In Buddhist teaching, ignorance is considered the fundamental cause of violence - ignorance... about the separation of self and other... about the consequences of our actions.
Interpretation
Ignorance leads to violence due to a lack of understanding of ourselves and our actions.
In this quote, Sharon Salzberg emphasizes the importance of awareness and understanding in preventing violence. She suggests that ignorance, particularly regarding the connection between oneself and others, as well as the impact of one's actions, is a fundamental cause of conflict and harm. Recognizing our interconnectedness and the repercussions of our deeds can lead to a more compassionate and peaceful existence.
In practice
During a discussion on the roots of violence in society, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of education and empathy.
It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.
Patience doesn't mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that's unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with.
To be truly happy in this world is a revolutionary act...It is a radical change of view that liberates us so that we know who we are most deeply and can acknowledge our enormous ability to love.
The critical element in meditation practice is beginning again. Everyone loses focus at times, everyone loses interest at times, and everyone gets distracted over and over again. What is essential, and also incredibly transforming, is realizing that we have the ability to begin again, without blaming or judging ourselves, without thinking we have failed, without losing heart, we can, and need to, constantly be beginning again.
It's a rare and precious thing to be close to suffering because our society - in many ways - tells us that suffering is wrong. If it's our own suffering, we try to hide it or isolate ourselves. If others are suffering, we're taught to put them away somewhere so we don't have to see it.
Doing nothing means unplugging from the compulsion to always keep ourselves busy, the habit of shielding ourselves from certain feelings, the tension of trying to manipulate our experience before we even fully acknowledge what that experience is.
If at age 20 you are not a Communist then you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not a Capitalist then you have no brains.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.
So it is clear that the search for what is just is a search for the mean; for the law is the mean.
Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes. . . . it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it.
The world doesn't want to be punished. It wants to remain in darkness. It doesn't want to be told that what it believes is false. If you also don't want to be corrected, then you might as well leave the church and spend your time at the bar and brothel. But if you want to be saved-and remember that there's another life after this one-you must accept correction.
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