Purifying the Mind/Heart (Bhikkhu Bodhi)

Bhikkhu Bodhi, "Purification of Mind" (BPS/ATI); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha at Battambang, Cambodia (Kim Seng/CaptainKino.com/flickr)

Mind matters: materiality and mentality, kalapas and cittas (wellhappypeaceful.com)

  

Free your mind; the rest will follow.

An ancient maxim found in the Dhammapada sums up the practice of the Buddha's teaching in three simple guidelines to training: to abstain from all harm, to cultivate good, 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 as understood in the Buddha's teaching is the sustained endeavor to cleanse the mind (citta, heart) of defilements, those unwholesome mental forces that run beneath the surface stream of consciousness vitiating our intentions, thinking, values, attitudes, and actions.

 

(Inquiring Mind)

The chief among the defilements are the three that the Buddha has termed the "roots of [all] harm" -- greed, hatred, and delusion -- from which emerge their numerous offshoots and variants: anger and cruelty, avarice and envy, conceit and arrogance, hypocrisy and vanity [pride, personality view, wrong view regarding ego], the multitude of erroneous views.

The "defilements" are heart-defiling, unwholesome qualities of mind: "There are ten defilements, so called because they are themselves defiled and because they defile the mental factors associated with them:
(1) greed, (2) hate, (3) delusion, (4) conceit, (5) speculative views, (6) skeptical doubt, (7) mental torpor, (8) restlessness, (9) shamelessness,(10) lack of moral dread or unconscientiousness (Vis.M. XXII, 49, 65)." (For further information on 1-3, see mūla; 4, see māna; 5, see ditthi; 6-8, see nīvarana; 9 and 10, see ahirika-anottappa.

  These ten are explained in the Commentaries, but no classification of them is found in the sutras even though the term occurs frequently. The "impurities" (upakkilesa) are: 16 moral impurities of the mind mentioned and explained in MN 7 and MN 8 (The Wheel #61/62): (1) covetousness and harmful greed, (2) ill will, (3) anger, (4) hostility, (5) denigration, (6) domineering, (7) envy, (8) stinginess, (9) hypocrisy, (10) fraud, (11) obstinacy, (12) presumption, (13) conceit, (14) arrogance, (15) vanity, and (16) negligence.

 

Contemporary attitudes look unfavorably on such notions as "defilement" and "purity." On first encounter they may strike us as throwbacks to an outdated morality, valid perhaps when prudes and taboos were dominant, but having no place now. Not all of us wallow in the mire of gross materialism; many among us seek our enlightenments and spiritual highs, but we want them on our own terms. And as heirs of the new freedom we believe they are to be won through a hungry quest for experience without any need for introspection, personal change, or self-control.

 

However in the Buddha's teaching, genuine enlightenment lies precisely in purity of mind. The purpose of all insight and enlightened understanding is to liberate the mind from the defilements (taints, fetters, distortions). Nirvana itself, the 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 postulates of authoritarian moralism but real and solid facts essential to an objective understanding of the human situation in the world.

 

As facts of lived experience, defilement and purity pose a vital distinction with crucial significance for those who seek liberation from suffering. They represent the two points between which the path to liberation unfolds -- the starting point of the problem and its resolution in the end. The defilements, the Buddha declares, reside beneath all human suffering. Burning within as lust and craving, as rage and resentment, delusion and wrong views, they lay to waste hearts, minds, lives, hopes, and civilizations. They drive us blind and thirsty over and over again through the round of birth and death.

Cultivate constant mindfulness.

The Buddha describes the defilements as bonds, fetters, hindrances, and knots. So the path to liberation, unbonding, release, to untying the knots is a discipline aimed at inward cleansing.

 

The work of purification is undertaken where the defilements arise, in the mind, and the main method the Dharma offers for purifying the mind is meditation.

What is meditation not? Meditation in Buddhist training is neither a quest for ecstasies (forms of bliss derived from concentration and absorption) nor a technique of DIY psychotherapy, stress reduction, or relaxation. What is it? Meditation is a systematic method of mental development -- precise, practical, and efficiently leading to an objective -- to attain inner purity and complete freedom.

