Fundamental Ignorance, Attachment, and the Self | There Is No Suffering

The focus of practice is to contemplate that fundamental ignorance does not exist—that there are in reality no conditions for this seed to grow. With this method, do you contemplate the seed or the conditions that are necessary for the seed to grow? First, you contemplate the conditions. Figuratively speaking then, first you contemplate the balloon, which represents attachment, or the immediate expression of fundamental ignorance. Attachment manifests as greed, aversion, arrogance, jealousy, doubt, and so forth. It is only when these afflictions arise that we become aware of a self. Attachment, itself, however, has no real existence.

Attachment arises only when causes and conditions ripen to bring a subject and an object together. To feel greed, I must become aware of something I want. Yet both subject and object constantly change, and therefore they have no lasting reality. The subject, or self, changes constantly, and the objects of desire change constantly as well. If I become lustful over a woman, I may do something with consequences. On the other hand, if I realize that the object of my attraction changes constantly, I may not give in to desire. I change, she changes, my lust changes. None of it has enduring reality.

So, we must practice contemplating the emptiness of fundamental ignorance. If we successfully do so, it will not arise. What arises, however is not fundamental ignorance but affliction; if we do away with afflictions, fundamental ignorance will cease to exist—we will experience no-self.

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