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What Ignorance Means

SN 56.17, the Avijjā Sutta — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 1 min · 99 words

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Before you read

What happens

A monk asks the Buddha for a precise explanation of what people mean when they speak about ignorance.

Central question

In this teaching, what exactly is a person failing to see when they are caught in ignorance?

Main point

Ignorance is not a lack of education or intelligence. It is not seeing dissatisfaction, where it comes from, when it ends, and how to end it again.

Reading tip

The answer comes in a four-part pattern. Read the final list as four things to look into, not four claims to accept without checking.

This text is not saying

The text is not using ignorance to mean stupidity or a general lack of facts. It gives the word a specific practical meaning tied to dissatisfaction and its ending.

Key words

These definitions are here so you do not need to know Pali or Buddhist vocabulary before reading.

ignorance
This project's rendering of "avijjā" -- not general stupidity, but specifically not seeing how dissatisfaction works and how it ends. The first link in the dependent-arising sequence.
dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.
bhikkhu
A Buddhist monk -- someone who has left household life to practise full time. Left untranslated because "monk" carries centuries of unrelated European associations.

Translation

What Ignorance Means

A bhikkhu sitting to one side said to the Buddha:

"Bhante, people talk about 'ignorance.' What is ignorance? When can someone be said to be caught in it?"

"Bhikkhu, it means not seeing dissatisfaction, where it comes from, when it ends, or how to end it again.

This is what ignorance means. This is when someone can be said to be caught in it.

So apply yourself to seeing:

  • 'This is dissatisfaction.'
  • 'This is where dissatisfaction comes from.'
  • 'This is the end of dissatisfaction.'
  • 'This is how to end it again.'"

The seventh discourse is finished.

Words used in this translation (4)
Bhante
A respectful way of addressing a senior monastic, roughly "venerable sir." Left untranslated because English has no natural equivalent.
bhikkhu
A Buddhist monk -- someone who has left household life to practise full time. Left untranslated because "monk" carries centuries of unrelated European associations.
dissatisfaction
This translation's rendering of "dukkha," the Buddhist term for the unsatisfying, unstable quality of ordinary experience. Often translated "suffering," but that can sound more dramatic than the everyday sense of things not quite being right.
ignorance
This project's rendering of "avijjā" -- not general stupidity, but specifically not seeing how dissatisfaction works and how it ends. The first link in the dependent-arising sequence.
Source and corrections