Every time I hear the dharma presented in terms of "purification" I experience a flash of negativity that I have to push back against in order to hear what is being said. Likewise for "defilements" of the mind. The language just strikes me as moralistic, dogmatic, value-laden, and generally out-dated, reminiscent of old-school religion, too-close-for-comfort to concepts such as original sin.

Conversely, when I hear of "development" I have no such allergic reaction. I remain interested, attentive, engaged. I don't get triggered by metaphors with the theme of maturing or strengthening.

Is anything lost by translating purification language into development language when reading or hearing traditional dharma?

For example:
Traditional: "Meditation is a means to purify the mind by eliminating certain defilements."
Translation: "Meditation is a means to develop the mind by maturing along certain axes."

do you live in a culture where purification is related to a puritan christian ethic, such that you have an aversion to it or labeling of it as moralistic?

i sometimes like technology inspired terminology possibly because that is what i have been exposed to, coming from a technological generation - techno music, computers, etc. my path of purification has been more like paying attention to lights/pulses/rhythms, a clearing of the cache and optimization of the system.

i don't think translating it is problematic. if anything it shows you have enough comprehension to be able to see it in more relevant terms.

I appreciate the idea behind what you're trying to do here Tarver, and I think that finding new, culturally and generationally resonant terminology is important, and I enjoy coming up with new stuff too. [clearing the cache...hehe...nice :-)] However, one of the toughest tasks is finding vocabulary that softens dualistic undertones in descriptions of progress and goals - assumptions that are at the heart of ignorance and suffering right? In this specific example, I feel that your suggested replacement is more unwieldy from that point of view. Who matures? What matures? Me? My "mind"? My psychology? My, er, self?

As far as I know the Buddha was really really careful with language for just this reason - he saw the traps that certain words, phrases, and concepts can lead us into. I actually kinda like the purification thing...despite its ethical and moral undertones. In practice, it fits my experience better than a sense of maturation. Hitting Jhana after a path can reall feels like some kind of profound cleansing has taken place...experience being purer in every possible sense. Quieter, simpler, more nourishing etc.

But...everyone has their buttons, and the fewer people set buzzing by outdated language the better...

A train of though on the subject;

When we stub our toe and it starts to bleed, we would do well to go to the first aid kit and get out some antiseptic, at the very least wash it in clean water.

The wound needs to heal, but there are impurities on the skin and in the environment that may stop that happening, and worse if left unclean could cause infection and blood poisoning.

Humanity has stubbed it toe. No one knows when or how, but something is obviously wrong. It need to heal, it needs to remove the impurities so it may heal and not die of poisoning.

We are not technology. No, we are organisms that are far beyond anything we have invented, yet we are full of impurities, including plenty in our mind, which are making us sick.

If you are reacting, that is equivalent of the sting when that sore toe get cleaned.

They are called impurities because they are impurities. That isn't a moral thing, just a fact of being an organism in a world of impurities. Changing the names to suit your sensibilities would be the equivalent of calling the proverbial poison arrow 'a developmental block'.

Not having a go, but aren't we rearranging the chairs on the Titanic when we want make the dhamma suit our particular bent because we don't understand why it is as it is ? Lifeboats are called lifeboats, climb in and we can talk about how you reacted to the implications of what they are called later.

I very much think our minds are full of impurities. What people do about that is up to them, if 'developing beyond them' is what you wish to call it, great. We are in the same lifeboat whether it is called that or a 'further development enabling craft'...

On a personal level, I was reacting in the same way to moral judgements, until it really came to a head and I realised I was simply denying the true depth of anguish in the world. Life, as it is, is indeed suffering. When I let my conscience back out of the closet, I could see how I had denied the plain and obvious, yet desperately unpleasant truth, I was going to have to confront the 'impurities' in me. Plain and simple. How? Constant Sati, watch everything, recursively, 'happily', no matter how it stings. But it, as we know, gets better...we heal.

I'll stick with Purification and antiseptic.

Wow, this is really interesting, thanks everyone! I mostly wanted to get this off my chest, as it has been bugging me, and to the limited extent that I had thought it through, I didn't expect anyone to come back seriously endorsing the traditional language. I am considering your comments, Andrew, very carefully as I judge them to have great merit. Steph and Thom, I like your comments even more, of course, because we basically agree.

