Monday 25 November 2019

B AVIJA

Unawareness (avijā) of the truth of suffering, its cause, its end, and the way to its end, is the chief cause that sets the cycle of life (samsāra) in motion.

In other words, it is the not-knowingness of things as they truly are, or of oneself as one really is.

It clouds all right understanding.
"Avijā is the blinding obscurant that keeps us trapped in this cycle of rebirth" says the Buddha. When unawareness is destroyed and turned into awareness, the "chain of causation" is shattered as in the case of the Buddhas and Arahats.

In the Itivuttaka the Buddha states "Those who have destroyed avijā and have broken through the dense darkness of avijjā, will tour no more in samsāra....

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