Clear Knowing

The following is from SN 45.1:

Monks, ignorance is the leader in the attainment of unskillful qualities, followed by lack of conscience & lack of concern. In an unknowledgeable person, immersed in ignorance, wrong view arises. In one of wrong view, wrong resolve arises. In one of wrong resolve, wrong speech... In one of wrong speech, wrong action... In one of wrong action, wrong livelihood... In one of wrong livelihood, wrong effort... In one of wrong effort, wrong mindfulness... In one of wrong mindfulness, wrong concentration arises.

Clear knowing is the leader in the attainment of skillful qualities, followed by conscience & concern. In a knowledgeable person, immersed in clear knowing, right view arises. In one of right view, right resolve arises. In one of right resolve, right speech... In one of right speech, right action... In one of right action, right livelihood... In one of right livelihood, right effort... In one of right effort, right mindfulness... In one of right mindfulness, right concentration arises.

This has been a favorite of mine for quite a while.

These days it seems like all you hear about is compassion, compassion. That's great, but simple concern just isn't good enough, especially when it comes to problems of government. Clearly knowing what's going on is more important than just being concerned.

Now, in the above sutta you may notice that clear knowing is the opposite of ignorance. When the Buddha is talking about ignorance, he's talking about ignorance of the Four Noble Truths, not just some public policy issue. But, as the Buddha does in many suttas, we can plug other things into the framework of the Four Noble Truths to good effect.

1. There is the issue.


2. There is the cause of the issue.


3. There is the cessation of the issue.


4. There is the path leading to the cessation of the issue.

You can pretty much plug whatever issue you want into this, but "the issue" should be some specific problem and not some general category like "the environment" or whatever, otherwise the framework doesn't make sense.

Just as in investigation of the Four Noble Truths, you have to be willing to acknowledge things as they actually are and not as you want them to be. All too often people tend to blame the same hated person, group, etc., for all of their problems. "Blame the opposition" seems to be standard practice in politics, but it keeps people from properly investigating the real nature of things. The idea seems to be to always look at the opposition's faults while ignoring your own. Well:

Whatever an enemy might do
to an enemy,
or a foe to a foe,
the ill-directed mind
can do to you
even worse.
- Dhp 42

The other thing to remember is that when it comes to complex things like social and economic problems, there are usually multiple causes and multiple possible solutions. So don't lose sight of that fact.