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19921027GRAAON07

Transforming Negativies IGNORANCE AND DELUDED VIEWS VERSUS WISDOM

Untamed by sharp hooks of mindfulness and awareness,

And dulled by the maddening liquor of sensual pleasures,

He enters wrong paths and shows his tusks of harming,

Delusion’s [ignorance] elephant - save us from this fear!

Roaming the fearful wild of inferior practice

And ghastly desert plains of the two extremes

[eternality and annihilation],

They sack the towns and retreats of ease and bliss,

The thieves of wrong views - save us from this fear!

We have been talking about certain aspects of our mental faculties, recognizing their aspects, seeing their effects on the individual and the gradual way of transforming them. A major subject, that I left out until now is ignorance. I did so because there is not really a point in dividing the ignorance in a number of different ways like is done in the traditional Tibetan system. The tradition tells you that ignorance is a) not-knowing, not seeing in general, and b) wrong knowing, wrong acknowledging. Examples of the first one are: in the darkness you see nothing, because everything is totally covered by the darkness. Likewise covered by ignorance you do see not see the functioning of karma, and you don’t see Buddha, dharma and sangha. We skipped talking the traditional way about ignorance being not knowing, because everybody knows that; we don’t have to point that out.

FIVE DELUDED VIEWPOINTS

The ignorance of wrong knowing, is talked of in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition as the five different [deluded] viewpoints or the five wrong views. It is a complicated subject. It is not as simple as talking about anger, attachment etc. It is a little complicated, so please, bear it.

1. View of the transitory collection [‘jig tshog la lta ba] 0:04:50.2

The word we use here in Tibetan is jigta: looking from the viewpoint of jig, the word jigta is the abbreviated version of jig tsog la tawa. What is that trying to say? It has something to do with your viewpoint of impermanence. It says: viewpoint of impermanence. What does that mean? Are they talking about recognizing impermanence? No, they are not. They are talking about the impermanent base on which you perceive and project. It is very complicated.

It says: One’s wrong view on the impermanent base. Here impermanent means: the object on which you form your view or your opinion, is based on impermanence; not on permanence. That is the view is based on the person, the individual, the being, the self, which is in the nature of impermanence.0:06:59.0

Also the word says: collection. Jig tsog la tawa: collection of impermanence. ‘Collection of impermanence means here: many impermanent objects got together and with that you have somebody you can point out and say ME. That is: the soul or the consciousness within the individual and the five aggregates outside: the sense-bases outside: the sight, form, sound, smell, taste and touch and feeling, discrimination and seeing within the individual and . It is all of those together, the collection of it. Basically impermanent yet the collected impermanent item is the actual basis on which we put the finger on and called ME . Does that make any sense?

When you try to say ‘me’, or ‘I did this’ and ‘I am going, I am doing it’, what are we looking at? What kind of I? When you have to point the finger at it, you are not going to find it. It is only a collection of impermanent items, such as name and form, body and consciousness, combined together. That you call me.

Such an acknowledgment of me on that combination is very difficult to find. However, when somebody tries to tell something bad about me, I probably feel, ‘How dare that person tell me that?’ When somebody praises me, I say, ‘Well, I am happy; so and so praised me’. When you have those feelings of, ‘I’ve been hurt’ or ‘I enjoyed it’ and you begin to look very carefully, which I are you referring to? Which I? In ‘I have been hurt’, which one has been hurt? In ‘I am happy, I’ve been praised, I like it’, which is the one that likes it?

If you put your mind together and see, you find ‘somebody’ inside, deep inside. Maybe at the middle of the heart or somewhere there is ‘somebody’ called I. Either you see it right in the middle of your brain or you see it right in the middle of your heart. If you try to picture it, you may even see a ‘my’ or ‘me’. You may even begin to see it in there and you begin to try to find something, the: who has been hurt? who is enjoying? And who is suffering?. when we really deeply look in we begin to see something in there.0:11:44.4

If you don’t look, then there is nothing, but when you really begin to look, you begin to see something called ‘me’ or ‘I’ or maybe you see a letter ‘I’ in there. When you begin to see that, then you are beginning to see this ignorance. This is a complicated, deep subject.

When you begin to look inside and yous see that ‘I’ or ‘me’ in there and you begin to see it separately, in the center of your heart or in the middle of your brain you acknowledge a little ‘lump’ or shape – which maybe looks like a letter ‘I’ or ‘me’ – or a shapeless ‘something’ that is independent on its own side. We keep on telling you about the beauty-nature of human beings, so you may even acknowledge it as that; who knows? What we really begin to look in, is that there is some kind of lump, or shape or shapeless That one is sort of independent, permanent, continuing, the basis of all, the founder of me, my establishment, the creator of all me and my activities, and the thinker, worker, producer, director.We probably see that that as an independent ‘something’.

