Innate and Imputing Ignorance
Soh
Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith:

“In the basis (Tibetan: གཞི, Wylie: gzhi) there were neutral awarenesses (sh shes pa lung ma bstan) that did not recognize themselves. (Dzogchen texts actually do not distinguish whether this neutral awareness is one or multiple.) This non-recognition was the innate ignorance. Due to traces of action and affliction from a previous universe, the basis became stirred and the Five Pure Lights shone out. When a neutral awareness recognized the lights as its own display, that was Samantabhadra (immediate liberation without the performance of virtue). Other neutral awarenesses did not recognize the lights as their own display, and thus imputed “other” onto the lights. This imputation of “self” and “other” was the imputing ignorance. This ignorance started sentient beings and samsara (even without non-virtue having been committed). Yet everything is illusory, since the basis never displays as anything other than the five lights.”

"Dualistic vision arises from the second ignorance, the imputing ignorance; not from the first ignorance, innate ignorance."

"First one has to recognize there are two kinds of ignorance (āvidya): afflictive ignorance and non-afflictive ignorance.

Afflictive ignorance is the first segment of the twelve segments of dependent origination.

Within non-afflictive ignorance there are also two kinds: the the ignorance of the absence of omniscience, for example, in Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas, and the knowledge obscuration from which innate self-grasping arises, which in turn is the cause for the three poisons. This knowledge obscuration is only eradicated in full buddhahood."


Kyle Dixon:

“I’m obviously preferable to the Dzogchen system because I started there and although branching out, my primary interest has remained there. But I do appreciate the run-down of avidyā or ignorance in the Dzogchen system because it is tiered and accounts for this disparity I am addressing. 

There are two or three levels of ignorance which are more like aspects of our delusion regarding the nature of phenomena. The point of interest in that is the separation of what is called “innate” (or “connate”) ignorance, from what is called “imputing ignorance.”

The imputing ignorance is the designating of various entities, dimension of experience and so on. And one’s identity results from that activity. 

The connate ignorance is the failure to correctly apprehend the nature of phenomena. The very non-recognition of the way things really are. 

This is important because you can have the connate ignorance remain in tact without the presence of the imputing ignorance. 

This separation is not even apparent through the stilling of imputation like in śamatha. But it can be made readily apparent in instances where you awaken from sleep, perhaps in a strange location, on vacation etc., or even just awakening from a deep sleep. There can be a period of moments where you do not realize where you are right yet, and then suddenly it all comes back, where you are, what you have planned for the day, where you need to be, etc., 

In those initial moments you are still conscious and perceiving appearances, and there is still an innate experience of the room being external and objects being something over-there, separate from oneself. That is because this fundamental error in recognition of the nature of phenomena is a deep conditioning that creates the artificial bifurcation of inner and outer experiential dimensions, even without the activity of imputation.”


u/krodha avatar
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What happens if the mind stops declaring?

Nothing, you still possess a cognitive obscuration that conceives of existent entities.

Emptiness is not just about imputation, it is about how cognition is influenced by ignorance fundamentally. If emptiness only required a cessation of designation then we would all be Buddhas by virtue of stopping thought so we don’t assign characteristics and so on. However that isn’t the case, we still perceive objects even if we stop imputing.

This is why in some traditions the schema of ignorance (avidyā) is layered. There is the imputing ignorance, but beneath that is the connate ignorance, and so on.

Empty doesn't mean it doesn't exist, physically (or otherwise).

While we don’t have to define emptiness as a lack of existence (although most sūtras do), at base it is imperative to understand that perception of the rūpaskandha, or physical matter (the four material elements that comprise “form”), that is endowed with “substance” (dravya) is considered a cognitive error.

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