Introduction
The aim of this retreat is to purify the mind. We are all used to taking a physical bath to clean and cool the body. After the bath we feel fresh and comfortable. It is very rarely, however, or even never do we get the opportunity to clean our minds in the same way. We tend to carry into adult life the dirt we have been accumulating since our infancy, and probably we even carry accruements from our former lives.
Therefore the reason for our meditation is clear: — by purifying the mind we become GOOD, HAPPY, AND WISE. The individual creates society, and society creates the world. Therefore, we begin with the individual, and that is: -- YOU. The impurities to be eradicated are the self-centred emotions, which the Buddha called lust (lobha), hate (dosa), and delusion (moha), the sense of ‘self’, which is the basis of all selfishness.
These emotions not only pollute our minds, but they also interfere with our physical health. This problem is what is today called STRESS. Emotions have been useful for some lower animals for the preservation of life and the propagation of the species. But the human beings have a better tool for that purpose, which is intelligence. Intelligence is the one distinctive faculty that makes the human being stand out among all other animals.
It is this human intelligence that is responsible for all the scientific inventions and discoveries of the modern world. It is this same intelligence, which when further evolved, brings about the solution of the problem of existence. Yet lack of intelligence, or the wrong use of intelligence in catering to our self-centred emotions, can lead to all the crimes, terrorism, and even wars, as they exist in the world today. In fact, it was to develop this special human intelligence and to put it to better beneficial use, for the sake of all mankind that the Buddha set out to propagate his Glorious Gospel.
Sometimes we hear people raising doubts, when we speak of purifying the mind. This doubt is partly due to certain concepts prevalent in the West. Some Western religious beliefs and some concepts in Western psychology and biology seem to contradict this idea of purification of mind.
Some Western religions have maintained that human beings can never be pure, for only God is pure. There is also a common saying in the West, “To err is human, but to forgive is divine”. This seems to imply that human beings can become pure only through the forgiveness of sins by God, and not through a transformation of the character of the individual. In addition, there has been a historical reason for this Western attitude of mind. A religious community called Puritans, who were also supposed to purify the mind, had created some negative feelings in Western society.
Some modern Western psychologists, such as Sigmund Freud, have thought that emotions are natural and instinctual, and that emotional arousal is built into our system, and therefore emotion cannot be eliminated. Even modern biological thinking seems to support this concept. Biologists think that emotion is necessary for the preservation of life in animals, including humans.
Although Freud thought that these emotions are built into our system as instincts, he was also aware that emotions are the result of the reaction of our body to stimulation by the environment. This reaction is a chain reaction, a flowing in, or an influx. Therefore emotion can also be seen as the result of an influence (asava) of the environment on the organism. This means, it is not an instinct, nor is it something that is naturally born in the body like hunger or thirst. This is why most modern psychologists today do not regard these emotions as instincts.
In fact Eric Fromm, a modern psychoanalyst, has pointed out that Freud always said, “where there is the id there shall be the ego,” which means that Freud had the intention of eliminating the self-centred emotions, as he was aware that the emotions were the cause of trouble, and that instead of the emotions dominating the personality, reason should begin to dominate. This was also what Daniel Goleman, the psychologist seemed to point out, in his recent book entitled Emotional Intelligence, though he did not hope to eliminate the emotions altogether, for he pointed out the need for emotions.
It was the Buddha, more than twenty five centuries earlier in the East, who showed the way to attain a perfectly pure mind, by eliminating the emotions altogether. Many of his disciples achieved this mental purity, through the natural human technique taught by the Buddha. This wonderful occurrence was based on the principle mentioned in this oft quoted passage from the Buddha:
“The mind is essentially pure; it is polluted by adventitious impurities. Ignorance of this fact prevents people from purifying their minds”, and so obtain freedom from the miserable insecurity of life. (Ang.I.2).
This means, the mind can obviously be compared to water. For water is a pure substance, which gets polluted due to foreign matter falling into it. It is due to the water being a pure substance that it can be purified by filtration or distillation, even though water is never found in a pure form naturally. In the same way, the mind can also be purified, because it is essentially pure, provided we know the proper technique, and the mind too can never be found in its pure form normally.
It is this saving technique of the Buddha that you will learn during this retreat. This technique was the original form of Buddhist meditation taught by the Buddha, which is found in the Sutta Pitaka. The method of meditation used in this beginners retreat, is explained in the Dvedhā vitakka Sutta, which is given in translation at the end of this booklet.
Of course there are some critics who say that the Buddha did not eliminate emotions altogether because he cultivated positive emotions like metta, karuna, mudita, and upekkha. Yet it is important to understand that there are no positive emotions, according to Western psychologists like Sigmund Freud, or even according to the Buddha. The so called positive emotions like metta, known as the “divine dwelling” (brahma vihara) is not an emotion, but a selfless state of mind, which appears in perfect form only in the absence of the self-centred emotions: lust (lobha), hate (dosa), and delusion (moha), where delusion is the “sense of self” (atta) or sense of “existence” (bhava). This means, only the emancipated supernormal individuals (arahant) experience genuine selfless universal benevolence (metta).