Until we see that, we are talking here about a particular type of ignorance, the direct opposite of wisdom: what you know is wrong, but you think it is right and you acknowledge it as right. We are not talking about ignorance of not-knowing; or ignorance of wrong knowing –we are here talking about ignorance that what you know is wrong but you think is right and acknowledging that.

This is not wrong knowing; wrong knowing can be corrected

It is knowing something wrongly and acknowledging it as right, at is ignorance. People insist on that. A lot of people do. You know exactly the wrong or the opposite way, but you think it is great and you hold on to that. That is the ignorance that is the direct opposite of the wisdom. It will never open. Any criticism or any other different views that come, you will reject straightaway, saying, ‘I know it because as a fact’. We do that. That is what I am trying to introduce: what is the wrong knowing that we hold on to? That wrong knowing is: we acknowledge ‘somebody’ deep inside.

This is a very frank, open, straightforward statement, maybe too simple a statement: if you really keep on thinking, you will see right in the middle of your heart or in the middle of your brain, somewhere, the letter ‘I’ because you can’t imagine what that is.. You are projecting the letter I there or me and liberated one more step it becomes my.0:18:06.5

we look deeply in and we think it is there and we acknowledge it. I am sure a number of us will tell, ‘I have seen it’. Yes, we do. If you look; if you don’t look you are not going to see anything. What you see, when you look, is your projection of that I in there. But we will not say that it is my projection. We’ll say, ‘O yes, the I was there, I saw it. How it looked like? It was a big letter ‘I’ standing in the middle’. That clearly shows it is a projection. And it is very difficult for us to accept that it is not there. Why? Because then we will lose the basic foundation of all our functioning.

The relative I. Basically, if you don’t look very carefully, the sort of lump of the external body, the internal mind and all the five senses, combined together, without thinking we refer to as ‘I’, ‘I went, I came, I saw, I read, I am going, I am coming’. This is basically what you have if you don’t think hard. If you just think a little bit, you have a mumbo jumbo of a big lump, which includes the external physical shape and a little bit the internal mind. All of them combined together we will call ‘me’. If you don’t think at all, just without thinking leave it there, ‘I am born, I am going, I said this, I did that’, ‘I have been hurt, I am happy, I am not, I am this, I am that’. That sort of basic something you get is not particularly bad. It is not good enough to be wisdom, but it does not become ignorance. You know what I mean?

Basically, if you don’t think of it, just say, ‘I went, I am born, I came, I am going, I said this, I am doing it, tomorrow I am going to....’ etc, there is nothing wrong. That is what we call the relative I. There is nothing wrong with it. That is simply I, just I, nothing else. Just simply I. You are not really thinking much. You just say, ‘I did it, I am hungry, I ate’.Who is that I you don’t really bother. It is basically the combination of all you refer to.

That is not enough for us to gain wisdom, but it is not bad enough to become ignorance. This is not ignorance. It is factual. 0:22:36.9

Looking for the I. In order to gain wisdom, you need the real wisdom of I-lessness or self-lessness, or in order to find the ‘less-ness’ you need to find the selfless, the I-less. Without clearing the ignorance, you can’t find the ‘-lessness’.

When you really look at Ignorance, that is the picture I am giving you. Think hard and say, ‘Which is me? What is really me? What is really functioning? Where am I?’ When you really look deep inside, you find something in the middle of the heart or the middle of the brain, because you are pointing your finger to it. Right?

It is not simple. It is not easy. You get a lot of irritations and frustrations. All this you go through. But when you really point your arrow inside, up and down and everywhere, you have to point to something. If you point to the heart, the physical heart, it is the physical heart, it can be taken out. You may be dead but it still lie there. So that is not me. I can see that. If you take out all your brains, you may die, but the brain is there, again disconnected. So, you won’t find anything there but probably a ‘physical’ letter ‘I’.

Personally when I start looking, I see nothing but a Tibetan letter nga, which means I. I find that sort of lying somewhere and think, ‘Oh, here I am.’ Then when I watch that mind, saying, ‘Here I am’ and acknowledge, ‘That is me’ and I watch what this mind really perceives. I am perceiving some kind of letter ‘I’ coming out of me, a big lump, called I, coming out right in the middle. 0:25:41.3

You know that handicraft: a little lady, which, when you open it up, has another lady inside, and when you open that one there is another one, and within that there is another one, and right in the middle there is some little thing which you cannot open anymore. It is like that. When you try to look, look, look, right in there you find that one, that letter nga or I. When you begin to look at that carefully,if you watch your projection, you see it sort of standing there, not part of any external thing. If you watch very carefully, within our mind, we really have that. You may meditate very hard but I am not sure that type of meditation is creating ignirance or clearing ignorance. You kind of peel off everything and then you find something in there. Finding something in there is not a problem. That one being independent, self-existing, is the problem. Am I talking over your head? I have to talk about it, because this is ignorance.Once you find your mind holding that in there if you begin to watch that mind, what do you think that mind will do? That mind will present you that ‘I’ is independent, not depending on anything.

It is like that toy-lady: there is one within, one within, within, and then there is one deep in the middle that you can identify. When you identify that, it does not depend on the external big fat one. There is really deep in there an independent one that you can take out and put somewhere else.0:28:33.0

In the same manner we project for ourselves an identification of I That, I believe, is the wrong one. That is not only what I believe, but what all the Tibetan teachers tell right from the beginning, from Buddha onwards, their message is: That is wrong! There is no such independent I there. A person totally depends on the collection of different impermanent objects, a lot of impermanent things. That is the idea of jigta: the collection of impermanent things, which might present itself as a permanent, independent self-existence.

That one gets hurt when somebody says bad things, and that one gets high when somebody praises. That one even enjoys even if it is not true. Even if you know it is not true, when they are buttering you, praising you, you sort of give away all your truth and go along with that praise; you like it, you enjoy it. Even if you know it is not true, somehow you make it out to be true and you make yourself enjoy that, and you go high. And on some things you don’t like and you feel pain, you go low, you get hurt. You sit somewhere in a corner like a wounded wild animal.

All of them have been hurting that particular one which actually does not exist. If it exists, then you would really have all these problems. Since it does not exist but we think it does, that is why it is called the dualistic mind and delusion. All these different names and identifications come up because what really went wrong is deep down there. If you ask me, ‘Does that mean I am not there?’ No, it does not mean that. You are there. But there is no such a thing called I deep down in you. That is the ignorance of wrong acknowledging.

And that grows bigger.0:32:05.5

2. View holding to an extreme [mthar ‘dzin pa’i lta ba]

That wrong acknowledgement grows bigger, and then you project something of which you sort of think, ‘Hey, it is working, that is great.So I have to do this way.’ Then comes the next one. Because of the feeling of that ‘thing’ inside, whatever you project, you think, ‘It is definite; it is true, it is permanent, it is standing there, and when I die it will also disappear. This has been created by a creator.

In the case of the Russian doll, if you go deep, deep, deep inside you find the right one. The essence is here.’ You said it is created.That is called: permanently standing there. It will disappear when I die .It is not permanent in the sense of all-permanent, but permanent as long as I am alive. Like we refer to a bronze sculpture as permanent. Even the wall over here we call it permanent. We know it is not permanent. If a bulldozer drives through it goes. We know that, but we refer to it as permanent. Likewise, that little ‘something’ deep inside we project as outstanding and permanent or created by somebody, by me or by God or by karma, or by whoever.0:35:35.0

3. Conception of a [bad] view as supreme [lta ba mchog ‘dzin]

This moves you one step deeper into more wrong view, which says, ‘Ha, that is right. I fully understood this. This, right deep in there, is me Some people will even go to the extent of, ‘I saw it, I felt it, I experienced it. And that understanding is the best understanding.’ You will be insisting. You will not let any different views come in and you will hold this tight, saying, ‘Hey, that is really right. No matter whoever says what, this is right! I know.’ That is the deeper ignorance. You know it wrongly and you hold it more tight. You are not letting any wisdom come in. The traditional Tibetan Buddhist view will give you a funny example.: the view on the collection of impermanence is number one. Seeing it as more outstanding and more permanent is number two. Then seeing whatever I understood as the best understanding, saying that my view is the best one, is the third one.0:37:52.2

4. Conception of [bad] ethics and modes of conduct as supreme [tshul khrims dang brtul; zhug mchog ‘dzin]

You can better understand the fourth one.. You hold your view tight in a certain way of morality. A certain morality you hold, a certain system, a certain way of doing, and you say it is the best way.

