Learned Ignorance

　　知識的盲點：

　　The transcendental mind developed by the Buddha is not limited to sense-data and goes beyond the logic trapped within the limitation of relative perception. The human intellect, on the contrary, operates on the basis of information it collects and stores, whether in the field of religion, philosophy, science or art. The information for the mind is gathered through our sense organs which are inferior in so many ways. The very limited information perceived makes our understanding of the world distorted.

　　Some people are proud of the fact that they know so much. In fact, the less we know, the more certain we are in our explanations; the more we know, the more we realize our limitations.

　　A brilliant scholar once wrote a book which he considered as the ultimate work. He felt that the book contained all literary gems and philosophies. Being proud of his achievement, he showed his masterpiece to a colleague of his who was equally brilliant with the request that the book be reviewed by him. Instead, his colleague asked the author to write down on a piece of paper all he knew and all he did not know. The author sat down deep in thought, but after a long while failed write down anything he knew. Then he turned his mind to the second question, and again he failed to write down anything he did not know. Finally, with his ego at the lowest ebb, he gave up, realizing that all that he knew was really ignorance.

　　In this regard, Socrates, the well-known Athenian philosopher of the Ancient World, had this to say when asked what he knew: ”I know only one thing--that I do not know.”

　　佛陀所覺悟的真理超越了感官的範圍，也超越了科學所理解的範圍。人類的知識是由宗教、哲學、科學或藝術獲得的，也就是從感官獲得的。這些從感官獲得的有限知識，無法真正的了解這個世界。

　　有些人因爲自己的學問豐富而感到驕傲。事實，當我們覺察到自己學問不足時，就是在肯定自己，認爲自己的學識豐富，反而局限性更大。

　　有一位才華洋溢的作家寫了一本書，他認爲這是最完美的作品，書中包含了崇高的哲理，他也引以爲榮。當他把他的傑作，展示給朋友看時，並要求朋友的評論，朋友給了他一張紙，要他把所知道和不知道的分別列在紙上。他答應了，可是他坐了老半天，什麼也寫不出來。他的自豪感消失得無影無蹤了，于是，他在看清楚自己的無知後，放棄了那本書。蘇格拉底是一位著名的哲學家，當他被人問及：「你通曉些什麼？」時，他總是簡單的回答：「我只通曉一件事，那就是：『我什麼都不通曉』。」