The Purified Mind
By Indu L. Shakya, PhD
I am writing here to share some reflections from my practice of purification of mind through direct experiential insights and studies of early Pāli Sutta texts over many years. In the process, I have accumulated many questions concerning the Dhamma, the mind, meditation, and what it actually means to become free from suffering.
I have spent considerable time examining the causes and conditions behind the unpurified mind—why it becomes restless, anxious, dissatisfied, and burdened. In this article, I would like to turn toward the brighter question: What happens when the mind is purified? What is the nature of that purified mind, and how can we experience it for ourselves?
The Buddha gives us a graduated approach to the development of the mind. This is what bhāvanā represents: cultivation, development, and gradual unfolding. I do not see the Buddha’s teaching as a path of simply waiting for a sudden enlightenment or extraordinary experience. Rather, we practise diligently, investigate for ourselves, and repeatedly uncover the truth.
I often describe this as “rinse and repeat.” We discover something, test it, refine our understanding, and return to the practice. We do not need simply to accept someone’s claim that they have become enlightened. We need to see for ourselves.
The Luminous Mind
The early Buddhist texts describe the mind as luminous, though it can be affected by passing defilements. In my experience, when reactions and habitual patterns subside, the mind can reveal an extraordinary clarity and brightness. It is not something that needs to be manufactured; rather, it becomes more apparent as the mind is freed from the defilements that disturb and obscure it.
When the coverings fall away, there is an extraordinary brightness and clarity to the mind. It is not something that needs to be manufactured. It becomes apparent when the things covering it are abandoned.
So the question becomes: How do we uncover that luminous mind?
For me, the practice is fundamentally about relinquishment, relaxation, abandonment, and not taking anything personally. This is where the 6Rs—a method of recognising, releasing, relaxing, resmiling, returning, and repeating—become important. They are not simply a technique or a fashionable meditation formula. They bring together important elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, particularly Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Collectedness, supported by virtue and purified conduct.
Purified conduct leads toward a purified mind. A purified mind becomes unified, and that unification allows the luminous nature of mind to become evident.
Discovering Jhāna
Most of us know the ordinary state of mind very well: “My mind is restless. I cannot focus. I am stressed. I am worried. I am busy. Nothing satisfies me.”
For years, I was in exactly that kind of condition. Fifteen or twenty years ago, I would have looked at people talking about meditation and the purification of the mind and thought they were simply imagining things. I thought, “What is beyond these experiences? This is all there is.”
Practice gradually changed that view.
With diligent practice, one can begin to experience a very different condition of mind—one marked by greater calm, stability, and freedom from the disturbances of the five hindrances. In the early Buddhist tradition, the overcoming or temporary absence of the hindrances is closely associated with the development of deep meditative concentration and the attainment of jhāna. In my own experience, jhāna is a state in which the mind finds a profound sense of equilibrium and is no longer dominated by the five hindrances.
The important point, however, is how this freedom is approached.
It is not achieved by simply suppressing or fighting the hindrances.
If restlessness arises, we do not attack it. If anxiety arises, we do not try to force it away. If pleasure arises, we do not cling to it. The problem is not simply that these experiences arise, but that we identify with them and become caught up in them.
We say, “I am restless. I am anxious. I am in pain. I am unhappy.”
That personalization can strengthen and perpetuate the experience.
For me, the practice involves learning to relax, step back, and gradually let go rather than continuing to feed the mental patterns that disturb the mind. When these disturbances are no longer being continually reinforced, the mind can become increasingly calm, spacious, and unified.
This is how I understand the relationship between the weakening of the hindrances and the development of jhāna. It is not a matter of fighting the mind into submission. Rather, the mind is gradually allowed to settle as the conditions that sustain its agitation are abandoned.
Jhāna as a Foundation for Wisdom
No.
For me, jhāna provides a stable foundation from which deeper insight can develop.
This raises another question: What is insight? What is wisdom?
These words are used constantly, particularly in discussions of vipassanā, but they can easily become vague.
The Pāli word paññā, which I use here as wisdom, points toward something deeper than ordinary worldly wisdom. For the purposes of this discussion, I understand paññā as experiential wisdom: learning to see more clearly how the mind and our experience actually work.
And the crucial part is that this understanding must be experiential.
You do not merely believe that the mind can contribute to suffering. Through careful observation, you begin to see the process for yourself. You may begin to notice how attention can sustain a thought, how intention influences the direction of the mind, how craving can give rise to further experience, and how familiar patterns can continually reinforce themselves.
That, for me, is the beginning of wisdom.
Jhāna can provide the stability and clarity from which such investigation becomes possible. When the mind is less disturbed by the hindrances, subtle processes that might otherwise go unnoticed can become easier to observe.
Through repeated observation, investigation, trial and error, small insights can gradually accumulate. Over time, they may contribute to a much deeper understanding.
For example, when I apply too much effort, the mind becomes restless. When I ease back slightly, the mind becomes calm. That small discovery is part of wisdom. I have seen for myself what agitation feels like, how it arises, and what conditions allow it to subside.
This is why I do not think wisdom simply manifests because someone attends a ten-day retreat. For me, wisdom develops gradually through repeated experiential investigation.
In this sense, jhāna is not an achievement or a destination. It can provide a condition of stability from which we continue to investigate, learn, and let go.
Test the Fetters for Yourself
In my reading of the early Buddhist texts, I do not understand the duration of a particular meditative attainment, by itself, as a sufficient measure of awakening. The more important question is whether the practice is genuinely transforming the mind.
