effects) is a reason in itself for us to be happy.
Perhaps that's somewhat debatable though, a matter of perspective. Some people argue against the doctrine of "free will", saying that the physical world just does what it does and continues to do that, and that "people" are just conditioned i.e. that everything they do or think is just conditioned by one thing or another. I think that "free will" probably isn't a Buddhist doctrine -- but other people say (e.g. here) that an "exercise of free will" is "what makes Buddhist practice possible".
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
answered 3 hours ago
ChrisW♦
28.2k42384
28.2k42384
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
I agree with ChrisW here. Your question implies that you take it personally, while in reality it is an impersonal process. What seems like "you" and "your suffering" (as well as all other sentient beings with their respective experiences) arises from an accumulation and "clumping" of tendencies.
In the beginning these tendencies don't have any awareness, but over time they develop into something that can reflect and think, and once there is thinking, it starts generating all these ideas about how things are, how things should be, with suffering arising when they don't match.
But of course, only when there's thinking, there begin some attempts to analyze the situation, and to solve the problem of things being wrong. So thinking is both the source of the problem as well as the way to finding solution. While the situation before thinking is both ignorance and bliss, the primordial Eden without the conflict between right and wrong.
In the early phases of this evolutionary process, the emerging intelligence does not have any capacity for deliberate action. Think about a young child, can it plan its own destiny and decide where it's going? Then, as the intelligence matures, it grows stable and learns to plan ahead and execute its plans step by step. Of course, before it gets wise it keeps making all kinds of bad judgements and suffers their consequences. Why is that a surprise to you?
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
I agree with ChrisW here. Your question implies that you take it personally, while in reality it is an impersonal process. What seems like "you" and "your suffering" (as well as all other sentient beings with their respective experiences) arises from an accumulation and "clumping" of tendencies.
In the beginning these tendencies don't have any awareness, but over time they develop into something that can reflect and think, and once there is thinking, it starts generating all these ideas about how things are, how things should be, with suffering arising when they don't match.
But of course, only when there's thinking, there begin some attempts to analyze the situation, and to solve the problem of things being wrong. So thinking is both the source of the problem as well as the way to finding solution. While the situation before thinking is both ignorance and bliss, the primordial Eden without the conflict between right and wrong.
In the early phases of this evolutionary process, the emerging intelligence does not have any capacity for deliberate action. Think about a young child, can it plan its own destiny and decide where it's going? Then, as the intelligence matures, it grows stable and learns to plan ahead and execute its plans step by step. Of course, before it gets wise it keeps making all kinds of bad judgements and suffers their consequences. Why is that a surprise to you?
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
up vote
1
down vote
I agree with ChrisW here. Your question implies that you take it personally, while in reality it is an impersonal process. What seems like "you" and "your suffering" (as well as all other sentient beings with their respective experiences) arises from an accumulation and "clumping" of tendencies.
In the beginning these tendencies don't have any awareness, but over time they develop into something that can reflect and think, and once there is thinking, it starts generating all these ideas about how things are, how things should be, with suffering arising when they don't match.
But of course, only when there's thinking, there begin some attempts to analyze the situation, and to solve the problem of things being wrong. So thinking is both the source of the problem as well as the way to finding solution. While the situation before thinking is both ignorance and bliss, the primordial Eden without the conflict between right and wrong.
In the early phases of this evolutionary process, the emerging intelligence does not have any capacity for deliberate action. Think about a young child, can it plan its own destiny and decide where it's going? Then, as the intelligence matures, it grows stable and learns to plan ahead and execute its plans step by step. Of course, before it gets wise it keeps making all kinds of bad judgements and suffers their consequences. Why is that a surprise to you?
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
I agree with ChrisW here. Your question implies that you take it personally, while in reality it is an impersonal process. What seems like "you" and "your suffering" (as well as all other sentient beings with their respective experiences) arises from an accumulation and "clumping" of tendencies.
In the beginning these tendencies don't have any awareness, but over time they develop into something that can reflect and think, and once there is thinking, it starts generating all these ideas about how things are, how things should be, with suffering arising when they don't match.
But of course, only when there's thinking, there begin some attempts to analyze the situation, and to solve the problem of things being wrong. So thinking is both the source of the problem as well as the way to finding solution. While the situation before thinking is both ignorance and bliss, the primordial Eden without the conflict between right and wrong.
In the early phases of this evolutionary process, the emerging intelligence does not have any capacity for deliberate action. Think about a young child, can it plan its own destiny and decide where it's going? Then, as the intelligence matures, it grows stable and learns to plan ahead and execute its plans step by step. Of course, before it gets wise it keeps making all kinds of bad judgements and suffers their consequences. Why is that a surprise to you?
