The Path of Purification

Sayadaw U Jagara was born in Burma. He received monastic education in Buddhist scriptures in Burma, Sri Lanka and India. He has taught Buddhism, particularly Abhidhamma in Nava Nalanda Mahavihara Post Graduate Institute of Buddhist Studies in Bihar, India for two decades. He is now promoting Buddhism in New South Wales. This talk was given in 1989 at the Buddhist Summer School, Melbourne. Tapes of all Summer School courses are available from E-Vam Institute. Photographs by Craig Dunn

We are going to discuss the path of purifying the mind of mental impurities. This involves systematically putting together and balancing various types of mental properties in order to burn up the impurities of the mind. When these mental properties are in balance in this way, mental energy is produced like the fusion of an atom. We can also deal with mental energy by analysing each of our mental properties and making separate use of their mental energy. This is very similar to the fission of an atom. If we unify and balance mental properties in this way, we can produce the kind of energy that will burn up the impurities of the mind. We have to relate to our mental energies and mental properties in such a way that they become united. However, it is important to recognise that although they are united, the way that they carry out their work is different. If we can then use our mental energies and mental properties separately, we can produce a positive kind of mental energy.

By using a single type of mental property in this way and producing a certain type of mental energy, we can burn up our mental impurities. Your mental energies will become stronger and stronger and you can burn up those impurities of the mind. One such positive mental energy is the energy of 'right view.' Right view is, in actuality, wisdom. It is one mental property called wisdom. The mental property of wisdom can burn up all kinds of confusion and delusions. Another mental property is 'right effort.' If we can single out and use that, without slackening in our efforts, it will eliminate laziness. With right effort, we will always try to improve ourselves and would never feel laziness, sloth or torpor. Another positive mental property is called samadhi, or 'one-pointedness of the mind.' If you single out this kind of mental energy, you will be able to penetrate to any depths in the mind and the impurities that normally remain hidden will also be burnt up.

If you can clean your mind then your body is nothing; your body is neutral. The body is neither good nor evil. This does not just apply to our bodies; all material forms are neither good nor bad. Depending upon our mental condition, some things may be regarded as good and some things may be regarded as bad, but actually 'good' and 'bad' are not in the materials themselves. Good, bad, clean and dirty are only mental conditions. Therefore, there is no need to care about the material world. Many people say that it is on account of certain developments in the material world that evil has arisen. However, material form cannot do anything and materials do not produce such evils. Those evils are produced by our minds.

We often complain about our circumstances in this way. However, whatever the circumstances, if we regulate our mind everything will be beneficial. We experience favourable circumstances, yet those circumstances are somehow responsible for our misfortunes if we are careless. For example, if somebody insults us, this is our favourite circumstance for provoking our anger. If we are careless we will surely get angry. At the very least, we will become agitated in our mind. However, if instead we think, 'Oh, he does not know what he is doing. He is doing such an evil thing, but if he really knew what he was doing he would not do such things'. In this way we can arouse our sympathy for such a person. Do you agree?

If you get angry or agitated, you lose. If you apply your sympathy to such a person, you gain. Or if you are grateful to him you also gain. If you regard such a person as a good opportunity to practice, to improve your patience and forbearance, you could regard such a person's anger as a very precious gift. The circumstances are the same.

Another way of gaining something is if you reflect on the situation. Someone may praise you. 'Oh you are such a good person', or something like that. 'You are such a handsome person, you have such a good nature, you are so learned'. Then you go, 'Ah I see! How can other people compare with me?' This appears to be a very good circumstance, a very favourable circumstance, getting praise in this way. However, if your response is to feel pride, even good circumstances are disappointing. In the previous example of bad circumstances, you won. In this example, even though the circumstances appear to be good, you lose. See?

Preparing our own minds is therefore more important than changing our circumstances. However, it is impossible to prepare these positive mental energies all at once. It is impossible to do that within a short time. We have to learn everything from the beginning. We have to train everyday. This kind of mental fusion and mental fission practice is only possible under a competent teacher's guidance. We must get guidance and training in this practice at least once. Before we receive this training, we must prepare ourselves by training in the practice of mental fusion and mental fission. While going about our everyday business, we have to learn to be mindful of ourselves and mindful of our thoughts.

