Now in Buddha's method duhkha stems from another factor which is sort of intermediate between suffering, or anguish, and its cause. And he said that clutching, which is the basis of our anguish, is ultimately dependent upon a kind of unconsciousness or ignorance, which in Sanskrit is called avidya, literally "not knowing," thus ignorance. And it is really a way of seeing the world in an unrelated way, and thinking of it as consisting simply of so many things, like a rock, a foot, a plant, a man, when, actually, the world is not composed of bits and pieces. Everything that exists exists only in relation to other things. In other words, an egg, for example, looks very separate. It looks like a very definite, particular thing. But you don't find eggs without chickens. And you don't find chickens without the sort of environment in which chickens can live. Likewise, in a similar fashion you don't find fingers lying around without a hand. Although we think of the fingers as separate, they are related to the hand; the hand, in turn, to the arm; the arm to the body; and the body to its whole environment of earth and sky, sunlight and air.
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