Revisiting Ignorance

Ignorance is a word we Buddhists throw around a lot. I find myself repeating this word maybe a little too often and without enough thought before I do. Today I stepped back and tried to remind myself of what it means in our way of looking at the world. I re-read a few thing and came upon this from Stephen Batchelor that is a concise way of reminding me what ignorance really means: it is a distorted mode of conception---apprehension of what is impermanent as permanent, the apprehension of what is unsatisfactory to be satisfactory, the apprehension of what is without self-identity to have a self-identity.  In other words, ignorance is seeing things that aren't really there.  So when we speak of ignorance we are speaking of a view of the world that can only lead to dissatisfaction and suffering. Ignorance is a warped perspective and a warped perspective leads to misery. The truth lies elsewhere.  It lies in the wisdom of understanding that things can only be the way they are and not as we would have them be. Once we can comprehend this and take things just the way they are, then we have taken up The Way and are on the path to an end to ignorance and suffering.