In the earlier Buddhist tradition there were a number of people who liked to do certain rituals, like meditating standing on one leg. That gives you a lot of hardship, it makes you alert and you will focus more, because standing on one leg is difficult and whenever things are difficult, you focus more. Then you say, ‘Ah, this method is the best, because I have to focus more. I have seen it, I have experienced it, when I stand on one leg I have to pay a lot of attention’. Some traditional eastern teachers will tell you if you burn your fingers There are people. I have seen it. There are people who put cotton on their fingers and put oil and burn them and called it sacrifice,.Here we say that all eastern religion is great and wonderful, but sometimes there were certain wrong thoughts. E.g. the Buddhist and the Hindu tantras carried at some time the practice of the trident. Certain traditions said, ‘If you jump three times on this trident and you die, you will be liberated’, and a lot of people did that. These are wrong views. The ignorance builds it up and makes you believe it strongly, saying that that is the way.

There were a number of incidents during Buddha’s lifetime. Certain particular persons did have some kind of psychic power with which they were able to see a little bit of their previous life or something. Then they say, ‘Hey, if I behave in that certain manner, it will liberate me and help me.’ Then you like to act like a cow, for example. Don’t misunderstand, I am not looking down on Hindus, but some human beings tried to behave like a cow or certain animals. They considered that it has worked before, so probably it would work now. What happens is this. We have limited psychic power; we don’t see deep through it, but we see a glimpse over here and a glimpse over there and you acknowledge, ‘Ha, I have been like this and this happened. I was a dog in a previous life and I was barking, I have seen that clearly, and now I am a human being. If I bark I will become a human being’.

It sounds stupid today, but there were certain people who do so. There were people who totally misunderstood and simply refused to acknowledge their misunderstanding. They thought that this is the way. That is reinforcement of the wrong understanding.

5. Perverse or wrong view [log lta]

This one is totally a Buddhist idea. This view says that things like cause and effect are totally untrue, that the result does not depend on the cause,or that Buddha, dharma and sangha is a joke, or the four noble truths is totally a made-up story. It is the orthodox Buddhist ideas added up, which is called wrong view.v0:44:00.1

IGNORANCE

This is a very difficult subject, I am happy and grateful to you….but since I started counting these 6 of them It is very important for us in our total ….in our spiritual life and even in our material life as this deep subject of I is a very important point. This is the connecting link of all: anger, attachment, hatred, jealousy, pride, doubt. All of them are linked up together in the individual on this particular point. So it is an important point.

If it were an easy subject we could have got rid of it easily. Everybody would have cleared all the ignorance and would have become enlightened. But it is not. It is very, very confusing. Even to recognize what this ignorance really is, is difficult. Even to see that the I is something deeper inside, is also difficult. That shows how deep-rooted this ignorance really is within us.

When we try to clear this ignorance within us, it becomes so difficult. That is obvious; it is so deluded. Even to recognize it is extremely difficult, complicated and boring. We can’t even figure out what it actually is all about. That is ignorance. To see the nasty dog is difficult.Once you see it and you start to open up to get out to the real point is even more difficult Likewise, if you don’t look carefully, you don’t see it. If you look, you can see it. It is difficult, but you can get it. Once you begin to get that clear that it is the root of ignorance, you see this is also the source from which all our anger, jealousy, hatred and even attachment come. All come from there. 0:48:17.3

It is not me who is responsible for my anger; it is the ignorance that is responsible for my anger. It is not me who is the source of my hatred; it is the ignorance of me being hurt and wanting to take revenge; that is why the hatred is in there. Likewise, it is not necessarily me, the beauty-nature, but the ignorant-I that is very possessive. When it sees any nice and wonderful thing it wants it to belong to ‘me-the-ignorant’, it wants it to be under my control.

It is not the beautiful I, who is of the buddha-nature, who is fighting for the control-issues; it is the ‘me-the ignorant one’ who cannot let go, cannot loosen the control, who fights for the control. It is not the beautiful buddha-nature-me who cannot stand the slander, but it is the ignorant-me who cannot stand the slander that people put up. That is the one who always likes to react and counter-react, who makes me being helplessly controlled and act under its influence.

There is a certain part of wisdom which I have within me, that does not like to follow that control coming from that ignorant-I. So I have the pull and push within me. I struggle within me;yes,no, pull, push..

All ot them is the struggle of I the Bodhi-nature of the wonderful I and the ignorant-I. Who is holding who? That is the mystery within us. v0:51:13.8

Once we begin to see this, once we begin to clear this, the mystery of our life dissolves. Ignorance is really the source of all the mystery of life. According to the Buddha and according to the old Tibetan teachers, that is what it is. That is why the Buddhist make emptiness a big, famous subject. When you clear that ignorance, then it becomes empty. Whether that emptiness is empty or not, once the ignorance-I has been cleared, then it really becomes empty.

