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Old 05-23-2012, 09:51 AM   #11
SeiserL
 
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Re: I: Ignorance, Intelligence, and Integrity

Quote:
Niall Matthews wrote: View Post
Isn't ignorance a state - of not-knowing. So what we are putting in - into that state of not-knowing - is knowledge. Perhaps we need a transitional phase. Putting in knowledge forces out fear and ignorance. As you suggest we have to have the intelligence and the courage to transform the knowledge into wisdom, empathy and compassion. So the shorthand version might be: knowledge in - wisdom out.
Yes agreed.

We often think about ignorance is not-knowing. Which can imply a state of emptiness.

That could actually be a positive state, like conscious incompetence, at least we know we don't know and are hopefully open to filling with knowledge, intelligence, wisdom, empathy, and compassion.

Too often the ignorance is in the process itself, not just the content. Like unconscious incompetence, we do not know that what we think we know doesn't work or isn't real to begin with.

So before we can fill with correct knowledge and intelligence, we have to empty ourselves of the beliefs we have learned from family and society before there is a place to fill.

Seeing through the illusions that have held together our identity and reality is not easy.

Many of us were raised with the ignorant illusion that a harder offense/attack will protect us, only to find that it creates, facilitates, and perpetuates the fear we are protecting ourselves against. Who would have guessed that our best defensive is to stop being defensive and seeing everything is the world as a personal attack?

Thanks for reading, responding, and offering us more insights to consider.

Lynn Seiser PhD
Yondan Aikido & FMA/JKD
We do not rise to the level of our expectations, but fall to the level of our training. Train well. KWATZ!
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