Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c22.s1.6

c22.s1.6

We are, however, not condemned for ever to suffer from non-enlightenment, for suchness does not stand absolutely apart from the empiric world. The relation between it and ignorance is that of mutual perfuming (vāsanā) or impression. Ignorance affects suchness and produces those impressions (smṛti) which persist and maintain ignorance in being, creating an external world, and various modes of individuation, leading to action and misery. But suchness also affects ignorance; it thus induces in the mind of the individual in transmigration the hatred of the round of birth and death, and inspires in him the longing for release. Hence arises in the individual the conviction that he is really in possession of the pure nature of suchness, and that phenomena are merely the illusory manifestations of intelligence and have no absolute reality. The way is now open to practise with success the means of liberation, refraining absolutely from particularization, and from clinging to objects of desire. Ignorance can be overcome, because it is not absolutely distinct from enlightenment. The waves of the sea of consciousness which have been disturbed into motion by the wind of ignorance can be stilled, so that there remains only suchness in itself, unassociated with the mysterious disturbance which produces the manifestation of the individual and the world. It is freed from the coverings or obscuration of infections or ignorance (kleçāvaraṇa, jñeyāvaraṇa) and is immutable, calm, pure, and eternal.