Emptiness is not empty of not having something. It is a open space, complete openness and space. That is what real emptiness is about. If you just keep on thinking it is empty, if you just keep on thinking it is not really true, if you just keep on saying it is a delusion, if you just keep on saying it is the dualistic mind, it may be a good thought and a good idea, but it is not going to reach anywhere because the ignorance is so powerful that it controls almost all our life today. Most of our life is controlled by this very ignorance. That is why everything is limited, everything is a struggle: you can’t see it, you can’t understand it, you don’t know what is happening, we do not know what is going to happen All these because of the Ignorance. The moment you clear this ignorance, clairvoyance is within you or within your own mind. The saddest people today see it sometimes. It is limited but they see it. It is the karmic side of power.It is not an absolute,clear faultless vision. That is why it may be sixty or eighty percent right, but never hundred percent right. There is ignorance blocking it. Once you clear that, there is no obstacle whatsoever; it is open like space..totally. That is what ignorance does.

0:54:39.5

Ignorance is so harmful! It is the object of my concentration, which is part of me, part of my thoughts, almost you can say part of my mind. It makes me focusing on the contaminated continuation of me. The purpose of this ignorance is to make the me remain contaminated as much as possible. The purpose of this ignorance is to make this me continuously functioning without control of myself. It puts me completely in a confusing state. There is no wisdom, there is no clarity. Everything I have to guess; I have to struggle. That is ignorance. The earlier presentation I gave is based on the tradition; what it really does to the individual, is this.

Transforming ignorance?

When you talk about wisdom, transforming ignorance is the most difficult one. Nothing can do anything to this actually. Generosity, love, compassion, perfect morality, all of them can never do anything to this! It does not even harm it. It does not hurt this ignorance at all! It is not its direct opponent. No matter how many years you spend on ‘love-compassion, love-compassion’, nothing happens to this ignorance. Really nothing. The love will not hurt this ignorance, the light will not hurt this ignorance. Love and light will never hurt the ignorance at all. The Buddhist tradition texts say:

Since love-compassion is not the direct opponent to ignorance, it can never destroy it.

Only wisdom can destroy ignorance.

You may say, ‘In that case love, generosity and all these have no purpose’. Yes, they have a tremendous purpose. They are great, a wonderful thing to do, they build up tremendous merit, but are not a direct opponent to this ignorance. Love does not do anything on that directly. Indirectly yes; it may reinforce. But directly no.

What can directly cut the ignorance is the true wisdom within the individual. True wisdom really sees why this Mister Big I, is in there. It looks like our individual Saddam Hussein inside. Without thinking Americans have in general some kind of projection of Saddam Hussein as something over there with little fangs. The real Saddam Hussein inside is the ignorance. Only the wisdom can detect it. It needs a lot of wisdom. Actually by really seeing it, you’ll find that it has nothing in there; it has no power. There is no such a creation in there at all.

That is why the traditional Tibetan Buddhist teachers give you the following idea. When you go in the dark and you see a little rope and look at it, you say, ‘There is a snake’. When you have labeled it as a snake, you get afraid to go near, ‘Oh, the snake may bite me, I can’t go near there.’ This sort of thing we create. But if you see that there is really no snake, that it is a piece of rope that someone put out, all the fear within you will suddenly disappear.

Another famous example of the earlier Tibetan teachers. When you are going somewhere on a horse, you see a little lump, which may be a little formation of rock or a piece of wood. You say, ‘Oh, somebody is coming from there’. You keep on going and that somebody is not coming at all. A person passes and you ask, ‘What happened to that guy on the horse?’ He will say, ‘Which one?’ You say, ‘I saw him; he must be still there, he was coming but did not come. What is happening?’ He will say, ‘There is no such somebody coming on a horse. I simply saw that there is a piece of wood standing there. Nobody else.’ Then your idea of another person coming is gone. You may have been afraid of that person coming towards you, ‘He may have a gun, may shoot me, may kill me,may rob me!’ All these sort of thoughts you develop. And when you see there is no such a person, those thoughts are gone. That is why it is called a dualistic mind.1:01:36.5

By telling you that Mister Big I is not there, is not enough. You have to understand that it is not there, without destroying the fundamental basis of me. If you destroy the fundamental basis of me, you have gone too far. Without destroying the fundamental basis of me, saying that there is nothing to be afraid then it becomes wisdom. It is very difficult, it is very subtle. If you go too far, you become nihilistic. If you do not go far enough, you will be called existentialistic. The true wisdom is a balance between nihilistic and existentialistic ( views). When we are able to balance that, we begin to touch the ignorance. We begin to point a finger to the ignorance within ourselves. That is the beginning of opening of our wisdom.