Part of the context is that I have been doing a lot of training over the last year that includes rigorously distinguishing data, judgments, and feelings. This is especially relevant in situations where I might have a "charge" or a resentment with someone or something. The data is considered more or less what a video camera might capture, in terms of actions and events, "just the facts". Judgments are value overlays, provided by me (who else?) which invariably turn out to be colored by the psychological mechanism of projection. Feelings are, for the sake of the exercise, resolved to the simplified palette of mad, sad, glad, afraid, or ashamed -- a subset of the most common of the universally recognized human feelings.

Analyzing my "charge" in this way, the data is as follows: I am deeply involved in the practice and study of the dharma. The teachings of the dharma go back thousands of years. The institutions that have handed down the dharma have have been primarily religious in nature. Religious institutions (particularly ones of Indo-European and Sumerian origin) tend to present their teachings in moralistic terms, often strongly so. Much of the traditional dharma teaching on which I depend for my practice, having been conditioned by the cultures and institutions which have propagated it, is presented in moralistic terms.

My judgment is that moralism is exactly a cardinal symptom of the very problem I am trying to solve by studying and practicing the dharma.

My feelings (and some further judgments) are as follows: Fear, that teachings "contaminated" by moralism (in my judgment) will never be effective at reducing suffering on a large scale; shame, that I have never worked this out in sufficient detail and clearly enough (yet) to deal comprehensively with my own suffering, let alone educate huge numbers of people and contribute to a global viral spread of enlightenment; anger, that ways of thinking and speaking which I judge to be pernicious and harmful are so closely interleaved with teachings that are helpful, and threaten them; sadness, that many people are going to fail to understand what I am trying to say, and why, with the result that my understanding and strong feelings on this aspect of the matter will in many cases weaken rather than strengthen my connection to others; and finally also joy that the tide is nevertheless slowly turning, and that progressive authors such as Ingram tend to use the word "defilement", for example, either in quotation marks or in lists of of qualifiers which, in my judgment, is not only in itself a step in the right direction, but also a superficial indicator of a deeper and positive shift in world-view.

The next part of the exercise is to identify and hopefully withdraw and "own" any projections that may have emerged. Quite clearly, I have my own feelings of inadequacy and doubts about my own "purity" to contend with, and I have been projecting these onto the moralistic aspects of traditional dharma teachings. Better to be more conscious and cultivate equanimity towards teachings presented in a way which I judge to be unskillful, and to cultivate compassion for those who "buy into" such teachings at face value, thereby (in my judgment) inadvertently compounding their own suffering.

The last part of the exercise is to articulate any desires for the future relationship with the subject of the "charge". What do I want with the dharma? I want to master it at least enough to attain stream entry, and then (or even before that) I want to use my mastery of it and any other knowledge, skill, or understanding that I may have to continue to develop my own happiness and help others to do the same.

Morality is the basis of human traditions of dhamma, because we are a social species and the dhamma passes one from selfishness to selflessness. How can a tradition be passed to initiates who are still selfish without addressing the defilements they cannot help but bring in tow?
In Buddhism, an aspirant is said to bring with them:
1) Sakkaya-ditthi (personality-view)
2) Vicikiccha (doubt)
3) Silabbataparamasa (adherence to rules and rituals)
4) Kamaraga (sensual craving)
5) Patigha (ill-will)

So an aspirant arrives to the sangha with something like tuberulosis of the consciousness, and if it is untreated by a moral code to contain the diseases of consciousness, the aspirant may cause contagion, or harm others with their personal manifestation of the diseases.

To commit all outflows of the mental faculty to the practice, that dedication of all energy of the mental faculty will leave nothing to leak into projecting. The mind will uncover itself and you will be able to observe meditative events about which much is written. Between the meditative events and your ability to see that changes are occurring, a positive loop begins and the person begins to practice more and more, always re-directing the mental faculty to the practice, preventing its squandering wanderings.


When the desire for deliverance into "stream-entry" becomes very strong, then one puts faith in the practice and perseveres in the practice, knowing that an ignorant, miserable loop will be re-entered if they turn back to try to live their former way.

Edit: so the one who wants to attain stream entry is the one who can direct all mental outflows to the practice, but is not the one who becomes stream-enterer. That which enters (is uncovered) has lost the one who wanted (or is losing the wanting according to the fetter model).