Are craving, aversion, and attachment becoming weaker? Are we becoming less caught up in anger, desire, pride, and the need for recognition? Are we able to meet difficult experiences with greater balance and understanding?
These are questions that we can test for ourselves.
We can also examine our relationship to some of the tendencies described in the Buddhist teachings as fetters. Do we still strongly identify with the body and mind as “I” or “mine”? Do we remain deeply attached to sensual pleasures? Do we believe that external rituals or practices, by themselves, can bring liberation?
Such questions can be uncomfortable, but they invite honesty.
I can say honestly that I am not in a position to claim complete freedom from all forms of attachment and agitation. I am still working on this path and trying to understand more directly how the mind operates.
At the same time, the five hindrances provide another useful way of examining our present condition. When sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness, or doubt arise, we can observe how they affect the mind and investigate the conditions that sustain them.
The important point is not to create another identity around spiritual progress or attainment. Nor is it to compare ourselves constantly with others.
The practice invites us to look honestly at our own minds.
What still causes suffering?
What still triggers craving or aversion?
Where do we still cling?
Where do we still construct a sense of “I” and “mine”?
For me, these questions are more meaningful than making claims about extraordinary attainments. The path is not about acquiring a spiritual identity. It is about gradually understanding and abandoning the conditions that bind the mind.
That process requires patience, honesty, and continued investigation.
The Subtlety of Intention
In my own practice, I have found that a gentle intention can sometimes influence the direction of meditation without necessarily becoming a demand or a form of grasping.
I sometimes describe this using a simple proverb: Throw a branch into a mango tree. If a mango falls, so be it. If it does not, so be it. You simply give it a try.
In the same way, from a balanced and settled mind, one can introduce a gentle intention:
“Let me see what happens if this changes.”
Then, let it go.
Do not force it. Do not demand a particular result.
In meditation, I have often observed that the quality of one’s intention can influence the direction and character of experience. But the intention must remain light. The moment we become attached to a particular outcome—“I need this” or “I must achieve that”—a simple intention can quietly become expectation or craving.
This requires careful observation.
The intention can be extremely subtle, almost like making a small adjustment to a very sensitive instrument.
“Let me see.”
Then relax.
Having established the intention, we can release the demand for a particular result and return to observing what unfolds.
For me, this has been an important lesson in meditation. There is a significant difference between setting a gentle direction for the mind and trying to force an experience to occur.
The more I learn to recognize that difference, the more I understand the value of patience, balance, and letting go.
The practice does not always require us to push the mind toward an experience. Sometimes, a light intention followed by genuine release allows us to discover more clearly what the mind does when it is not being driven by craving.
The Bāhiya Experience
“In the seen, there will be only the seen; in the heard, only the heard; in the sensed, only the sensed; in the cognized, only the cognized.”
The instruction is brief, yet its implications are profound.
How should we understand such an experience?
For me, the passage points toward the possibility of experiencing phenomena without immediately constructing an additional sense of “I” or “mine” around them. Seeing occurs, hearing occurs, tasting occurs, and thinking occurs—but the mind need not automatically become entangled in the experience.
One might say that there can be seeing without immediately adding, “I am seeing this,” or hearing without constructing a story around the person who is hearing.
This does not mean that experience disappears. Colours can still be seen, sounds can still be heard, and tastes can still be experienced. But our relationship to these experiences can change.
Something may be spicy, bland, pleasant, or unpleasant, yet the mind does not necessarily have to construct an extended story around the experience. It can simply be what it is.
For me, this points toward an important dimension of freedom: experience no longer needs to become “mine.”
This is how I understand the direction of the Buddha’s instruction to Bāhiya—not as the elimination of experience itself, but as freedom from the habitual tendency to appropriate experience as “I” and “mine.”
When that tendency toward appropriation and mental proliferation begins to subside, the mind can experience a very different kind of freedom.
Of course, this is my interpretation and reflection on the Bāhiya Sutta. The power of the passage lies precisely in its brevity, and it continues to invite careful contemplation and direct investigation.
The Final Letting Go
Ultimately, for me, wisdom involves seeing our experience clearly enough that we no longer participate in familiar patterns blindly.
We begin to recognize how suffering develops and how our habitual reactions can sustain it. We see how craving and clinging can strengthen our experience of dissatisfaction. Through repeated observation, we begin to understand that freedom does not necessarily come from acquiring something more.
Often, it begins with letting go.
The Buddha gives the image of a piece of wood carried down a river. If it is not diverted or obstructed along the way, it eventually reaches the ocean.
For me, this image offers a powerful reflection on the path of practice. We may encounter many distractions, attachments, and diversions, but we can continue returning to the path, again and again.
There is no certificate for this. Nothing needs to be displayed or proven to others.
The practice remains deeply personal.
We observe.
We investigate.
We learn.
And gradually, we let go.
The path is simple to describe, though not always easy to follow:
Relax.
Let go.
Do not cling.
Do not become entangled in mental proliferation.
Take a step back.
Observe what is happening.
Test the Dhamma for yourself.
And repeat.
This is how small insights can gradually deepen into wisdom. It is how we can begin to understand the conditions that sustain suffering and learn to let them go.
Freedom is not found by continually searching for something new to acquire. It becomes clearer as we gradually relinquish the craving, clinging, and identification that keep the mind entangled.
That, for me, is the continuing journey of purification.
References
- Pabhassara Sutta: Luminous Mind, Aṅguttara Nikāya 1.49–52.
- Bāhiya Sutta, Udāna 1.10.
- Dārukkhandha Sutta, Saṃyutta Nikāya 35.200.