This ignorance we have to clear within ourselves. I do not know whether you transform it or not. Once you clear the ignorance, all our emotional problems of being high or low or hiding behind, occupying the corner, all of them have been taken care of because they all come from there. It is simple for me to talk but very difficult to practice.Easy to talk but difficult to handle. It is our life-long problem. If you believe in life after life, reincarnation, this has been the problem of life after life and it will continuously be the problem of life after life. When we take care of that, we will be liberated.v1:04:26.9

This is a very brief introduction to Ignorance.

Questions and answers

Audience: With regard to not destroying the fundamental basis, are you talking about the small I or about the big I?

I don’t know what is big I, I don’t know what is small I

What I do know is that the I which is the basis if my functioning: I am sitting, I am going; I am sitting, I am hot, I am in pain; I am happy that is the I which is said to be me. Whether I is the founder, I have been in that big dark..yes, you are right there is a big I .Dark here means without light ,something in the darkness over there, hiding, functioning which is not really dependent on anything but is independent of its own. It may disappear if I die or It may continue. But it does not depend on anything. As long as you seek some thing that is dependent on something,then you begin to see it is not there. When I depend on somebody, I cannot help myself, so I depend on..I cannot stand by myself so I depend on something else.That is basic, normal.They use a walking stick as an example.When I cannot walk by myself so I depend on the walking stick.The walking stick maybe show off to British colonial word in India. But that is a different issue.Basically, when you carry a walking stick, you actually cannot walk by yourself.You cannot stand by yourself.You don’t have the capability of standing by yourself so you depend on the walking stick.The moment you see that the big I does not have the capability of standing by itself ,it is obvious, very existence depend on so many combination of impermanent objects related to me: my body, my mind. Then you begin to see.”Heh, where is the big thing in the ..? Where is it? It is really not there.But that doesn’t mean I am not here.If you destroy I, that is going too far. If you don’t destroy that big I, hiding behind everything, when you try to see and you don’t see the letter I then what? 1:08:16.4

That is our problem. It is even bigger than our body.

That is the problem of our total problem.

According to the Buddha. Even the Hindus will say’ it’s there’

That is the difference between Buddhism and Hinduism is the selflessness and the atman there.

What we do have to worry is where is our emotional problem, our delusions, out attachments, our anger and our ..coming from?

In the poem of Tara’s protection against the eight fears, the example given for the fear of ignorance is the elephant that is not tamed. For the taming of elephants they use an iron hook, which is hit behind the ear, the most sensitive area.

The fearful monster inside me is not being controlled by awareness and alertness of the iron hook. In addition to that the elephant got totally drunk; we get drunk by the massive anger and attachment. The drunk elephant has no idea where he is going, so naturally it takes the wrong road. And as he is angry, his huge tusks are coming out going to harm anybody who comes in the way. If you know elephants you know that when a drunk elephant comes on the road you have to run away. I don’t know why they used the example of tusks here, because an elephant steps on the human beings rather than bite. An angry elephant will show the tusks and make a huge noise. The elephant is the ignorance within us. Because it is drunk it goes the wrong way and whoever comes on its way, it destroys.The monster within oneself, who will come in the way except me?

So this one is threatening our total spiritual life. That is why it is the source of all. 1:14:56.6

Out of the ignorance which I treated like reinforcement the wrong view and the bad view are even again is set up like thieves here. What do thieves do? They behave badly and they destroy the person whether in the city or alone in the woods. They are threatening people, people have to be afraid of them. So they will bring the individual down. It is difficult.They provide you either

existentialistic or nihilistic views and destroy the peaceful means of living and happiness. They are like thieves.This is another thing on Ignorance. Ignorance have 2. Ignorance is the one that steals our own benefits within ourselves. It is the thief inside. If you have a business and you have a thief within your own business, you are never going to make it. Likewise the ignorance inside steals all our built-up virtues and benefits. That’s what it means: it destroys whether you are in the city with other people or in the woods all by yourself.

There is somebody stealing all your benefits within you, inside.There is a thief within the house.1:18:01.3

This is the spiritual thief and the spiritual blanket, fearful elephant.