Why Can Avidya Block Prajna?

1. How can Avidya block Prajna? And why is Prajna important, anyway? Start by explaining each term and then how they relate to each other and the practices and teachings and then show how avidya might block or impair the experience or expression of Prajna. (20)

Prajna is the wisdom of Sunyata. Avidya, on the other hand is the ignorance of Sunyata. It is the ignorance of the true nature of existence. The Three Jewels or Three Refuges is “Buddhism’s most fundamental practice and the closest thing the Buddhist tradition has to a creed”(173,4). All three, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are formed, fed and directed by counting on Sunyata to which Sunyata is to be wise, Prajna, to which Sunyata is to know the skillful means, Upaya, and to which Sunyata is to bring out the Buddhist compassion, Karuna. The more you have Sunyata in your life, the more each one of the Three Jewels become active in your life so does the Ashta Marga become natural. You include it as an ethical way of living. The thing that can break the string is Avidya, the ignorance of Sunyata (CN, 10/15).

2. What are two of the main differences in the practices or beliefs between the general category of Theravadan

The main differences between this two forms in Buddhism are: (a) In Theravadan Buddhism, only men, particularly the monks can reach nirvana whereas in Mahayana Buddhism, laypeople and women can also reach nirvana; (b) every single form under the Mahayana belief system is required to take the Bodhisattva vow that states “I have to come back even if I reach nirvana in this life, I vow to come back to help others.” On the other hand, in Theravadan Buddhism, when a man who is a monk reaches nirvana, at the end of that monk’s life, he will reach parinirvana, the end of life not coming back and never coming back; and (c) how the two forms differ in the way they use celestial bodhisattvas