Impurity:
hates, foulness, dirtiness, untidiness, impure thoughts, unpleasant speech,
resentment, negativity, untruth, hypocrisy, cheating, lying, fear, lack of
devotion to higher ideals…
These
are all the many pollutions of the mind or heart. Start with the
mind, the practice of the 26 virtues is supposed to cleanse the mind of evil,
bad thoughts, wrong outlook. So by sattva-saṁśuddhi, the Gita says we
must perform a “purification of one's existence”. We
have qualities that we are born with:
0)
Original sin, a taint in the mind-stuff perhaps through no fault of our
own (precursors to Catholics, 2nd century by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons:
Pandora’s Box).
1)
Past Karma, inherent bad qualities, traits, the collective
unconsciousness.
2)
Qualities fixed in us at birth, because of the stars, constellations and
planets at time and place of birth.
3)
Qualities given to us by parents, absorbed by us through our parents.
4)
Qualities given to us by our peers and friends - schoolmates.
5)
Qualities given to us by social environment, absorbed by us through our
social milieu.
6)
Qualities given to us by schooling and education in the social sense,
absorbed by us through society.
7)
Qualities we ourselves have mistakenly incorporated due to habitual wrong
thinking and wrong life.
All
these must be worked out in this life, little by little, being observed,
understood, acted on and corrected: From last to first:
7)
We have to question our own self-created qualities of mind.
6)
We have to question qualities absorbed through society and education.
5)
We have to question qualities absorbed by social milieu.
4)
We have to question qualities absorbed through peers and friends.
3)
We have to question qualities absorbed through parents and guardians.
2)
We have to question qualities fixed at birth and see which are more or less in
line with the 26 virtues.
1)
We have to question qualities inherent in us from tens of thousands of years of
mental mind-stuff: specific mental qualities of man, from 140,000 years ago.
0)
We have to question qualities inherent in us from hundreds of thousands of
years of mental mind-stuff in the primates and mammals: non-specific mental
qualities of man acquired from mammals and reptiles, from 225 million years
ago, or from 85 m.y.a.: the Eocene and the Miocene.
If
instead of 7, we count the zero as 8, we have the “Noble Eightfold Path” of the
Buddha.
Division
|
Eightfold
Path factors
|
Acquired
factors
|
Wisdom
(Sanskrit: prajñā, Pāli: paññā)
|
1. Right view
|
9. Superior right
knowledge
|
2. Right intention
|
10. Superior right
liberation
|
|
Ethical
conduct (Sanskrit: śīla,
Pāli: sīla)
|
3. Right speech
|
|
4. Right action
|
||
5. Right
livelihood
|
||
Concentration (Sanskrit and Pāli: samādhi)
|
6. Right effort
|
|
7. Right
mindfulness
|
||
8. Right concentration
|
It
is impossible to practise the Virtues with any remaining “social impurities”,
which are none other than habitual thoughts that have not been counterbalanced
by new habits in thinking. We must ask ourselves: have I at least reviewed by
life in the social context and accepted my life as it has been and is now? Is
there any resentment or negativity against a parent: mother or father or
step-parent? Other partners of either parent? Is there residual resentment,
hatred, negativity? Do I think some parent “did something wrong?” “behaved
badly”? “didn’t care enough”? “didn’t love enough”? “didn’t please me enough”?
“betrayed me or another member of the family”? Do I resent things done by brothers
and/or sisters? All this has to be worked out on the normal, social,
psychological level, before any higher “spiritual virtues” can be practised.
It’s easy to say, “I want spirituality”, “I believe in this, that or the
other”, “I attend spiritual workshops”, or “I follow my guru, teacher, etc.” As
long as the mind is full of inherited rubbish and identification or attachment
to this or that, there’s not much to be done. Observe, watch, learn… for “ye
know not the hour of my coming…”
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