The point of fundamental ignorance? (Wilber)

"In regard to fundamental ignorance, someone will have to define what they mean by the term "ignorance" before I can answer that question. Is it referring to the common definition of ignorance, or the Buddha's version?" - chris



When I originally posed the question, it was in reference to the tendency for human beings to be born unawakened. I guess Ona is asking about the same ignorance...

And I just gave as clear a description as I could muster of my experience of fundamental ignorance in each moment I'm "born".

P.S.--- who said anything about meaning outside of experience?

Your definition seems inarguable to me. The closest thing I've heard of to "objective meaning" is that there is One Big Mind, namely God, and that there is One Big Meaning to Everything becuz that One Big Mind says so. Personally I've never been into that view, although some find/found solace in it. And even there, meaning is still self evidently only something that exists for minds! Asking what a meaning without a mind would be like is like asking what a solar flare without a sun would be like. It's just a category error.

@Jake - briefly (!) I loved your reply.

One comment: you implied it was a bit politically incorrect to actually discuss practice. Pardon me, but fuck that. Thank you for sharing a personal experience that sheds light on the question.

Now I have to go re-read your novel to see if I have any further comments, questions or thoughts about it.

I was assuming ignorance to be something along the lines "not apprehending reality as it actually is." Something like that. Which is, I think, what we are all talking about, even if we might have slightly more specific or tradition-based definitions. Yes/No?

hahaha Thanks Ona, glad you liked it. I'm making a personal commitment to stop posting so much theoretical stuff. It's not how I use my mind inside myself anymore (lately, right now, with the frequency I have in the past, whatever ) so it represents an older behavioral pattern that doesn't feel "real" to me currently. Needless to say that's not to approve or disapprove of such behavior in anyone, myself included. Just an intention I hold right now.

I was assuming ignorance to be something along the lines "not apprehending reality as it actually is." Something like that. Which is, I think, what we are all talking about, even if we might have slightly more specific or tradition-based definitions. Yes/No?


-ona

In my experience there are at least two distinct senses of "ignorance" and of "the way reality actually is". That's why I appreciate the distinction between basic ignorance and ignorant mental-emotional formations as I tried to express in my "novel".

In my experience they have a hierarchical relationship, in that, seeing through basic ignorance automatically neutralizes or transforms any active or about to be active moving-mind ignorance, while seeing through moving-mind ignorance, the way a false mode of existence is attributed to me and others and things, definitely does not automatically lead to seeing through basic ignorance. That's because moving-mind ignorance is downstream from basic ignorance. Basic ignorance feels like "oneness" to me. Moving mind ignorance is the whole spectrum of explicitly dualistic formations from heaven to hell. Seeing through moving mind ignorance, the constructed dualistic identities, leads to a sense of phenomena as interdependantly arising, empty and impermanent. Does that make sense?

I can't really characterize what experience is like when basic ignorance is seen through, except it's still interdependant, empty and impermanent, but something deeper is clear as well.

I have four kids. When they were very young they were pretty obviously awake but they were subsequently conditioned to see the world in a less awakened manner.

-cmarti

Interesting... I've kinda suspected that myself. What do you think causes the tipping point?

Seems to me it's late in age 2 when they seem to get the idea that "the future could be bad" (terrible twos). It's a mini fear of death of sorts. Then the "terrific threes" is in some sense a blossoming after this fall from grace... but it's now within the context of a future oriented mind.

???

...
I really hope this makes some sense as it is of practical significance to me...



-jake

So I think when I read your descriptions they make some sense. You do tend, I think, to look at phenomena with a much more detail-oriented eye than I do, or perhaps I just don't tend to try to describe things in quite such detail. But when I read what you wrote I tried to think if it was similar to my own experience, and I think some parts of it were, and some not so much, but again perhaps in part because I have not had a practice that is aimed at detailed paying attention in the way some other people do, or it's simply not my temperament to do so.

