Desire and Ignorance

 Schopenhauer once described the intellect as a "dwarf" riding on the top of the shoulders of a giant. I am paraphrasing here, but one thing I am contemplating recently is the relationship between desire and ignorance, particularly in light of the Buddhadharma lecture on the 12 links of conditioned arising today. My question is, if abolishing ignorance is so fundamental to the Buddhist path, what is its relationship to desire? Is desire simply the product of ignorance, and therefore naturally gets abolished once ignorance yields to wisdom? Or is it more complex than simply thinking that desire is a "product" of ignorance--a model that I have been entertaining recently in my studies.

   I personally think that desire colors one's world view, to the extent that what we see is often the result of desire. Like Schopenhauer, I think that by the time we are experiencing the world, we are already doing so through the emotional tones that speak of particular desires. If my desire is to please others (out of an underlying desire to abolish the craving of loneliness, for instance), then that desire colors how I see the world. It binds me to ways of being that are not easy to abolish. Simply reciting a mantra like "all phenomena are empty" can sometimes be a way of evading the hopes and desires that cloud one's view of life. Loneliness is a good example: how often do we simply go with the flow of others simply because we are afraid to be alone or feel abandoned? The way we view the world is not as straightforward as removing cognitive or mental distortions. It also requires that we face the fear of loneliness that might subconsciously prevent us from letting go of ignorance. 

   I think that once we stop buying into the idea that we will die if we don't have someone else's approval, then a lot of the difficulties we face will not be so powerful. Then the problems will be not so burdensome or difficult to solve. This is because we are not basing our view of reality on whether we will feel "ok" and acceptable to others in accepting that view. Perhaps this is a complicated way of saying we have to stop pandering to a collective consciousness and try to penetrate to the underlying emptiness, impermanence and no-self that marks existence.