1
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Why is there ignorance in the first place?

2
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I understand that ignorance is the root of all suffering and that the best way to overcome ignorance is to learn.

3
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So I'm wondering, what caused ignorance?

4
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Can we even know?

5
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Well, there's no original cause to samsara.

6
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I don't even think there's a sense that time is...

7
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is entirely linear.

8
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It seems like time somehow begins with the present moment and so we're creating the past as we go and the future is this also ethereal thing that we're somehow creating.

9
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Or even more interestingly, it seems like just as the past can affect the present, the future can also affect the present.

10
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You know how in quantum physics they somehow have seen that it seems like the future is creating the past.

11
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Well, there is a sense that because it's possible to have a vision of the future, to see what's going to happen before it happens,

12
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there's the sense that the future can actually affect the present by seeing the future or the future can come back and you can actually see it before it happens.

13
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The Buddha was able to do this and it's possible through certain types of meditation that you're able to do that.

14
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So anyway, not actually an answer to your question, but

15
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if you're looking for a first cause of ignorance, or first cause of anything, there is no first cause.

16
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There is no sense of that.

17
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There is no sense that the universe is of that sort.

18
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Linear, because it's actually illogical to think of, it's mind-boggling to think of an infinite timeline, but it's even more difficult, more illogical to think of a first beginning, because

19
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then you have to think of something before that or something outside of time.

20
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You have to try to understand what it could possibly mean for time to begin.

21
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I guess there's an understanding among material scientists or natural scientists, modern scientists that

22
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time began with the Big Bang.

23
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So if the Big Bang was a singularity, then there was no time before that.

24
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But that's really just time as a function of space, right?

25
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As a part of the four-dimensional reality that we find ourselves in.

26
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But again, that may be a hint of the fact that time is not exactly linear as we think it is.

27
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Time is not quite the way we think, so the idea that there might be something at the beginning is a bit of a misunderstanding of reality.

28
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We want to understand the proximate cause of ignorance.

29
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The Buddha said it's the five hindrances.

30
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And I was alerted to this.

31
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I've answered this question before and I said, well, ignorance just is, right?

32
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Ignorance, you can't cause someone to not know something, right?

33
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If I'm thinking of a number between one and ten and I ask you, what number am I thinking of?

34
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I didn't cause you to not know what number I'm thinking of.

35
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You never knew what number I was thinking of.

36
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It was something that was always there.

37
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The lack of knowledge was there in the beginning.

38
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So I'm not actually convinced by this person who called me out on that, saying, you're wrong, there is a cause for ignorance.

39
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It's the five hindrances.

40
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But you have to understand there are 24 different kinds of causality in the Buddhist teaching.

41
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And so I was talking about something that created the ignorance, that actually caused the ignorance to spring into existence.

42
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But the hindrances are a cause for ignorance, meaning

43
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Because of the hindrances, we remain ignorant to the truth.

44
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Because of our lack of clarity, we remain ignorant.

45
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So it's like the fog is preventing us from seeing the road in front of us.

46
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But it didn't create that lack of knowledge, right?

47
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We never knew what the road in front of us looked like, but then we get to this point in the road,

48
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we still can't see it because there's the fog.

49
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So in that way the hindrances are what is obscuring us from seeing the truth.

50
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But we didn't ever know, there wasn't a time or a point where we actually knew

51
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the truth, the Four Noble Truths, for example.

52
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That isn't something that was ever there.

53
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The hindrances are just that which is in our way.

54
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Once we go to try and, once we ask the question, what are the Four Noble Truths?

55
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What is the truth of reality?

56
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We're not able to see it because of the five hindrances.

57
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That's all.

58
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An actual beginning to ignorance is something, you know, it's reasonably speaking a

59
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a misleading question, misguided question.

60
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Because ignorance is something that was always there.

61
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Ignorance means a lack of something.

62
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It's like, why is there a lack of light?

63
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What caused there to be a lack of light?

64
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Or what caused there to be a lack of sound?

65
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Nothing caused it.

66
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A lack of something isn't really caused.

67
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Though you can say there's a reason for it, maybe we're in a soundproof room, and that's why there's no sound.

68
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But that's not really telling you why there's no sound.

69
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The no sound is the default.

70
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So, I think it's easy to understand this, and therefore, I think that's a proper answer to what is the cause of ignorance.