It seems to me there are different ways of looking at experience. You talked about "choosing to act on or not act on" things that might arise, for example. I tend to have a sense that this is not really a choice. I know this idea bugs some people, as if it's a nihilistic "I'm not responsible for my life" kind of cop-out, but that is not at all how it feels to me. It feels as though life itself, my experience, everything that unfolds throughout a given day, simply happens. The easiest way to express it is in a rather false way, which is that what happens is what is meant to happen, even though there isn't really some "Hand of God" behind it. What it means to me personally is a sort of allowing or letting go of outcomes, accepting things as they are. This on both a micro (moment-to-moment subtle perception) and macro (events of the day) level.

So ignorance, I suppose, in the way we are discussing here, would be any tendency to resist or grasp at the play of experience, wanting to change something, wanting to control things. It's a sort of habitual reflex. How this tendency plays out in moment to moment experience is a bit mysterious to me, and I tend to focus in my practice on this sense of allowing, allowing, allowing, as that is how I am guided (by the mysterious imaginary Hand of God) at this point.

Does that make any sense to you guys? Or is my lack of detail making things unclear or confusing?

Interesting... I've kinda suspected that myself. What do you think causes the tipping point?
Seems to me it's late in age 2 when they seem to get the idea that "the future could be bad" (terrible twos). It's a mini fear of death of sorts. Then the "terrific threes" is in some sense a blossoming after this fall from grace... but it's now within the context of a future oriented mind.
???




-shargrol

what about the kids that are just terrible from about two to six?

also, is it possible to mature in life without losing that raw-perception kind of state? I mean if we kept the raw-perception of infancy, we'd be unable to function in the ways we are accustomed to - we'd still be laying in bed staring at the mobile spinning over our heads at age 18. We can't learn to speak without learning to conceptualize. We can't learn to empathize with others without understanding pain and loss...

Way back when I had a boss who would refuse anything longer than one page of text. "If you can't boil it down to one page then you have not thought it through" was his mantra. Now, that's a little extreme and does not fit this environment but it has some cache, I think.
Me? I tend to sin on the side of being far too brief.


-cmarti

In a work situation the context is so different, and the topics considered of such a different nature, that it's hard to see the connection. Except for your final comment about your sometimes-tendency to obscure brevity Actually I have that problem too, in spoken interactions, and for the same reason as you seem to; I make assumptions about shared assumptions or contexts that i then fail to specify. All the background stays in my head and so I'm the only one who gets the context of what I'm saying.

I agree with Ona about choice. In my experience there's no choosing to act or not to act as things arise moment tomoment. There is cause and effect, of course, but the existence of choice when acting from the immediate arising of phenomena is an illusion. I'm referring here not to the deliberate planning of events and like things ("I'm going to a movie with my wife on Friday.") That is and can be deliberately done. But in conversation, in reaction to loud noises, in the flow of immediate experience, choice is something that appears to me as a justification for an action already taken.
Q: Why did you do that?
A: I wanted to make you laugh.
Uh, it just happened that way, and you laughed. Neither of us planned it.


-cmarti

I was pretty sure you might disagree with me, really.

And I might suggest that even the plan to go to a movie on Friday arises from myriad conditions (that you are married, that the movie exists, that the cinema can be gone to, that you are free on Friday night, that you were taught that going to movies with the wife is a good thing, etc etc.). So it's a "choice". But it feels like a choice and works like a choice, so there's no harm in talking about it that way.

So I think when I read your descriptions they make some sense. You do tend, I think, to look at phenomena with a much more detail-oriented eye than I do, or perhaps I just don't tend to try to describe things in quite such detail.

I'd be surprised if it were the former. Without knowing you better and talking in person I'd be inclined to assume the latter.

But when I read what you wrote I tried to think if it was similar to my own experience, and I think some parts of it were, and some not so much, but again perhaps in part because I have not had a practice that is aimed at detailed paying attention in the way some other people do, or it's simply not my temperament to do so.

But you pay moment to moment attention while formally practicing, yes?


It seems to me there are different ways of looking at experience. You talked about "choosing to act on or not act on" things that might arise, for example. I tend to have a sense that this is not really a choice. I know this idea bugs some people, as if it's a nihilistic "I'm not responsible for my life" kind of cop-out, but that is not at all how it feels to me. It feels as though life itself, my experience, everything that unfolds throughout a given day, simply happens. The easiest way to express it is in a rather false way, which is that what happens is what is meant to happen, even though there isn't really some "Hand of God" behind it. What it means to me personally is a sort of allowing or letting go of outcomes, accepting things as they are. This on both a micro (moment-to-moment subtle perception) and macro (events of the day) level.

