Note f51 — ENLIGHTENMENT AND IGNORANCE

Cakkhu literally means an eye. It is often found in combination with such terms as paññā (wisdom or reason), buddha, or samanta (all-round), when it means a faculty beyond ordinary relative understanding. As was elsewhere noticed, it is significant that in Buddhism, both Mahayana and Hinayana, seeing (passato) is so emphasised, and especially in this case the mention of an “eye” which sees directly into things never before presented to one’s mind is quite noteworthy. It is this cakkhu or paññā-cakkhu in fact that, transcending the conditionality of the Fourfold Noble Truth or the Chain of Origination, penetrates (sacchikato) into the very ground of consciousness, from which springs the opposition of subject and object.