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Avidya creates all other Samskāras.
Avidya: ignorance, or not seeing things as they are.
Samskāras: obstacles, or causes of suffering.
Samskāras may exist in different forms:
The Samskāras are:
1) avidya (ignorance)
2) the sense of "I"
3) attachment (attraction)
4) aversion (disgust)
5) clinging to life (fear of death)
Lacking this wisdom, one mistakes that which is impermanent, impure,
distressing, or empty of self for permanence, purity, happiness, and
self.
The sense of "I": To identify consciousness with that which merely
reflects consciousness.
Attachment: a residue of pleasant experience.
Aversion: a residue of suffering.
Clinging to life: self-perpetuating survival instinct, even for the
wise.
In their activated form, Samskāras, as patterns of consciousness, are
overcome through meditation.
In their weakened form, Samskāras are overcome by tracing them
backwards to their origin.
Samskāras are the root cause of actions; each action deposits dormant
impressions (more Samskāras) deep in the mind, to be activated and
experienced later in this birth, or lie hidden awaiting a future one.
[Thus a cycle or a wheel.]
The wise see suffering in all experience, whether from the anguish of
impermanence, or from dormant impressions laden with suffering, or
from incessant conflict as the fundamental qualities of nature vie
for ascendancy.
Pure awareness is just seeing itself; although pure, it usually
appears to operate through the distortions of the perceiving mind.
In essence, we experience this universe in order to reveal this truth.
Once that happens, we can never see this universe in the same way
again.