 

The principal tools of Buddhist meditation are the core skillful mental factors: energy, mindfulness, concentration, and understanding. In the systematic practice of meditation, these are strengthened and brought together in a program of self-purification that aims at rooting out the defilements so that not even the subtlest unwholesome stirrings remain.

 

All defiled states of consciousness are born of ignorance. The most deeply embedded defilement is undone, with the final and ultimate purification of mind being accomplished through wisdom -- the knowledge and vision of things as they really are.

 

Wisdom, however, does not spontaneously arise through chance or random good intentions. It only arises in a purified mind. In order for wisdom to come forth and accomplish the ultimate purification of eradicating the defilements, we first have to create a space for it.

Big Buddha, Tian Tan (discoverhongkong.com)

This is done by developing a provisional purification of mind -- a purification which, although temporary and vulnerable, is still indispensable as a foundation for the emergence of all 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 them, to detect them at work infiltrating and dominating our everyday thoughts and lives.

For countless aeons we have acted on the spur of greed, hatred, and delusion. So the work of self-purification cannot be executed hastily with our demand for quick results. The task requires care, patience, and persistence -- and the Buddha's clear instructions.

For every defilement the Buddha out of compassion gave an antidote, a method to emerge from it and vanquish it. By learning these principles and applying them properly, we gradually cleanse the most stubborn inner stains and reach the end of suffering, the "taintless liberation of the mind."

Distortions of the Mind (sutra)

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly translation (Vipallasa Sutra, AN 4.49)

The "distortions" (vipallasas) can be called the hallucinations, perversions, inversions.

 

Candy eye (lilminx16/deviantart)

Earlier we asked, What is art? Is it a cartoon, an illusion... or an attempt to see things the way they really are? 

Art can sensitize us even as it distorts and emphasizes. Perception is how we look at the world we create every moment without realizing we're creating as we're choosing what to notice or how to interpret (cognize) it. Art, like meditation, may sensitize and teach us to clear our mental perception -- our preconceptions and distortions. (See sutra and explanation below).

"Meditators, there are four distortions of perception, distortions of mind (heart), distortions of view. What are the four? 

Saara sees (Arkiharha/weekday-illusion)

"To regard as 'permanent' what is actually impermanent is the distortion of perception, distortion of mind, distortion of view.
 
"To regard as 'fulfilling' what is actually disappointing...

"To regard as 'personal' what is actually impersonal (anatta)...

"To regard as 'attractive' what is actually unattractive is the distortion of perception, distortion of mind, distortion of view. These are the four distortions of perception, distortions of mind, distortions of view.

 
The Undistorted

The Buddha distorted to reflect iridescent colors on drilled metal surface

 

Psychedelic (-william/flickr.com)

"There are four non-distortions of perception, non-distortions of mind, non-distortions of view. What are the four? 

"To regard as 'impermanent' what is actually impermanent is the non-distortion of perception, non-distortion of mind, non-distortion of view. 

"To regard as 'disappointing' what is actually disappointing...

"To regard as 'impersonal' what is actually impersonal...

"To regard as 'unattractive' what is actually unattractive is the non-distortion of perception, non-distortion of mind, non-distortion of view.

 

"These are the four non-distortions of perception, non-distortions of mind, non-distortions of view."

    

"Perceiving permanence in the impermanent, fulfillment in the disappointing, self in the impersonal, attractiveness in the unattractive -- beings, brought to ruin by wrong-view, become imbalanced, go out of their minds.

 

Mara has his eye on us (lilminx16)

"Bound by Mara's noose, from that noose [snare, threat of death] they find no rest. Instead, beings continue wandering on, going to rebirth and death.

 

"But when Enlightened Ones arise in the world and bring light into the world, they proclaim the Dharma [the path to liberation] leading to the cessation of disappointment (dukkha, suffering).

"When those with wisdom (insight) listen, they regain their senses and see the impermanent as impermanent, the disappointing as disappointing, the impersonal as impersonal, and the unattractive as unattractive.

"Undertaking right-view, they go beyond all disappointment and unhappiness."

• Explanation of the discourse (Andrew Olendzki)

The Perversions explained

Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary

What is art? (Saara/flickr.com)

The "perversions" or "distortions" are four, which may be either:

• of perception (saññā-vipallāsa)
  
• of consciousness (citta-vipallāsa)
  
• or of views (ditthi-vipallāsa).
  

What are they? The four are seeing or regarding:

1. what is impermanent (anicca) as permanent;
2. what is painful (dukkha) as pleasant (or happiness-yielding);
3. what is without a self (anattā) as a self;
4. what is impure (ugly, asubha) as pure or beautiful'' (A.IV.49).

Ah, is that how I was seeing things?

"Of the distortions, the following are eliminated by the first path-knowledge (stream-entry, sotāpatti): the distortions of perception, consciousness, and views, that the impermanent is permanent and what is not a self is a self; further, the distortion of views that the painful is pleasant, and the impure is pure.
 
By the third path-knowledge (non-returning, anāgāmitā) are eliminated: the distortions of perception and consciousness that the impure is pure.
 
By the fourth path-knowledge (full-enlightenment, arahatta) are eliminated the distortions of perception and consciousness that the painful is pleasant" (Path of Purification, Vis.M. XXII, 68).

• My cartoon ART is your perception
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What is "art"? (cartoons, illusions...)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; the artist Saara (Arkiharha)

Saara (Arkiharha) pondering art and free expression in Finland (Weekday-Illusion)

 

The fun Finnish cartoonist, devi, and graphic artist noticed our coverage. Saara is an obscure but prolific talent. We love her work, which can be found at many outlets like such as Arkiharha and such as Weekday-Illusion (our nod to awkward beauty pageant contestant Miss South Carolina).
 
She is expressing herself in her work and in a letter to us:

 

"Susse" (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

"Wow, it's crazy to find a post full of my pictures and comics! Nice analysis, too. Maybe I kinda succeeded to pass on my thoughts in a visual way, because you get the idea from most of them -- even when they are written in Finnish!"
 
See Wisdom Quarterly coverage here: My cartoon ART is your perception

REPLY: Saara, send in art you are eager for the world to see, like your beautiful sketches of the Buddha. We would be overjoyed to feature more.

 

Comic vignettes as art "Kuva" (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

If you have "class" you know a bottle of "fine" wine and classical string instruments like a Stratavarious are the only things to sip or listen to. But you're wrong. Science says you're wrong. So surely when you add that only oil on canvas can be art and not no people pleasing cartoony comics, you're wrong, too. Don't tell us. We like classical. Tell it to science:

 

The way to get people to better enjoy craapy fermented grape juice that sells for thousands of dollars is to say it sells for more. Just a better bottle and a price change, or serving it with an elegant story of its venerable origins, its pedigree, is enough to make it "taste" better. How classy of study participants.

Can comics and webcam colors be called art?

fMRI scans prove bad alcohol actually tastes better when it's two-buck-chuck krup is said to be something more expensive and classy. Expensive wine tastes better. Let's call it "neuromarketing." Marketers have known about this effect for years regarding other foods. Before they started loading fruit juices with added flavorants (cynically called "natural flavors" not because they're natural but because they synthetically mimic something "natural" rather than something artificial) and artificial colorants.

My doggy, my doggy...oh, you've come back! "Sarjis 12.8"  (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

 

Vegan Food Fest, Los Angeles

Flavorless red colors make things taste better. Blindfolded we might not be able to tell a difference or say which drink is what fruit. We use color as a clue, and it works. The flavor of dull tasting juice is brightened just by brightening its color. Such is the illusion we live in and the hypnotic states we fall into every other moment.

If we would meditate, we could emerge and be dehypnotized.

Hungry ghost, psychic ("Bobb")

But we love our illusions, delusions, and dreams. And we would directly-personally-verifiably find that we are (w)holistic beings, not mind (intangible processes)/body (senses) possessing spirits like it seems.

 

Today a study is making headlines saying that an old Stradavarius violin sounds no better than a modern one. In fact, if one believes this study, the modern one sounds better. More musicians prefer it. (But maybe they are voting for the one they think is the Strad which is the one they fear the study would find inferior?)

The Distortions

It's all how we look at the world we are creating each and every without realizing what we're choosing. Art can sensitize and teach us as we clear our mental perception of the distortions/perversions (Wisdom Quarterly). "Hiljattain päivitetty" (Saara/Arkiharha).

Audio Test: Can we tell the difference between expensive and overpriced instruments?

Can one love one's penis too much? (video)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; LiveScience.com; TheFinalMember.com

This optical illusion is caused by our brain's top down processing rather than being mindful of what's there or what psychologists refer to as bottom up processing -- perceiving based on data rather than interpretation. Instead, our minds constantly "construct" our reality. Send complaints care of CC Liu. Then fish your mind out of the gutter and look below:

(VICE) Can a man love the penis too much? Acclaimed at festivals worldwide including HotDocs, SilverDocs, and Fantastic Fest, "The Final Member" follows the aging curator of one of the world's only penis museum as he races against his own mortality to complete his comprehensive collection. Opens in theaters and VOD 4-18-14.

Female Penis, Male Vagina: First Case of Genital Reversal in Nature

Charles Q. Choi (livescience.com); Yoshizawa et. al (Neotrogla aurora in Current Biology)

Female penis structure of cave insect (CB)

Females with penislike genitals and males with vaginalike organs are cases of a new extreme reversal of sex roles researchers have discovered in little-known cave insects.

 

These are the first examples of animals with genitalia that reverse the traditional sex roles, and the discovery could shed light on the conflict between the sexes in the animal kingdom, investigators said.

 

Scientists analyzed four species of insects from extremely dry caves in Brazil. All four species belong to the genus Neotrogla, just as dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals belong to genus Canis. The first Neotrogla was discovered 18 years ago; adult Neotrogla range from about 2.7 to 3.7 millimeters (0.11 to 0.15 inches) long. More

I am not a Dick (Nixon)
Stephen "the new David Letterman" Colbert on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

• PHOTOS: Genital-Reversed Cave Insects (Rated X-treme)

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CENSORED: the Breasts of Mardi Gras (video)

Pfc. Sandoval, Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; FEMEN.org

(CTFxC) Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street, New Orleans: adults play in a Dionysian display

Carnaval?

Carnal and hedonistic cravings come over one before revelers retire to a Lenten period of religious reflection and guilt, at least for practitioners of French and Roman Catholicism but maybe not so much for followers of Santeria, Voodoo/Houdou, Satanism, and/or Protestantism.

FEMEN coming to the USA

The best thing about being Catholic is that, before the penitent ascetic period of Lent, there is the wanton excess and guilty delights of Carnivale (flesh-fest, "leaving behind carne" or meat), which comes to a climax on Mardi Gras or "Fat[tening up] Tuesday," the last chance to grow obese by eating slaughtered animals (other than fish, insects, and whatever other way of cheating there is) for 40 days.

 

In ancient Christian Ethiopia, in fact, "fasting" (not eating) means eating only vegetarian food.

SlutWalk activists (adikanda.com)

In Brazil and other Catholic strongholds, the feast/fest is bigger than India's Eunuchs' Festival, a time of homosexual debauchery because they are not really eunuchs. The problem is one of translation for the odd and ill defined Buddhist term pandaka, which means something more like "pervert," sodomite, transsexual, transgender, third gender (Thai kathoey), transvestite, hermaphrodite, receptive or effeminate homosexual, rapacious pansexual, sex addict, and/or gender nonnormative individual.

 

(CJO/cdbaby.com) Boobs, booze, and exhibitionism on Bourbon St., USA

  

It is likely that pandakas rather than gays were excluded from monastic participation in accordance with the Disciplinary Code. But for the ancients, what was "gay" and what was "perverse" were different from our changing definitions. Pandaka is Sanskrit, meaning "without testicles, hermaphroditic, or homosexual."

Topless protesting is coming to the USA

Sextremism means death to patriarchy.

Femen announces the launch of a US branch of Sextremists. "I can't name enemies, as it’s strategic information that we don't share. But I can assure you sure that once American women are trained and ready to act as Femen, every place of gender injustice, every representative of patriarchal culture, will be a target of FEMEN USA. We will not leave religious institutions in peace, with their lobbying for anti-women policies. And Republican politicians will not walk the streets without worry [if they] lobby for anti-women legislation. Femen is a special troop of reaction and punishment." TO JOIN CONTACT: femen.ks@gmail.com More

Who celebrates pre-lenten festivals?

What are you staring at, sweetie? - Your pendant?

Carnivale is traditionally held in areas with a large Catholic and to a lesser extent, Eastern Orthodox makeup. Protestant areas usually do not have such celebrations or have modified traditions, such as the Danish Carnival or other Shrove Tuesday events. Conversely, the Philippines, although a predominantly Roman Catholic country, does not celebrate Carnival because it has been culturally influenced by neighboring Buddhist Asian nations, which do not (philstar.com).

• Pandaka: Sex Addiction and Perversion Festivals are annual events in India...a time of debauchery, cross-dressing, homosexual revelry, alcohol and drug abuse, adultery... 
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Bikram Yoga founder sued for sex crimes

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Ben Newman and Karin Weinberg, Nightline (ABC News, "Women Suing Hot Yoga Guru for Alleged Sexual Assault Come Forward," Feb. 26, 2014)

Multi-millionaire "Bikram Yoga" founder Bikram Choudhury accused of sexual assault

ABC Entertainment News|ABC Business News

  

Bikram is a business not a yoga.

The pioneer of "hot yoga" [his first customer being Pres. Richard Nixon] Mr. Bikram Choudhury is now under fire himself, defending his yoga empire against lawsuits brought by women claiming sexual misconduct.

 

In the last year, five women have filed civil lawsuits against Bikram, one of the richest, most successful yoga gurus in the world. All five of them accuse Bikram of sexually assaulting them. Four of the women accuse him of rape.

“He’s a sick man,” plaintiff Sarah Baughn told ABC News' "Nightline" correspondent David Wright. “I hope he gets some help.” 

 

Don't stare at Sofia Vergara

Baughn was the first alleged victim to speak up, recently telling her story to Vanity Fair magazine. Her appearance on "Nightline" along with two other women pursuing lawsuits against Bikram and his Yoga College of India in Los Angeles is the first time the alleged victims have detailed their claims on camera. 

 

Baughn, a former yoga champion, told "Nightline" she met Bikram in 2005 when she attended his teacher training course. The grueling nine-week course, which costs thousands of dollars, is led by Bikram and is the only way to become a Bikram Yoga teacher.

 

Try actual yoga at YogaWorks

Baughn, 20 at the time, said Bikram took an immediate interest in her.

“He told me there was a connection between the two of us that he had never felt before,” Baughn said, adding he claimed to have known her in a past life. More

• VIDEO: Former Bikram Yoga student recalls alleged assault

The Four Perversions

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; BPS.lk; Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (vipallāsa)

To see things as they are NOT is distorted delusion springing from ignorance. To see reality just AS IT IS is enlightenment springing from having rightly cultivated liberating-wisdom.

 

''There are four perversions or distortions (vipallāsa), which may be either of perception, consciousness, or of views. What are these four distortions? They are to regard:

1. what is actually impermanent as permanent,
   
2. what is actually unpleasant as pleasant (capable of yielding lasting happiness),
   
3. what is actually without a self as a self,
   
4. what is actually foul (ugly) as beautiful" (AN.IV.49).

• See Manual of Insight (Ledi Sayadaw, Wheel 31/32, p.5).

We don't have that in Iceland (Bjork)

According to the Path of Purification, the following perversions are eliminated by the first path-knowledge (stream entry, the first stage of enlightenment): the perversions of perception, consciousness, and views that the impermanent is permanent or that what is not a self is a self, and furthermore the perversion of views that the unpleasant is pleasant and that the foul is beautiful.

 

By the third path-knowledge (non-returning) are eliminated the perversions of perception and consciousness that the foul is beautiful.

 

By the fourth path-knowledge (full enlightenment) are eliminated the perversions of perception and consciousness that the unpleasant is pleasant (Vis.M. XXII, 68).