Thinking can bring a kind of happiness. However, a more superior type of happiness is gained from not thinking. This is the kind of happiness in a meditative state. A person in meditation must stop thinking in order to gain blissfulness. It is not wrong to say that “not thinking” is “ignorance”. In that sense, it is not wrong to say “ignorance is bliss”. However, this bliss of ignorance is temporary. No one stays in a meditative state forever. When one comes out of meditation, it is hard to stop thinking. Therefore, he will not have any bliss from thinking about all kinds of problems involving himself, his family, his local community, his country, the world environmental problems, as well as problems of other people in another country (such as LGBTQ, pro-life, pro-choice, atheism, human rights, democracy, freedom of speech, etc.) which are non of his business. In other words, bliss of ignorance is usually temporary, whereas bliss of Enlightenment is permanent.
What is the bliss of Enlightenment? It must entail “not thinking”. It is not wrong to say it is a kind of “ignorance”. The difference from “bliss of ignorance” is very subtle. Bliss of Enlightenment entails “not thinking” permanently, or being “ignorant” permanently whether in meditation or not. “Not thinking” allows a person to start living to the fullest possible.
We have been indoctrinated from young age to old age that “thinking” is good and “not thinking” is bad. It is the norm. It is the practice of common people. It is true that “thinking” makes us as common as all ordinary people. It is also true that extraordinary people do uncommon things. It is a choice we have to make: do we want to become ordinary people or extraordinary people? Do we want to keep on “thinking” but forget about living? Or is it better to stop “thinking” and start living? Many people only “think” they are thinking, but very few can really think. Majority of the people would rather die than to think. This kind of “not thinking” or “ignorance” will not bring them any meaningful bliss. In other words, ignorance doesn’t always bring blissfulness. In most cases, ignorance leads to delayed suffering (as opposed to delayed gratification) which may be multiple times heavier than people who are not ignorant.
An Enlightened person has Right View and Right Thinking. He sees reality as it really is rather than wishing reality to become what he wants to see. He is awakened to the truth that: 1) life of an ordinary being has a lot of suffering, 2) all suffering is due to desire (but not all desires lead to suffering), 3) suffering ceases when desires stop, 4) the way leading to cessation of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path. An Enlightened person thinks only wholesome thoughts but not unwholesome thoughts. In other words, he doesn’t think about many things which are unworthy to think. He is “ignorant” in that sense, and that “ignorance” is bliss. He focuses on living and “not thinking”. It is true that some knowledge is unworthy to know or unnecessary to know. Chasing unlimited knowledge with limited life is a great ignorance which brings more suffering and no bliss.
The bliss of Enlightenment is permanent. An Enlightened person permanently has no suffering (fear, envy, jealousy, hatred, anger, anxiety, depression, grief, lamentation, despair, etc). This is only possible through abandoning of greed, aversion, and delusion to perfect one’s virtue, equanimity and wisdom. He has direct and personal knowledge of non-self, impermanence, and the nature of suffering. There is nothing he wants to get and nothing he doesn’t want to get (good or bad). This is the true meaning of no desire. He doesn’t long for life and also not longing for death. He lives happily here and now, totally ignorant of the past and the future. Ignorance is bliss in this case, because no amount of guilt or remorse can change the past, and no amount of anxiety and worries can guarantee a future which one wishes to see. An Enlightened person sees reality as it really is, accepts reality as it is and has no delusion of wishing to change reality.
RESILIENT KID 