Notes (f-g): Defilement and Purification of Morality

Summary: (f) What is Defilement of Morality? (g) What is Purification of Morality?

In answering these questions, Defilement and Purification of morality should be explained together.

Defilement of Morality means impairment of morality; and in reverse, non-impairment of morality is Purification of Morality.

Impairment of morality may arise through destruction due to gain, fame, etc. or through seven minor acts of sexuality.

To explain further:

Of the seven groups of transgression (āpatti)^[1], if a sikkhāpada of the first or the last group is impaired due to craving for gain, fame, etc. a bhikkhu's sīla is said to be torn like the cloth which is cut at the edge.

If a sikkhāpada in the middle group is impaired, his sīla is said to be rent like the cloth having a hole in the middle.

If two or three sikkhāpadas are impaired serially, his sīla is said to be blotched like a cow having irregular marks of brown, red and other colours on her back or belly.

If the sikkhāpadas are impaired at intervals, his sīla. is said to be mottled like a cow having variegated spots of different colours on her body.

Thus impairment of morality through tearing, rending, blotching or mottling due to gain, fame, etc. is Defilement of Morality.

Even in the absence of impairment of morality through tearing, rending, blotching or mottling, there can be defilement of morality through seven minor acts of sexuality.

The seven minor acts of sexuality are expounded elaborately by the Buddha in the Jānussoni Sutta of Mahāyañña Vagga, Sattaka Nipāta of the Aṅguttara Nikāya.

They may be mentioned briefly as follows:

(i) An ascetic or a brahmin claiming to be leading the noble life does not have actual sexual intercourse with a woman, but enjoys being caressed, massaged, bathed and rubbed down by her. (He loves to be attended upon in person by a woman.)

(ii) He does not have sexual intercourse with a woman, he does not enjoy being attended upon in person by her, but he enjoys joking and laughing with her.

(iii) Or else, he enjoys staring and gazing at a woman eye to eye.

(iv) Or else, he enjoys listening to a woman on the other side of a wall or a fence as she laughs, talks. sings or cries.

(v) Or else, he enjoys recollecting frequently how he has talked, laughed and played with a woman formerly.

(vi) Or else, he enjoys seeing a householder or his son who possesses five kinds of worldly pleasures and who is being served by a host of servants and attendants.

(vii) Or else, he enjoys longing for a divine abode and leads the noble life with the wish: “With this sīla, with this practice, with this effort and with this noble life, may I be reborn as a great deva or some deva.”

Thus impairment of morality through tearing, rending, blotching or mottling due to gain, fame, etc. and also through seven minor acts of sexuality is Defilement of Morality.

Purification of morality characterized by non-tearing, non-rending, non-blotching or nonmottling of sīla is brought about:

(a) by not transgressing any of the sikkhāpadas; (b) by taking proper remedial measure whenever there is transgression;

(c) by avoiding seven minor acts of sexuality; furthermore,

(d) through non-arising of anger, grudge, disparagement, rivalry, jealousy, meannessstinginess, deceit, hypocrisy and such evils, and

(e) through development of such attributes as fewness of wishes, being easily satisfied, practice of austerity, etc.

These types of morality (sīlas), which are not torn, not rent, not blotched and not mottled, also assume other names such as, Bhujissa-sīla because they set one free from servitude of craving; Viññūpasattha-sīla because they are praised by the wise;Aparāmattha-sīla because they are not effected by craving: “My sīla is very pure, it will produce great beneficial results in future”, or by wrong personality belief: “This sīla is mine; my sīla is very pure; no one possesses sīla like mine”; Samādhi samvattanika-sīla because they are conducive to advancement towards Access Concentration (Upacāra-samādhi) and Absorption Concentration (Appanā-samādhi).

As stated above, these seven factors, namely, not torn, not rent, not blotched, not mottled, liberating, praised by the wise and not tarnished by craving and wrong view are the factors conducive to purification of morality. Only when morality is complete with these seven factors can it develop the aforesaid two kinds of concentration. Therefore, a noble person wishing to develop these two kinds of Concentration should earnestly endeavour to make his sīla complete with all these seven factor.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

(1) Pārajika, (2) Sanghādisesa, (3) Thullaccaya, (4) Pācittiya, (5) Pātidesaniya, (6) Dukkata and (7) Dubbhisita.