Adventures in Beginningless Ignorance

    We watched a video after the group meditation practice, where Master Sheng Yen elaborated on a term that is often found in repentance prayer practices in Buddhism. It is a line which talks about beginningless ignorance, and the vows are to repent of ignorance since 'time without beginning.' While I suggested that this idea entails a kind of negative or pessimistic approach, another participant in the discussion offered the opposite--that 'beginningless ignorance' entails a flipside of beginningless wisdom. I think the meaning of this idea is simple: once I am no longer afraid of illusions and can see that they point to endless wisdom, then these illusions cease to be ignorance to me, and they cease to be vexations as well. Even if the illusions still constitute a state of ignorance, there is a sense that knowing they are illusions helps one to take them less seriously, and see wisdom in them. In this way, even the most miserable conditions are transformed into something that is interesting and playful.
   I have a class coming up on Saturdays, where I teach young boys about R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. I have to admit that I have gone through three distinct 'stages' while reading this book. The first stage is the doubting stage: "Why are all these pirates fighting over a pile of gold?" Part of me was most certainly rejecting the materialist elements of Treasure Island, and I didn't feel too interested in joining Jim Hawkins on his journey. The second stage is one of empathizing; recognizing that I can still be interested in something for the sake of wearing someone else's shoes, even though the interest may not seem to directly pertain to my life. This is a stage where I start to realize that many perspectives are possible if I am not attached to my habitual ways of seeing. I am now at a third stage, where I take the new perspective back to my original one and ask myself, what can this story do to enrich my many 'stories'? Are there aspects to 'digging for treasure' that parallel a spiritual quest that I am on? What are the latent meanings behind treasure hunting, and how has this story shed light on a journey that I might actually share?
   I am writing about this because I have a sense that it relates to the idea of taking illusions as expedient means for a deepened perspective on life and experience. It isn't so much the story itself that counts so much as it is the way that narratives can enhance perspectives on life or deepen them. In this case, I don't take the illusion to be something substantial like a pot of gold, but rather take it to be symbolic of the way the mind works or relates in the world.