Clear seeing

The mind poison of delusion is very seductive. This is the need not to see, not to know. Lama Surya Das speaks to the advantage of letting go of this poison in a passage on clear seeing in his book, Awakening to the Sacred:

When we are able to see "what is", we are able to approach the world fully conscious and awake. We are then able to see through and beyond all the false messages and false messengers; we are able to recognize and see past what attracts us or repels us; we are able to get beyond our own prejudices, projections, and biases. We see why we accept one person's point of view and reject another's. In this way, our distortions ad delusions begin to lose their hold over us, and we become better able to recognize what's important and meaningful. On an individual level, this can have tremendous implications. Wisdom - clear vision - means that as we become wise, we are less controlled by circumstances, people, or unfulfilling and questionable habits.

You see, just because we don't see or know about a prejudice, projection or bias doesn't mean we're not ruled by those things. We are slaves and don't even know it when we are overtaken by the mind poison of delusion or non-awareness. So even if it's painful to learn to see things as they are and our minds as they are, it's worth it because that journey into truth will ultimately set us free.