Lucille (TLB) – ignorância

Your question is, “Why is there ignorance?” It presupposes that there is ignorance and it presupposes that there is someone who is ignorant. But if we investigate, we discover that there has never been anybody ignorant and there has never been ignorance. The ignorance is created by the question. When we ask the question, “Why is there ignorance?” there is the ignorance, right there in the question. It is the very question that muddies the waters and creates the illusion. You were referring to the past, to past ignorance. Ignorance never exists in the present; it is always in the past or in the future. If you will allow me to go off on a tangent, those of us who like to read Indian Sanskrit texts often find a particular adjective which is applied to ignorance, which is usually translated as “without a beginning,” ignorance which has never had a beginning. I can’t recall the exact Sanskrit word.

If you consider the etymological sense   of this adjective there is another possible interpretation which is “ignorance which doesn’t exist in the present,” “ignorance which cannot be found in the present.” I think that is what was meant by the ancient teachers. They didn’t mean that ignorance doesn’t have a beginning, which is meaningless; they meant that if you look for it you won’t find it. You can only assume that there is ignorance and it is this very assumption that creates it. But if you look for it there is no such thing. (Francis Lucille  )