Kun brtags pa'i ma rig pa - "Conceptual ignorance."

All schools of Buddhist philosophy describe the root cause of cyclic existence as ma rig pa "ignorance that does not see reality". More precisely analyzed, some schools, such as the sutra schools and the phyag rgya chen po Mahamudra system, further describe ignorance as twofold; lhan cig skyes pa'i ma rig pa co-arising ignorance and kun brtags ma rig pa conceptual ignorance. Only the paths of the teachings khregs chod Trekcho and thod rgal Togal rdzogs pa chen po of the Great Perfection describe the third cause, which precedes the above two causes.

When fundamental ignorance is described as twofold or threefold, then the steps in the process of becoming ignorance are described. The conceptual ignorance described here is always the last step, the grossest level of ignorance of reality.

In a more general description of ignorance as twofold, the first step, the so-called co-emergent ignorance, is the ignorance involved in the basic split into self and other. This is the basic mistake of not recognizing one's own nature. This ignorance has no rtog pa conceptualizing thought associated with it.

Behind this, there is a process brtags pa of seeing kun everything in experience through concepts. This conceptualization reinforces the basic split and produces an extremely hardened sense of "I". It is the ignorance that kun brtag pa deals only with concepts and has the effect of "stitching" everything into a fully conceptual world. That is why it is called "conceptual ignorance." When this last level of ignorance is in place, beings experience a completely solid reality. Each of these two levels of ignorance has bdag 'dzin grasping for the Self, for this level it is kun brtags kyi bdag 'dzin. grasping for "I", for this level, is kun brtags kyi bdag 'dzin.

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