Dependent Arising 4: Ignorance & Saṅkhāras
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2019-05-06

This series is classified Vivartha-vāda | Rāja-yoga | Suśupti | Ājñā-cakra
“Conditioned by ignorance, O monks, are saṅkhāras. That suchness therein, that invariability, that not-otherwiseness,   that specific conditionality–that, O monks, is called Dependent Arising.” — Paccaya Sutta

All these declarations make it clear that specific conditionality, paticca-samuppada, is an invariable law true for all times, whether Tathāgathas arise or not. This is a Lion’s Roar proclaiming the greatness of this timeless law known by the Buddhas.

“From ignorance as a condition, saṅkhāras arise... But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance, comes cessation of saṅkhāras.” — Bodhi Sutta

With the complete cessation of ignorance, all the other links up to decay and death cease. This cessation occurs immediately! This is an extremely deep point: the combined attention in the forward and reverse phases.

The Buddha points out that if ignorance can be made to cease—that is, with the dawn of wisdom due to association with realized beings—saṅkhāras, conditioned consciousness, name-and-form, six sense spheres and all the rest of dependently arisen phenomena cease altogether. This cessation occurs immediately! (akaliko)

Function of ignorance:

In the cinema, the background of darkness ironically highlights the delusion created by the makeup of actors and actresses. When one is enjoying a movie, one is unaware of that background or context of darkness.

The truth is that ignorance makes one forget, like darkness in the cinema theater. The darkness of ignorance provides the necessary background for creation of saṅkhāras. 

“Ignorance (avijjā) leads to four perversions of perception, mind and view:

1. Perception of permanence in the impermanent   
2. Perception of beauty in the repulsive  
3. Perception of happiness in the painful  
4. Perception of self in the not-self.

Thus sentient beings are ruined by wrong view—deranged, out of their minds.” — Rohitassa Sutta

Types of saṅkhāras:

“Sense desires is your first battalion  
The second is called dejection  
Hunger and thirst make up the third  
And craving is called the fourth” — Padhama Sutta

“He, on being touched by painful feeling, delights in sensual pleasures. Why so? Monks, the untaught worldling does not know any escape from painful feeling except sensual pleasures.” — Salla Sutta

All these are distracting thoughts. Now what does this imply? All these thoughts arise due to ignorance. These are the saṅkhāras or ontic commitments which make up this world with its pleasures and pains. So at whatever moment one attends both in the direct and reverse order in an extremely subtle way, thoughts are simply displaced. 

Thus, deliverance is not something that comes in some other world but is realizable here and now by the subsidence of thoughts. This is why Nibbāna is called saṅkhārā-nirodho, the stilling of all saṅkhāras.

“He in whom lust, hate and ignorance have been made to   fade away, has crossed this ocean, so hard to cross—the ocean with its convulsions, demons, and the danger of waves.” — Dutiyasamudda Sutta

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