Thanks for sharing your practice

In context, viral is an interesting choice of words don't you think?

Simply put, I don't think any of these things are the real issue out there in 'the world'. No one likes to think that something is wrong with humanity. But something is indeed wrong.

Moralism holds most of the world in a state of mildly civilized equilibrium. Money and lazitude holds the rest in check. But through the cracks you can easily see the depth of depravity bubbling beneath the surface.

Believing moralism to be the issue is equivalent to saying child abuse happens because someone said 'child abuse is wrong'.

Moralism is a small fry problem holding in check a big time disaster.

Having said that I mean it when I say if a 'developmental language' cleansed of all hints of there being a moral imperitive works for you, then go for it. Really go for it. There is no reason why 'wrong' can't be restate as ' developmentally adverse' if that bypasses the mental proliferation surrounding 'religion' in the 'enlightened west'. But I would wager that restating it strips it of most of its power, and it will prove to be a whole lot of easily talked around self justification.

Mind you, I only say that having tried it


Edit: It may seem that I'm taking moralism's side here, i am not. Anymore than I am about to campaign for cancer to be made illegal! They are what they are, that's all. Whatever judgements arise out of that (that guy is less worthy than me because he has cancer and obviously is paying for his karma) are mine to deal with and as you point out are actually what practice is all about, rather than championing some crusade against evil, which is what seems to happen all too easily, yet blindly, in humanity.

Yes it is interesting, and thanks for pointing it out. I chuckle at my own choice of words in the context. What I had in mind was the sense in which, say, a video "goes viral" when it spreads on it's own and becomes wildly popular. This is the hope expressed by Shinzen Young in the keynote address he delivered at the Buddhist Geeks Conference, that within a relatively short time hundreds of millions of people may attain enlightenment and alter the course of human history for the better. I share that hope, and dare to dream that in some way I may contribute to its realization.



I strongly agree, and like Katy said, some kind of "tuberculosis of the consciousness". I believe that a significant part of the problem is an actual defect in human consciousness, yes, a defect, described by Leslie Dewart as "absent-mindedness". One unfortunate consequence of this defective way of thinking, endemic in the West, is an idea of morality as properly based on obedience to rules rather than on personal responsibility. This is a key part of what I am calling "moralism". I am all in favour of morality, but I am wary of moralism. (My understanding of the basic problem comes from Dewart, but I may have picked up my use of the term "moralism" from another author of whom I am fond, but who is just too crazy to follow closely, Brad Blanton.)



Sadly, yes.



I get that.

Thanks for helping me think this through. I really do feel more equanamous about the traditional language, even though I still see it as flawed. I hope I am advancing to the stage of merely disliking the colour of the lifeboat while jumping in and rowing for my life, rather than refusing to get in.

If personal responsibility and practice are taken up intently ('rowing for life'), then, later, the broad concept of moralism can be taken up skillfully (and there is a lot of room for improvement, and such improvements are evident in history). In the meantime, wariness of various expressions of moralism can be used to help steer you to/from certain teachers/sanghas. But otherwise, own-practice* (cushion or not) is paramount.

[*although, frankly, these thoughts and aversions are very much par for the practice, too! It can be great to express them, otherwise the feelings/queries can stew and impede the mind form settling on the cushion.]

Funny you should mention that, because I have just discovered and am devouring Ven. Gunaratana's doctoral dissertation, A Critical Analysis of the Jhanas in Theravada Buddhist Meditation. (Highly recommended, available for free, and evidently the basis for his book The Path of Serenity and Insight recommended as a reference to kasina practice in MCTB!) Of course, it is shot through with "defilement" language, in continuity with the original sources. Having just "processed" my aversion to such language, I find it much easier reading than I would have even a few days ago. Moreover, it speaks specifically about the hindrance of doubt:



...which echos exactly the point you just made, Katy.

The doubt to be abandoned is not the freedom of philosophical inquiry, which the Buddha openly encouraged in those who sought to gain personal conviction of truth, but stubborn disbelief and perplexity regarding the principles needed for higher development.

Exactly! The Kalama Sutta is sometimes called the charter of free inquiry or investigation.

Cheers, I'll check out that paper.