At first we can do this only for a short time. Gradually we can become mindful for longer and longer periods. In this way, we learn how to keep our mind clean. This, of course, is not one day's work or two day's work, but a lifetime's work. If we want to achieve this goal of real mental purity, we have to learn how to sit' first It is the same as when you clean out the dust and sand and rock that are mixed in with other metals. You have to put all of those metals into a crucible to make a single sheet of metal that has eliminated all of the impure matter. That, also, you cannot do all at once. You have to do this over many times. The metal will gradually have less and less impurity until finally you get what you want. Our mind is also like that.

In order to achieve mental purity therefore, we have to clean our mind everyday. In this case, 'cleaning everyday' means being mindful of ourselves. This includes even momentary mindfulness of ourselves. While you are doing your day-to-day work, you have to read your own mind. You cannot read someone else's mind, but you do have the ability to read your own mind. This is not difficult. The only son that it may seem difficult is because you have never tried. If you try, you can know your own mind. While we are doing our work, we have to pay attention to our work. While we are doing our own work, our mind is clean. There is no need to deliberately clean the mind if we are really paying attention to our work. That is because, by paying attention, our minds are not polluted by any aversion or craving.

It is only when you do not pay attention to your work that your mind becomes soiled with impurities. Of course, it is not always soiled with impurities; sometimes it is just mixed with other thoughts. In this case, if you are mindful enough, you can recognise the good thoughts coming in and you know this is a good thought, a healthy thought. You know that this is an unwholesome thought, an unhealthy thought, an evil thought. If you recognise those thoughts and allow them to continue, you are being responsible for yourself. If you have allowed yourself to be polluted with mental impurities in your thoughts, you yourself are responsible. You cannot blame anyone else because you allowed it. If you can recognise these thoughts, it is better to throw them out at once.

Our mind is just like a flowing current. Nobody can stop it. Even the most powerful person in the world could not stop this thought stream. So how do we purify it? We purify it by pushing a wholesome thought in that current. Then, that impure current will stop and a pure current will flow. However, if you are careless the impure current will come back again. That contaminated current will interrupt your thoughts again and you will have to try to push it out again and replace it with another pure, healthy current. Sometimes you have to fight; you have to struggle with such things. At first, you may lose sometimes, but repeated efforts will produce a good result. Then a clean current of your mind will flow for longer and longer periods. You must mindfully read your own mind and try to put pure thoughts in place of impure ones. This is how we create suitable conditions for a more effective way of burning mental impurities. Of course, this is easier said than done.

There is a way of inducing this kind of thing much faster, however. This is through observing some kind of moral rules. There are two kinds of moral rules. The first is refraining from doing certain things and the second is doing certain things. The moral rules that are concerned with not doing something are: not harming others; not killing; not inflicting injuries on anyone; not trying to get another person's possession by unfair means; not seeking physical carnal pleasures in the wrong way; not telling lies and not using harsh and slanderous words. If you refrain from doing these things, you will become a partly good person. However, it is not enough to simply refrain from doing non-virtuous deeds; you also need to do virtuous deeds.

Suppose one person neglects to do his rightful duties to his parents, to his children - wife to husband, husband to wife - towards neighbours and friends. You may abstain from killing, stealing and lying but if you neglect your duty towards your household and your neighbour, you are not yet a good person; not yet one hundred percent good. As long as you are only half good, you cannot find happiness. Why? You cannot find happiness because remorse will be there. If you neglect your rightful duty to bring up your children, to give them an education, to feed them well, to keep them well, after some time you will feel guilty. You may be happy but you will not find full satisfaction. Only if you do your rightful duties properly will you be regarded as a virtuous person. Only if you can keep yourself in such a virtuous way, will you be able to read your own thoughts.

In order to refrain from non-virtuous deeds and perform virtuous deeds you need to be able to control and regulate your mind. Regulating your mind is the starting point for developing the mental path of purification. You have to have restraint and by restraint I mean that you have to control your mind to a certain extent. Then you can do your rightful duty toward others. Not only do you have to do your duty; you have to have love, compassion, affection and good will towards others. Without love and affection towards your household, how can you develop love towards other people? It will be difficult.

