Bhikkhu Bodhi (BPS); Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero (editors), Wisdom Quarterly
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| Buddha statue reclining into nirvana, Wat Pa Phu Kon, hailand (Sasin Tipchai/Bugphai) |
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| Is this going to take long? Like, I'm kind of busy right now. How about we start manana? |
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| Free your mind and the rest will follow. |
An ancient maxim found in The Dhammapada ("Dharma Path") sums up the
practice of the Buddha's teaching, known as the Dharma, in three simple guidelines to
training:
- to abstain from all harm,
- to cultivate what is beneficial,
- and to purify one's mind.
These three principles form a graded sequence of steps
progressing from the outward and preparatory to the inward and
essential. Each step leads naturally into the one that follows it, and
the culmination of the three in purification of mind makes it plain that
the heart of Buddhist practice is to be found here.
Purification of mind
Purification of mind as understood in the Buddha's teaching is
the sustained endeavor to cleanse the mind (heart) of defilements, those dark
unwholesome mental forces which run beneath the surface stream of
consciousness vitiating our thinking, values, attitudes, and actions.
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| Minds at War: Poetry |
Chief among the defilements are three the Buddha termed
the "roots of unwholesomeness" -- greed, hatred, and delusion -- out of which emerge numerous offshoots and variants:
- anger and cruelty,
- avarice and envy,
- conceit and arrogance,
- hypocrisy and vanity,
- and the multitude of erroneous views.
Contemporary attitudes look unfavorably on such notions as
"defilement" and "purity," and on first encounter they may strike us as
throwbacks to an outdated moralism.
Defilements and Purity
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| I don't really look like this inside, do I?! |
Perhaps they were valid in an era when prudery
and taboo were dominant, but they have no claim on us as emancipated
torchbearers of modernity. Admittedly, we may not all wallow in the mire
of gross materialism. Many among us seek our enlightenments and
spiritual highs, but we want them on our own terms!
As heirs of some
new freedom, we believe they are to be won by an unbridled quest for
experience without any special need for introspection, personal change,
or self-control.
However, in the Buddha's teaching, the criterion of genuine
enlightenment lies precisely in purity of mind.
The purpose of all
insight and enlightened understanding is to liberate the mind from the
defilements. Nirvana itself, the ultimate goal of the teaching, is defined
quite clearly as freedom from greed, hatred, and delusion.
From the
perspective of the Dharma, defilement and purity are not mere postulates
of a rigid authoritarian moralism. Instead, they real and solid facts essential to a
right understanding of the situation of living beings in the world.
Purification?
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| Mindfulness of Breathing (Ven. Nanamoli) |
As facts of lived experience, defilement and purity pose a vital
distinction having a crucial significance for those who seek final deliverance
from all suffering. They represent the two points between which the path to
freedom unfolds — the former its problematic and starting point (suffering), the
latter its resolution and liberation.
The defilements, the Buddha declares,
lie at the bottom of all human suffering.
They burn within as craving and lust, as rage and resentment, as delusion and blindness. They lay to waste hearts, lives, hopes,
and civilizations. They drive us thirsty, frustrated, and blind through the unending round of
birth and death.
The Buddha describes the defilements as bonds, fetters,
hindrances, and knots. The path to freedom (unbonding), release, and
liberation is likened to untying the knots. At the same time self-discipline is aimed
at inward-cleansing.
How?
The work of purification is undertaken where the defilements arise -- in the mind (heart) itself. The main method the
Dharma offers for purifying the mind is meditation (bhavana, literally, "bringing into being," figuratively, "cultivation," "development").
Meditation in the
Buddhist training is neither a quest for self-effusive ecstasies (jhanas, dhyanas, zens) nor a
technique of home-applied psychotherapy.
"Meditation" (the Buddhist cultivation of serenity-and-insight) is a carefully devised method
of mental development -- theoretically precise and efficiently practical --
for attaining inner purity and spiritual freedom.
The principal tools
of Buddhist meditation are the core wholesome mental factors of
- energy,
- mindfulness,
- concentration,
- and understanding.
Wisdom
Since all defiled states of consciousness are born from
a single root cause, ignorance, which is the most deeply embedded defilement, the final and ultimate
purification of mind is to be accomplished through wisdom, the knowledge and vision (knowing and seeing) of things as they really are.
Wisdom, however, does not arise by chance or random good
intentions. It only arises in a purified mind. So in order for wisdom to
come gushing forth to accomplish the ultimate purification (enlightenment, bodhi) through the
eradication of defilements, we first have to create a space for it by
developing a provisional purification of mind -- a purification which, although temporary and vulnerable, is still indispensable as a foundation
for the emerging of final liberating-insight.
The achievement of this preparatory purification of mind begins
with the challenge of self-understanding.
To eliminate defilements we
must first learn to recognize and know them, to detect them at work as they being to arise and infiltrate and
dominate our everyday thoughts and lives.
For countless aeons in a countless number of former existences we have
acted on greed, hatred, and delusion. So the work of
self-purification cannot be executed hastily, in obedience to our demand
for quick results.
The task requires patience, care, and persistence -- blessed by the good fortune of a human rebirth, so rare in the round of rebirths --
and the Buddha's crystal clear instructions, which are far rarer than life as a human.
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| Now I see it myself, relying on no one! |
For every defilement the
Buddha -- not only an enlightened being but an enlightened teacher -- out of compassion for living beings has given us the antidote, the method to emerge
from it and vanquish it.
By learning these principles and applying them
properly, usually with the help of someone with experience, we can gradually wear away the most stubborn inner stains and
reach the final end of suffering, the "taintless liberation of the mind."
(It does not happen overnight, nor does it take more than this very life. What at first seems a struggle to establish then takes on momentum of its own. We till the soil, plant the seed, water and tend. Then suddenly what grows grows all by itself as we allow it, removing impediments and supplying it with calm and sustaining persistence until it reaches its full expression.)
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