On Ignorance

To the Buddhist tradition, suffering is caused by three poisons: hatred, greed, and ignorance. And the greatest of these is ignorance. From ignorance both hatred and greed arise.

            The Nobel Peace Prize has been shared this year between a young Muslim girl and an old Hindu man. Malala Yousafzai is 17 years old, and Kailash Satyarthi is 60. Malala, who began her speech at the United Nations in 2013 with the Muslim declaration: ‘In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful’ was shot in the head by the Taliban because of her advocacy for girls’ education. Mr. Satyarthi, inspired by Gandhi, has helped free an estimated 70,000 children from slavery in India which is a major slave trafficking nexus and destination, through founding the Save the Childhood Movement and the Global March Against Child Labour. He believes that freedom is a divine gift that should not be taken away by slavery.

            Both of these heroes, the Muslim and the Hindu, would, I think, agree that childhood should be a time of learning. Not of working endless hours in a rug factory, or being mutilated to beg on the street, or being locked up in the house without instruction, or being armed and forced to fight and not to read. Jesus said, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do’ but they did plenty. Ignorance is an enemy.

            Pope Francis addressed a similar idea on the morning the Peace Prize was announced. Do we know what is happening in our hearts? he asked. What are the results of not knowing? Have we let in jealousy or envy (greed) without being aware of it? Have we let in hatred? Do we keep open house for every kind of delusion, without discrimination?

            The sin of Adam was not to aspire to knowledge, but to taste specifically the knowledge of good and evil: such knowledge belongs to God. Hatred can appear when we think we know, and don’t know. Those who hate Muslims because of the war crimes in the Middle East should observe that Malala is a Muslim. Christians who think that ‘God hates fags’ could learn that God hates nothing that God has made, that they should forgive their brother seventy times seven, and perhaps it would be a good idea to forgive themselves a few more times than that, for luck.

            Pope Francis advised the Ignatian practice of examination of conscience as an antidote to ignorance. At the end of the day, he says, you should interrogate your heart, the heart that is the seat of thought and reverence, as well as attachment and emotion. What has happened? he asks. What devils have you let in? What could be the results? What might they make you do?

            God is beneficent. God is merciful. It’s humankind, prey to the three poisons of hatred, greed and ignorance, who need to spend our childhood in learning, in peace, without being bought and sold, or confined and forbidden, or enslaved or brutalised. It’s we adults who need to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts with learning that treats of mercy and compassion. And blessed be God who gives us guidance through heroes like Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi, and Pope Francis.