This is a very practical approach and we should all learn to do this. This is the starting point. This is the first rung of the ladder for a higher moral standard. We should learn to love our household first, after that our neighbours, after that our other friends and then after that the people in our locality, our country and our world. Without loving your household members, you cannot love other people. So this is the starting point.

You may have difficulty having affection or love to outsiders, but to household members it should be easy to do. Those who cannot learn to do this will get into trouble one way or another. If you can do this you will achieve peace of mind. However, if you cannot achieve peace of mind, you will never be able to read your own thoughts. Any sense of mindfulness will be impossible. It is only if you have the kind of virtue that does not do anything improper and does only good that you will possess the ability to read your own thoughts. In other words, you will be mindful of yourself. It is only through mindfulness of self that you keep your mind in a clean state as much as possible.

Of course, I cannot say that it will be totally clean, because some impurities are not regarded as impurities among the general public. For example, on very hot or very cold days, your mind may become agitated. It is very hot and you complain. This agitation is a very mild form of anger. However, nobody knows that this is a contaminated, corrupted mind; nobody notices it. It is so hot that we cannot do anything. However heat has no intention of making you hot, so to whom will you complain? You will complain to the sun? You will complain to the climate? Then you will know that they have no intention of causing you harm. Therefore, this is unreasonable anger. You may say that there must be a place for reasonable anger. But there is no reasonable anger. It may be very hot, very cold, very windy, very still and these things make your mind agitated. This is called unreasonable anger. Someone may insult you through words or gestures and this also makes you angry. Maybe this is reasonable anger? No anger is reasonable, of course. This may be justified with common folk and when you get angry they will not blame you. However, whether they blame you or not, there is some kind of mental contamination in your mind.

Nevertheless, some people do not regard our reactions to very hot, cold, or windy weather as contaminated. But agitation is already contaminated with anger. In these circumstances, you should be mindful of yourself; 'I am agitating because of the climate, because of the weather. This is unreasonable. With whom should I get angry, whom shall I hate?' Those people who do not observe their own minds, experience this kind of agitation and cannot keep their minds clean. If you are too hot, you should not be agitated. You should try to cool yourself, try to find some cool water or stay in an air-conditioned room or something like that. You should not be agitated. You should try to have fun.

You could go to the beach and have a swim. There is no need to be agitated. There is no need to be unhappy. If it is very cold, you have to wear sufficient clothing. You can use a heater, or you could run to make yourself warm. In this way you can make the experience fun.

We can solve such problems without allowing mental pollution into our heart. We can keep our minds clean. If we can keep our minds clean, we can experience peacefulness and improve ourselves in our day-to-day work. In this way, we can be mindful of our own thoughts and from there we can develop an advanced concentrative power. Only at that time can we develop wisdom, which is the power to see things as they really are. Then we can see things and wipe out our mental impurities once and for all. At that point, we will be able to attain peace and calm in any circumstances.

You need to train yourself in these everyday circumstances and you should not delay this training. If you train today, you will gain today. You will experience the fruit of your efforts. Never delay. Even if you cannot get to the point of totally eradicating your mental impurities, you will still attain a peaceful, virtuous and trouble-free life, full of happiness and satisfaction. It is only when you do not have any repentance or guilt that you can find happiness and peace.

These are the first steps for a spiritual life. Treating circumstances in a favourable way and regulating our attitude of mind towards others. There is another way that we can practice the method of mental purification also. That is by giving presents to others, donating to charities and things like that. This is also a way of cleaning your mind. Suppose you are giving a gift to somebody. In this case you have to have a good attitude toward others, for it is only with a good attitude that you can really give. Only then will giving a present also be a way of learning how to clean your mind. If you do not have any expectation of anything in return, you are properly giving gifts to others. Of course, sometimes you may give something with the expectation of getting something in return. This is not a clean way of giving a present. You should not hope for anything in return. If you do not, the person who receives the gift will not get angry and will not hate you. Most people will like you or will love you, because of your present. In order to give a clean present you have to keep your mind clean. At first, when you offer a gift, you may not have a wholehearted mind. After some time, however, you can learn to give with a wholehearted mind and with real friendliness towards someone. Therefore, the habit of generosity and sharing is devised to purify our minds.

