Misknowledge and the Continued War on Ignorance

Yet one more supportive reason why I hate the hell out of ignorance:

misknowledge

(In Sanskrit avidya) Ignorance as active wrong knowing ‘misperception or misconception’ rather than mere failure to know. Such deliberate ignorance is the root of the samsaric life cycle the primary cause of all suffering.

http://www.asiasource.org/reference/display.cfm?wordid=1664

Here’s a passage from the book World of Tibetan Buddhism, page 37:

The second seal states that all contaminated phenomena are, by nature, unsatisfactory. In this context, contaminated phenomena refers to all things, events, experiences, and so forth, that are products of contaminated actions and the underlying delusions that give rise to them. As explained earlier, anything that is produced is other-powered, in the sense that it is under the control of factors other than itself–for example, its causes and conditions. Here, causes specifically refers to our own fundamental ignorance, afflictive emotions and cognitive events, and contaminated actions. Also, ignorance must not be perceived as a passive state of mere non-awareness; rather, it is a deluded state of mind, a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of reality. This is clearly stated by various Indian masters, such as Dharmakirti and Vasubandhu. Vasubandhu tells us in his Abhidharmakosa (Treasury of Knowledge) that ignorance is not simply the absence of knowledge but rather it is the antithesis of knowledge; it is misknowledge, a force actively opposing knowledge, as hostility opposes friendliness and falsehood opposes truth.

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“Confusion is the same as ignorance.” — 14th Dalai Lama