orienting to the most tangible and obvious level of reality (your body, thoughts, etc.), which is also the level of maximal difference from other forms, you start to identify with that level and thereby lose awareness of the subtle dimensions of your being wherein the pattern of the whole universe is encoded. Seeing only part of the whole but taking it to be the Whole is what we mean by ignorance, and ignorance gives rise to suffering because it entails a misalignment with reality as it is.
