The History of Buddhist Thought c13.23

c13.23

Here we have an intelligible sense in which ignorance may be called a cause. Thus if one goes to a wrong village, it is because he was ignorant of the right way. But this is quite different from the sense in which contact (of the sense organs) is a cause of sensation. In this case we have an efficient cause. Again birth is the cause of old age. This appears to be like calling day the cause of the night.