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
answered 1 hour ago
Andrei Volkov♦
36.5k230107
36.5k230107
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
One suffers because of ignorance through the lack of seeing. The kind of seeing that is needed to traverse ignorance is obscured by an internal map of reality and that view is biased and distorted to suit your conditioned state. That reality is basically made of all of the inaccurate information that has come through your six senses (this part can get extremely detailed - Abhidharma casts some interesting light upon this). One small way I can describe this is to notice the illusion below.
What should have happened is the mind is initially fooled by the illusion but if one chooses to further inspect the image one will see the finer constituents that make up that illusion. However, imagine this illusion as being your view of reality but instead of choosing to inspect and examine it, you just accept its initial appearance (ignorance).
Reality is the same. The only difference with penetrating the illusion above and penetrating into reality is the degree of chronological time it takes.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge?
For me, the only dependant part is switching focus - that is the choice. That's all you need, the willingness to want to pick it all apart. The rest just shows itself and often in some quite peculiar ways. Like in the illusion above, the knowledge to see how it works is already there, one just has to apply focus to see it for what it is.
Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random?
For the most part, I'd say yes. The motivating governors are stored in their alaya consciousness..
What kind of insane reality is this??
It's incomprehensible to the finite constructs of the conceptual mind.
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
One suffers because of ignorance through the lack of seeing. The kind of seeing that is needed to traverse ignorance is obscured by an internal map of reality and that view is biased and distorted to suit your conditioned state. That reality is basically made of all of the inaccurate information that has come through your six senses (this part can get extremely detailed - Abhidharma casts some interesting light upon this). One small way I can describe this is to notice the illusion below.
What should have happened is the mind is initially fooled by the illusion but if one chooses to further inspect the image one will see the finer constituents that make up that illusion. However, imagine this illusion as being your view of reality but instead of choosing to inspect and examine it, you just accept its initial appearance (ignorance).
Reality is the same. The only difference with penetrating the illusion above and penetrating into reality is the degree of chronological time it takes.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge?
For me, the only dependant part is switching focus - that is the choice. That's all you need, the willingness to want to pick it all apart. The rest just shows itself and often in some quite peculiar ways. Like in the illusion above, the knowledge to see how it works is already there, one just has to apply focus to see it for what it is.
Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random?
For the most part, I'd say yes. The motivating governors are stored in their alaya consciousness..
What kind of insane reality is this??
It's incomprehensible to the finite constructs of the conceptual mind.
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
up vote
0
down vote
One suffers because of ignorance through the lack of seeing. The kind of seeing that is needed to traverse ignorance is obscured by an internal map of reality and that view is biased and distorted to suit your conditioned state. That reality is basically made of all of the inaccurate information that has come through your six senses (this part can get extremely detailed - Abhidharma casts some interesting light upon this). One small way I can describe this is to notice the illusion below.
What should have happened is the mind is initially fooled by the illusion but if one chooses to further inspect the image one will see the finer constituents that make up that illusion. However, imagine this illusion as being your view of reality but instead of choosing to inspect and examine it, you just accept its initial appearance (ignorance).
Reality is the same. The only difference with penetrating the illusion above and penetrating into reality is the degree of chronological time it takes.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge?
For me, the only dependant part is switching focus - that is the choice. That's all you need, the willingness to want to pick it all apart. The rest just shows itself and often in some quite peculiar ways. Like in the illusion above, the knowledge to see how it works is already there, one just has to apply focus to see it for what it is.
Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random?
For the most part, I'd say yes. The motivating governors are stored in their alaya consciousness..
What kind of insane reality is this??
It's incomprehensible to the finite constructs of the conceptual mind.
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
One suffers because of ignorance through the lack of seeing. The kind of seeing that is needed to traverse ignorance is obscured by an internal map of reality and that view is biased and distorted to suit your conditioned state. That reality is basically made of all of the inaccurate information that has come through your six senses (this part can get extremely detailed - Abhidharma casts some interesting light upon this). One small way I can describe this is to notice the illusion below.
What should have happened is the mind is initially fooled by the illusion but if one chooses to further inspect the image one will see the finer constituents that make up that illusion. However, imagine this illusion as being your view of reality but instead of choosing to inspect and examine it, you just accept its initial appearance (ignorance).
Reality is the same. The only difference with penetrating the illusion above and penetrating into reality is the degree of chronological time it takes.
How is a person supposed to "freely/willingly choose" insight/knowledge if that choice is dependent upon already having some insight/knowledge?
For me, the only dependant part is switching focus - that is the choice. That's all you need, the willingness to want to pick it all apart. The rest just shows itself and often in some quite peculiar ways. Like in the illusion above, the knowledge to see how it works is already there, one just has to apply focus to see it for what it is.
Are the persons choices before choosing insight/knowledge completely at random?
For the most part, I'd say yes. The motivating governors are stored in their alaya consciousness..
What kind of insane reality is this??
It's incomprehensible to the finite constructs of the conceptual mind.
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
answered 7 mins ago
Suchness
41719
41719
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
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