Well, I anticipated someone might raise this objection Honestly I see it as a semantic issue. "choosing" just implies there are possibilities perceived, and then one is actualized and the others are no longer possible. I'm not implying a concrete "chooser" in there somewhere that's always their who's function is to pick and execute. If I were to take what you are describing literally in the sense I mean "choosing", then you would never experience conflicts of any kind whatsoever, or confusion, nor would you ever consider different courses of action. I'm using the words "you", "choose", etc in a loose sense Ona. Here's another way I'd phrase it: I don't choose which thoughts or feelings come up, but I do choose which ones to perpetuate in further thought. The thoughts that come up, the experience of choosing what to do with them, what happens next, are all "just happening" although that's not always as crystal clear as it could be, I'll happily admit. Is this very different from your experience? Are you not choosing to "let go and let be" in my sense? Could you let go and let be more or less? Another way of expressing my understanding is that intentions are empty too, but not all of them are acted on. More conscious I am of them as they arise, the less they automatically compel expression.

So ignorance, I suppose, in the way we are discussing here, would be any tendency to resist or grasp at the play of experience, wanting to change something, wanting to control things. It's a sort of habitual reflex. How this tendency plays out in moment to moment experience is a bit mysterious to me, and I tend to focus in my practice on this sense of allowing, allowing, allowing, as that is how I am guided (by the mysterious imaginary Hand of God) at this point.
Does that make any sense to you guys? Or is my lack of detail making things unclear or confusing?


That makes a lot of sense to me, actually. As a matter of fact, I generally take a more holistic, macro approach in life and practice, cultivating high-level attitudes like letting go and being open, relaxing and being present with what's happening. I don't tend towards micro examination of my experience on a ones-and-zeros sensation by sensation level, although I play with that sometimes. Basically I stay right up at a graphic user interface level and see how different attitudes, like openness vs clinging/aversion, or letting go and letting be vs trying to control, influence the whole system of living experience. I was trying to articulate an important-in-my-understanding-of-my-practice-and-life difference between moving-mind ignorance and basic ignorance in my other post.

whewwwww fixed that formatting

Here's maybe a better way to put what I was trying to say: there are thoughts that follow immediate experience, generated by mind, that attempt to hijack the deterministic cause and effect nature of the flow of experience after the fact. There is another kind of thought, let's call it analytical, that is not an attempt of the mind to re-interpret experience. Those analytical thoughts are not predictive or deterministic however. Anything can and may happen at any time. Chaos reigns
Better?


-cmarti

No, it was more clear before.

re: jake's second long post

Yes, I am comfortable with that looseness of the wording, such as "choosing" and "you" and so on. Makes it much easier to talk about things in plain english, ordinarily, just as I find talking about practice on this "macro" level more productive than micro-stuff.

I can't (and think there's no need to) respond to each individual point, but I think we are on the same page.

Here's maybe a better way to put what I was trying to say: there are thoughts that follow immediate experience, generated by mind, that attempt to hijack the deterministic cause and effect nature of the flow of experience after the fact. There is another kind of thought, let's call it analytical, that is not an attempt of the mind to re-interpret experience. Those analytical thoughts are not predictive or deterministic however. Anything can and may happen at any time. Chaos reigns
Better?


-cmarti

This is totally compatible with my view as far as I can tell. My position is that any attempt to dogmatically describe experience/life in terms of "free will" or "determinism" is to have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of descriptions, which are inherently reductionistic and dualistic, whereas life and experience are neither dualistic or reducible. That's why life and experience can support such varying interpretations. But absolute determinism and absolute free will seem like, well, frankly, silly beliefs to me, unless these descriptions are being used poetically to point up something about life and experience.

hahaha cross posted agreeing/disagreeing with chris LOL

"Ah yes Chris, that's much more clear."

"Um, no Chris, it made more sense before."

See what I mean about descriptions? They're slippery bastards