What are the Causes of Ignorance ??? !!!
Bhikkhu Samahita
Friends:
What are the Causes of Lack of Vision & Wisdom?
A prince
named fearless once asked the Blessed Buddha:
Venerable Sir, what is the
conditioning cause for lack of vision and wisdom?
Prince, when mind is obsessed, overwhelmed, & dominated by
sense-desire,
or
when mind is
beset by evil-will,
plagued, enraged & conquered by evil-will,
or
when mind is retarded, dimmed, detained & diluted by lethargy and
laziness,
or
when mind is
agitated, stressed, troubled & tyrannized by restlessness
& regret
or
when mind is
perplexed, confused, bewildered, wavering & wobbling by doubt &
uncertainty,
and one
does not understand any safe escape from any of these arisen mental hindrances,
in that very moment, one can neither see nor understand anything of what is
advantageous,
neither for oneself, nor for others, nor for both oneself
& others!
These mental hindrances are
therefore the conditioning causes for lack of vision and wisdom!
It is in
exactly this very way, that ignorance arises from a cause, and not without a
cause...
What is this Dhamma explanation called,
Sir? These are called the mental hindrances, prince.
Surely and
unquestionably they are mental hindrances. Blessed One! Anyone overcome by even
a single mental hindrance would not know and see things as they really are,
not to speak of one
overcome by all these five mental
hindrances...
Source (edited extract):
The Grouped Sayings of the Buddha. Samyutta Nikaya.
Book [V:127] section 46: The Links. 56: To Abhaya...
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Bhikkhu Samahita, Sri Lanka.
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