CHAPTER VII

THE

ABOLITION OF IGNORANCE

HE beginning and ending of Buddhism is the abolition of ignorance. Ignorance is not looked at only in the light of a defect, as the mere absence of knowledge; it is thought of as a positive evil. Under its terrible name, avijjá, it hangs over all living beings like an active plague, ever spreading its effects in misery and death. It plays the part of a cruel giant, hurling poor mortals into hell, or grinding them along in a weary round of slavery. It is the first parent of the whole genealogy of

human woe.

This notion of ignorance as a positive malignant power or calamity is deeply rooted in the Buddhist mind. A young man who had been brought up in a Buddhist monastery in Colombo used to express his longing for more education in this way: 'I must at any cost get rid of this ignorance.'

What then is the knowledge which is sought?

It would be an utter mistake to think of Buddhism as addressed chiefly to the intellect, or as concerned with the promotion of learning. Its adherents are

not required to furnish themselves with even the rudiments of ordinary culture, or to learn by heart any confession of faith. If Buddhism can be said to rest upon a creed, it is the shortest possible of creeds. There is no course of study prescribed for the ordinary disciple. The highest success is not out of the reach of the simplest. Learning is not highly esteemed.

The ignorance which has to be abolished is ignorance of a small body of practical 'truths,' as they are called. That all which exists is perishable and inevitably subject to sorrow; that sorrow can be destroyed only by destroying desire and all that is attached to existence, and that Buddhism furnishes the way to the destruction of these; this conviction is what constitutes knowledge. All beings are by nature plunged in ignorance of these principles (and no wonder, since they are all false), and an effective conviction of their truth is knowledge.

All other learning is disparaged. Questions of science, geography, astronomy, or even of metaphysics, are set aside as useless subtleties. Ignorance of these is not the ignorance that ruins.

Constantly, therefore, as we meet with the phrases 'knowledge' and 'ignorance;' constantly as we find the good Buddhist called the wise or the learned; characteristically as the Buddha is called the Omniscient, yet no emphasis is really laid on any other knowledge than that of the necessary connection of sorrow with existence. To know this fully is already to have escaped. The 'omniscient' Buddha, the

teacher of the three worlds, is one who has mastered this great principle, and has thereby himself escaped from further existence, and who teaches the way of escape to all other beings.

It will be seen now in what sense we say that the abolition of ignorance is the beginning and ending of Buddhism. It is the beginning because the whole system is founded on the realisation of the 'truths' which are the object of knowledge. These lie at the foundation. The whole religion is said as a matter of history to have started, as far as the present age is concerned, with the discovery of these 'truths' by Gotama.

It is the ending, because the whole system aims at producing in the disciple a similar conviction. The insight by which the chain of causation is broken, and re-birth rendered impossible, is attained by the disciple only when all the work is done. He who sees clearly-no longer believing it on the assurance of others, nor arriving at it merely as a conclusion of reasoning-that the cause of sorrow is desire, etc., he has no more duties to perform; no more virtues to acquire; no more reason to remain in life; his course is ended. This conviction is reached by different disciples at very different rates. By hearing the preaching of a Buddha many, we read, grasp it all at once, and are at once perfect. Others only enter on the course, and have still to run through long ages and many births before they arrive at insight.

It must be added, however, that the conviction of

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these principles is in a further sense the starting-point as well as the goal of each disciple's course. The 'Truths' are not grasped in their formulated shape, and with full personal realisation of them, till the end; but some glimmering of them is necessary to make a man enter on the course. He has felt dissatisfied with the world; he is disgusted at the impermanence of things; he cries, 'Ah! nothing in the world is eternal!'-and so he turns to Buddhism. To arouse this sense of dissatisfaction, to elicit this cry of disgust, is the aim of all the Buddha's sermons and parables. To deepen this sense of dissatisfaction, and to remove all doubt as to the impermanence of things, is the purpose to which the training of the Community is directed. And from the detailed or scientific study of any of those things, whose perishableness he needs to be convinced of, the disciple is discouraged, because such study does not tend—this is the express ground of Gotama's objection-to produce dissatisfaction.

We read a great deal about the removal of doubt, and about certain fatal errors or 'heresies;' but these are still concerned with the same point, and do not imply any wider range either of study or of dogma. That things are eternal; that the self or personality in man has a continuous existence; these are the great heresies.' In regard to such questions as the ultimate nature of matter, elements, atoms and the like, or in regard to the nature of the soul, as we call it, or self, or the existence of the individual (or the

Buddha) after death, whatever may be said is alike a heresy or error.

So far is Buddhism from involving metaphysical study or learning. The destruction of ignorance is in fact a moral rather than an intellectual result.

If it now be asked, How is this result attained? the answer is in the main such as has already been indicated. It is realised by some sooner than by others: the Buddhist training, especially of the monk, is directed to securing it, by removing on the one side the obstacles and hindrances which prevent the mind's eye from being clear, and on the other side by methods of meditation.

Some men are held to be better prepared than others the eyes of their mind being purified from the dust of passion, and their hearts softened by kindly feeling and quickened by enthusiasm or aspiration.

The orthodox view of this kind of receptivity, which distinguishes the ready hearer, may be gathered from some very familiar passages. We have seen that the newly enlightened Buddha is said to have hesitated to enter on the task of teaching what he had come to know, because it seemed to him a hopeless task. This doctrine,' he said, 'is not easy to understand for those who are sunk in lust and hatred, those who are given up to lust and enfolded with thick darkness cannot see it. It is against the stream' (of natural inclination), 'subtle, deep, difficult to see and minute.' But Mahabrahma came, at the entreaty