Ignorance as the Root Problem: Buddhism and Gnosticism
Most of us have spent a few minutes hunting for reading glasses that were on our heads the whole time. Nothing about the situation needs to change in that moment. You don’t need new glasses, or forgiveness for losing them. You need to notice something that was already true. Two old traditions, one from India and one from the Mediterranean, built whole religions on a version of that moment. Buddhism calls the problem avidya. The Gnostic Christians called it agnoia. Both words mean not-knowing, and both traditions put it at the bottom of everything that goes wrong in a human life. ...