The Impurities of the Heart-Mind

Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth), Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Terms and Doctrines (upakkilesa and sotapanna) edited by Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

You stink of mental impurities! - I know, but I'm working on rooting them out. - That's great!

 

I should have kept my word about purifying.

In Buddhism the "impurities" (upakkilesas) or corruptions, imperfections, "defilements" (a word better reserved for translating the term kilesas) are 16 moral "impurities of the mind" mentioned and explained in MN 7 and MN 8. (See Wheel No. 61/62):

1. covetousness-greed (abhijjhā-visamalobha)
2. ill will (vyāpāda)
3. anger (kodha)
4. hostility (upanāha)
5. denigration (makkha)
6. domineering (palāsa)
7. envy (issā)
8. stinginess (macchariya)
9. hypocrisy (māyā)
10. fraud (sātheyya)
11. obstinacy (thambha)
12. presumption (sārambha)
13. conceit (māna)
14. arrogance (atimāna)
15. vanity (mada)
16. negligence (pamāda).

Some impurities pertain to meditation.

There are three groups of impurities pertaining to meditation:

 

(A) Nine mental imperfections occurring in "one devoted to higher mental training" (a sikkha devoted to adhi-citta);

• three coarse ones: harmful physical, verbal, and mental conduct in deeds, words, and thoughts;
• three medium ones: thoughts of sensual desire, thoughts of ill will, thoughts of cruelty;
• three subtle ones: thoughts about one's relatives, one's country, and one's reputation (A.III.100).

(B) Eighteen imperfections in the practice of mindfulness of breathing, mentioned in Pts.M., ānāpāna-kathā (translated in Ven. Ñānamoli Thera's Mindfulness of Breathing, p. 60, BPS.lk).

 

(C) Ten "imperfections of insight" (insight-meditation, vipassana-ūpakkilesa); see Visuddhi V.