[Buddha-l] The root of ignorance?

[Richard Hayes]

On Wednesday 22 November 2006 04:40, Jim Peavler wrote:

> I hope this doesn't kick off that awful (in the old sense) discussion
> of the presence of absence again. Or was it the absence of presents?

Jumpin' Jesus, I hope there's not going to be an absence of presents. It's 
Shopping Season! And if we don't all go out and buy lots of presents, the 
terrorists will have won!

But on the matter of ignorance, I don't think that Buddhists have ever 
regarded avidyaa as the absence of information. Rather, they have tended to 
see it as the presence of misinformation. It's not the absence of knowing 
reality that gets us into dukkha (and other forms of deep doodoo), but the 
presence of various delusions. This is not hard to grasp, really. Just think 
of American politics. It's not the absence of Democrats that causes all our 
woe and bale, but the presents of Republicans.

But then I'm mostly just stirring up shit today, so it's probably best to 
ignore me.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes