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no ignorance. Ha, that's very easy to say -- no ignorance. No ignorance - there is a
culture difference. When I was a kid, this word muk in Tibetan which really refers to
ignorance and as kid I always used to think falling asleep, you know especially when you
are in saying prayers or listening teachings or something, when you fall asleep, so I thought
that was the ignorance. Somehow, maybe it is culture or maybe my stupidity. And when
you talk about it, no ignorance, no ignorance, and then probably not falling asleep. That
was a little naïve, a naiveté of mine. But on the other hand maybe it is some kind of
language. Anyway, what is, what is what is non.. not having ignorance? What is that?
The Buddha himself said that: thoughts entertain thinking, understanding entertains knowledge
and gaining a under....discriminating understanding -- you know, thoughts entertain thinking,
understanding entertaining knowledge and developing discriminating knowledge is called non-ignorance.
What does that do? That does, with understanding, protects the individual from doing wrong and
particularly negative wrong. Negative wrong I am referring to negative karma that brings
huge consequences. That's what I am talking about. So protecting self from the negative
karmic consequences by protecting...at the causal level; that is called non-ignorance.
Non-ignorance is knowledge. We all know that. When you talk about knowledge, what are we
talking about? We are talking about two categories of knowledge: Some knowledge is what you call
it natural, what is known as gifted. Gifted knowledge. Another knowledge is what we learnt
-- like in the west many of them we learn by going through school, college and so forth
we learn. Also we learn through experience of working. And there are certain things gifted.
Even gifted ones need some learning. Because they need the condition. The cause may be
already within you. We call that 'gifted', but whether it is gifted or you brought from
your previous life or whatever it is. Many of them are brought from our previous life,
previous life. Without much effort, with a little connecting to the subject - connection
to the subject, people pick up very easily, very easily. We see that all arts, we see
that in poetry, we see that in sculpture -- those big thing making, and we see that in painting.
And all of them we do see them, which is we normally call it 'gifted', because we may
think it is the gift of the Almighty or something. But those of us who accept reincarnation and
who accept the karmic principle may call it gifted, but your gift to yourself -- your
own gift to yourself. You yourself brought this. There is also early Indian great master
Dharmakirti. Dharmakirti said, oh no no no. It's not early Indian master Dharmakirti.
What I am thinking is early Tibetan teacher Sakya Pandita. Sakya Pandita said that the
knowledge whatever maybe, even though you are going to die tomorrowmorning, you should
engage in learning today. You may not become learned in this life, but in your future lives
you can take it, you can gain that as though you are taking back your own wealth that you
left with someone, you deposited with someone else, some bank or something. You go and take
it back. Just like that you get it back. That is mostly what we call 'gifted' ones. Then
the learning by studying and learning that is another thing. But mostly people have both.
People have both. And many people fortunately, luckily, are that gifted -- many people - gifted.
Like, thinking of myself: I have not been to the western schools like many of you did.
I did not graduate from any universities like you people did. And I am not that stupid.
And most of my ... virtually have not studied any of the usual western subjects, but then
I am not so naïve or stupid and, in any of those fields, if I pay a little attention,
little thought, I could figure out -- particularly in politics and all of those. Unfortunately,
I have one bad thing: every time I think, I think of the attention of a particular politician,
which is always not good, most of the time, not always, but most of the time. Anyway,
these are the gifted things, gifted education, gifted knowledge, which is not.... And not
only me; I am just using me as an example. There are so many. And each and every one
of you will have a lot of gifted things. You may have learned some qualities, but more
you have gifted qualities. Your learned qualities will open your eyes, but your gifted qualities
will give you understanding, depth in it. So, so all of us have many, many more gifted
knowledge than learned ones. How much can you learn, even if you are 70 years old? How
much can you learn? So really, the things to be learned are so vast and our life time
time is so short. So how much can you really learn? It is mostly gifted. Hey anyway. So
these three we talked today, non-attachment, non-hatred and non-ignorance. This is almost
like the roots of all virtue. This is also protection from all wrong doing. This is also
the essence of true spiritual practice, really, essence of true spiritual practice. Why? Non-spiritual
things or rather anti-spiritual things, sort of the direct opposites of spiritual things,
are negativities and wrong doing, negativities. What we call spiritual development, what we
call improving the individual, what does that really mean? It really means, means our life
making it free from those three poisons and their imprints and their effects - effects.
So wrong doing, negativities, or hurting people, are either through hatred or through obsession or ignorance or all together
or two together. That's why hurting, wrong behavior and wrong functioning come from there.
And protecting yourself from that is really becoming true virtue, true spiritual. Not
engaging in this becomes true practice, doing right. So that is all about today. That's
what I would like to say. And although I was a little late, I am sorry, earlier - I think
you got good enough to carry home and that is: non-attachment, non-hatred, not having
ignorance. Which means you do not entertain these three poisons and stay away from those
three poisons and their effects. That automatically becomes virtue, automatically doing the right
thing. You don't have to push yourself to do the right thing. If you try to push yourself
doing the right thing too much, then you become righteous. If you become too much righteous
it is not necessarily great. It will become wrong. So just simply not engaging in these
three poisonous -- what Buddhist call poisonous - activities, and not letting them influence
you, is good enough to have positive merit, or positive karma, or positive virtue. That
is good enough. That is how one tries to live one's life.