Defilements vs purity

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Lazy_eye
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Defilements vs purity

Post by Lazy_eye »

All:

I was reading over some posts concerning the kilesas yesterday and noticed, again, that there is something about the formulation of this concept that bugs me. I hadn't quite thought it through before but now I realize what the issue is.

When we speak of something being "defiled", it implies a prior state of purity, right? Something can't be defiled if it was that way to begin with; that is its natural state.

So the term defilements implies there was a mind that was pure. The idea of returning to or accessing one's pure mind comes up frequently in later schools, though it doesn't seem to me a Theravada notion. Still, isn't it basically implied by the term "defilements"?

Just wondering...
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by indian_buddhist »

I am only recently started learning Buddhism.

All notions of "there was a pure state" comes from notion of a permanent self. I dont think it is what the Buddha taught.
Identification with my country is one of my fetters.
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Virgo
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by Virgo »

No because defilements are that which defile the mind. When they are exterminated, the citta is free of those once latent propensities towards unwholesomeness. That does not necessitate there having previously been unafflicted cittas at some other time.

:anjali: Kevin
Last edited by Virgo on Wed Apr 30, 2014 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
santa100
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by santa100 »

Lazy_eye wrote:So the term defilements implies there was a mind that was pure. The idea of returning to or accessing one's pure mind comes up frequently in later schools, though it doesn't seem to me a Theravada notion. Still, isn't it basically implied by the term "defilements"?
From MN 7 or AN 1.49, the "pure mind" is not something unique to later schools. However, the Theravada position is quite clear about the importance of great effort to transform a defiled mind to a pure mind, unlike some later ideas that the pure mind is pure and incorruptable in and of itself, and as a result, all it takes is a simple change in perception and one would instantly become the Buddha that s/he has always been. Ven. Nyanaponika's comment for MN 7:
Comy: "It may be asked why the Buddha had given this simile of the soiled cloth. He did so to show that effort brings great results. A cloth soiled by dirt that is adventitious (i.e., comes from outside; agantukehi malehi), if it is washed can again become clean because of the cloth's natural purity. But in the case of what is naturally black, as for instance (black) goat's fur, any effort (of washing it) will be in vain. Similarly, the mind too is soiled by adventitious defilements (agantukehi kilesehi). But originally, at the phases of rebirth(-consciousness) and the (sub-conscious) life-continuum, it is pure throughout (pakatiya pana sakale pi patisandhi-bhavanga-vare pandaram eva). As it was said (by the Enlightened One): 'This mind, monks, is luminous, but it becomes soiled by adventitious defilements' (AN 1.49). But by cleansing it one can make it more luminous, and effort therein is not in vain."
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by Lazy_eye »

indian_buddhist wrote:I am only recently started learning Buddhism.

All notions of "there was a pure state" comes from notion of a permanent self. I dont think it is what the Buddha taught.
I don't think so either, yet if something can be "defiled" it must have previously been clean. Or maybe the issue here has to do with how we translate "kilesa"?

These is also this passage in the Pabhassara Sutta:

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements."
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by Edith Clampton »

Lazy_eye wrote:yet if something can be "defiled" it must have previously been clean.
Not at all; the word ‘defilement’ is quite non-committal about this. With some defiled things there may be a prior state of purity (as with iron before it’s defiled by rust). With others there may not (as with unextracted gold that’s defiled by its ore and has always been as far as anyone knows).

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Lazy_eye
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by Lazy_eye »

Edith Clampton wrote:
Lazy_eye wrote:yet if something can be "defiled" it must have previously been clean.
Not at all; the word ‘defilement’ is quite non-committal about this. With some defiled things there may be a prior state of purity (as with iron before it’s defiled by rust). With others there may not (as with unextracted gold that’s defiled by its ore and has always been as far as anyone knows).

Edith Clampton (Mrs)
I don't know much about metallurgy, but I believe the gold exists prior to the extraction process; it's an element. What happens is that it gets embedded in rock and mixed with other stuff that is less valuable; thus it has to be extracted somehow.

"Defiled" according to the dictionary has the following meanings:

to make unclean or impure
to violate chastity/purity
to corrupt
to make physically unclean

Maybe someone with knowledge of Pali could say whether the term kilesa has identical connotations.

In the Agganna sutta there is a passage concerning a defilement/corruption process:
At a time of contraction, beings are mostly born in the Abhassara Brahma
world. And there they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self luminous, moving
through the air, glorious—and they stay like that for a very long time. But sooner or later,
after a very long period, this world begins to expand again. At a time of expansion, the
beings from the Abhassara Brahma world, having passed away from there, are mostly
reborn in this world. Here they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous,
moving through the air, glorious, and they stay like that for a very long time.

At that period, Vasettha, there was just one mass of water, and all was darkness, blinding
darkness. Neither moon nor sun appeared, no constellations or stars appeared, night and
day were not yet distinguished, nor months and fortnights, nor years and seasons; there
was no male and female, beings being reckoned just as beings. And sooner or
later, after a very long period of time, savory earth spread itself over the waters where
those beings were. It looked just like the skin that forms itself over hot milk as it cools. It
was endowed with color, smell, and taste. It was the color of fine ghee or butter and it
was very sweet, like pure wild honey.
Well, you know what happens next...the beings can't help wanting to taste the sweet, ghee-like substance, and it's all downhill from there. Maybe
this passage offers some clues as to why the term "defilement" is used?
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by SarathW »

This post may some help;

“Radiant is this consciousness,”
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=15567
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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Edith Clampton
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by Edith Clampton »

Lazy_eye wrote:I don't know much about metallurgy,
Me neither. In fact I now see that my point would have been better made with reference to the uranium in pitchblende rather than the gold in ore. But never mind, let’s move on.

Well, you know what happens next...the beings can't help wanting to taste the sweet, ghee-like substance, and it's all downhill from there. Maybe this passage offers some clues as to why the term "defilement" is used?
Improbable, I think. Avijja is a defilement and the Suttas say there’s no discerning any first point to avijja. So that means there’s never been a time when we weren’t defiled. Seen in this light, I wouldn't take your Agganna passage as describing a beginning to defilement but merely a stage in our samsaric stravaiging when defilements that had hitherto been merely latent and subtle finally became manifest and gross.

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ancientbuddhism
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by ancientbuddhism »

Edith Clampton wrote:...

Improbable, I think. Avijja is a defilement and the Suttas say there’s no discerning any first point to avijja. So that means there’s never been a time when we weren’t defiled. ...
Since avijjā is synonymous with taṇhā it begins as a choice at vedanā.
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James the Giant
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by James the Giant »

If the citta or whatever was originally undefiled, like you say, then you would have been enlightened back then.
You, and I, are not enlightened. Therefore the citta was never undefiled.
Then,
saturated with joy,
you will put an end to suffering and stress.
SN 9.11
SarathW
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by SarathW »

Un defilement and wisdom (enlightenment) are two different things.
Once you have radiant consciousness (undefiled Citta) you should develop wisdom to attain Nirvana.
Radian consciousness is not Nirvana.
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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James the Giant
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by James the Giant »

SarathW wrote:Un defilement and wisdom (enlightenment) are two different things.
Once you have radiant consciousness (undefiled Citta) you should develop wisdom to attain Nirvana.
Radiant consciousness is not Nirvana.
Aha, I thought it was, thanks for clarifying that. :bow:
Then,
saturated with joy,
you will put an end to suffering and stress.
SN 9.11
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by Lazy_eye »

James the Giant wrote:If the citta or whatever was originally undefiled, like you say, then you would have been enlightened back then.
You, and I, are not enlightened. Therefore the citta was never undefiled.
Ok, yes, I see this is the right view from a Theravada perspective, but I am still wondering about this term "defiled". As far as I know, it always implies some already-existing pure element. Defilement is, by definition, the process of tainting or corrupting something that was pure.

A different word could have been used; why was this one chosen?

Although I understand that Theravada does not posit such later notions as "buddha nature", "innate enlightenment" and so on, I am wondering if those doctrines originated in part as a way to explain the problem presented by the term defilement; i.e. that there must already be something that got defiled.

I remember Stephen Batchelor in one of his talks saying that the Chinese schools presented "buddha nature" as comparable to gold without the ore. He felt that the concept arose from a Chinese mistranslation of a Sanskrit term; however, perhaps the term "defilement" already encourages or implies this line of thought?
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Re: Defilements vs purity

Post by barcsimalsi »

The root of defilement is ignorant/wrong view. It is called defiled because the view one holds is distorted from the truth.

Regarding the terms like luminous mind, radiant consciousness or Buddha nature, it implies the potentiality rather than a pure state of mind…IMO.
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