Our generosity will help others also. A person, who is not grateful by nature, will receive your gift with gratitude and your actions will help to change that person into a good person, because gratefulness is a healthy mental attitude. Now we are talking about wanting to make a person into a good person. This is the best way to achieve that aim, because to offer real generosity towards another person ensures that the person will not hate you. At the very least he will be grateful to you and this experience of gratitude is creating a clean heart for them.

Helping another person change into a good person is hard work, you see, but this is a very effective way of helping another person to be good. Sometimes you may find that the present that you give does not satisfy the person that you have given it to. Your present may not be useful to him. At that time, you may show some dislike. You are agitated because you gave the gift with a clean intention and the person is not grateful. You think that the person is obliged to feel gratitude toward you, because of your gift. If that person falls short in this respect then let him be. You should not lose your good intention towards him.

In this way you can learn to reflect a healthy attitude towards others. You can only experience peace of mind when you can reflect a healthy attitude in this way. Otherwise you will be agitated and want to blame this person or that person, but actually, there is no need to blame others. Of course, we should not blame ourselves either. Rather, we have to understand ourselves. We should not blame ourselves, because blaming is not a healthy practice. Whether it be blaming others or blaming ourselves it is not healthy. We have to understand ourselves and say, 'Yes I have done such and such mistakenly. I will not repeat this same mistake again.' Then, forget it. This is the way of purification.

The Buddhist tradition describes four ways that we do not stay clean in our life. You may have done something wrong and when you remember that wrong deed you are very unhappy. You are very unhappy and sometimes you blame others, sometimes you blame yourself. In this case, you have to say to yourself, 'Yes I have done such evil things. I will not repeat the same evil things again'. You should regard that evil deed as a life lesson and make a resolution never to do such a thing again as long as you live. Then you clean your heart. There is no further need to feel unhappy, no further need to feel guilt or repentance. This is the right way.

Sometimes you have not done anything evil, but circumstances have conspired to create some harm. You should try to resist such circumstances, and not think that it is all right to be involved in such things. Then, sometimes, you have done something good. Whenever you remember this good deed, you have to try to get some satisfaction from it. More than that, you should resolve to do such things again whenever you get the chance. This is the right way to approach your virtuous deeds. If you have done something good, remember it and get satisfaction and happiness from this memory, this is just the same as if you have repeated that deed. It is like multiplying that deed, even if it is only happening in your mind. On the other hand, if you have done something evil and remember it as a happy situation that is just like repeating that evil deed also. That demerit will also multiply.

There are also virtuous deeds you have never done. You should try to do such things. Even if you have not yet had the chance to do such things, you have to think, 'I will do it, I will do it, I will do it'. In this way, you can keep your mind and your life pure. In this way, we will stay out of trouble. As I said earlier, we think that others create most of our troubles, but actually we create most of our troubles ourselves. Some circumstances may seem troublesome in themselves. We think of them and imagine the experience as being bad for ourselves. In this case, our minds become agitated. Of course, we should try to change our difficult circumstances if possible. If it is impossible to change them, we should try to avoid such circumstances or we should change our position to suit the circumstances if we can.

In any case, the most important thing to remember is that our happiness depends upon our attitude towards those things. Mostly, our unhappiness is created on account of our mismanagement of our minds. If we cannot manage ourselves properly, others will not wipe out our troubles. We can only wipe them out for ourselves alone. So this is the starting point. While you are doing your day-to-day work, you have to try to manage and create favourable conditions for total peacefulness in your mind. This is fundamental to a peaceful life here and now. It is just like the refining of coal. It is steady everyday work. The path of purification will not be accomplished in any other way. This is the science of living peacefully. It is more important than any other science. This is the systematic way of managing yourself. If you try now you will gain now.

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An extract of a teaching given by the Venerable Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche