Avijja - from Biography of Ajahn Mun (by Ajahn Mahaboowa)

This is a quote from the biography of Venerable Ajahn Mun of the Thai Forest Tradition on Avijja (ignorance).

[Please realize that the words "citta", "the one who knows" can have several layers of meanings, both at conventional level and ultimately truth level (no-self)].

Avijja:

"Avijja exists entirely within the citta (the one who knows)[mind can also be used here]. Being an integral part of the citta's conscious perspective since time-without beginning, it has usurped the citta's "knowing nature" and distorted its intrinsic quality of simply "knowing" by creating the false duality of the "knower" and the "known". From this individual viewpoint spring right and wrong, good and evil, heaven and hell, and the whole mass of suffering that comprises the world of samsara. Thus avijja is the seed of being and birth, the very nucleus of all existence. It is also the well-spring from which all other mental defilements arise. Far from appearing dark and menacing, avijja is the epitome of all the mental and spiritual virtues that living beings hold in the very highest esteem. This is its beguiling allure, the reason why living beings cannot see it for what it actually is—the great lord and master of birth and death. Appearing at first to be the ultimate in virtue and happiness, the citta's true abiding sanctuary, when wisdom finally penetrates to its core and exposes its fundamental deception, avijja promptly dissipates, revealing the pure, unblemished citta, the true Supreme Happiness, Nibbana."