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 Mason's
Meditations
If
you're looking for something to chew over, some thoughtful seeds
for mental cultivation, bookmark this page for Jeff Mason's monthly
meditations. To think in or take away...
Number
Thirty Six: The
Danger of Purity
Nothing
is pure or impure in Nature. Human beings imagine that some things
and practices are pure and others are impure. It is a distinction
made by humans out of their own needs and desires. Somehow, the
distinction worked its way into the heart of human life, where it
sits to this day as part of a magical view of the world.
Where
"pure" and "impure" find a literal meaning,
it is in measurements of materials in our environment. For example,
we can talk about impurities in the water, and we mean the chemicals
we do not like to see in the water. In reality, water always has
impurities. Some are tolerable, others, not. We measure the differences
in parts per million or billion. We can drink pure water, bathe
or swim in it. If it is too acidic, alkali, or contains too many
viruses and bacteria, we cannot.
All
this makes sense. We can talk about levels of purity in the air,
and even in the soil. Purity is good, and impurity is bad; that
is, we judge one to be good for us and the other bad. In themselves,
air and water and soil are always mixtures, and therefore only relatively
pure or impure.
Talk
about the pure and impure becomes dangerous when the words start
taking on a metaphorical or religious meaning. There is no measure
here, and so anything goes. We hear about inner purity, purity of
the soul, moral purity, the purity of sexual abstinence. Plato tells
us to prepare for a life after death by running as far away from
bodily desires as we can. In this way, he thinks, the soul will
be purified of earthly desire and stand face to face with the eternal
Forms. The body and bodily desires are corrupt and must be controlled
by the mind and reason.
Ritual
cleansing, acts of expatiation and penance, asceticism and spiritual
exercises all work with a metaphorical notion of purity. The acts
are supposed to bring about an inner transformation, but a fixation
with purity leads to excess. One becomes a judge of the pure and
the impure. An extreme example is that of the Untouchables in India.
They are considered impure by higher castes, like the Brahmins.
The belief that we can distinguish the pure from the impure, and
denigrate what we call "impure" is a great cause of strife
in this world. In fact, everything is impure, which is only to say
that it contains a mixture of many things. The distinction plays
a magical role when moved from its literal context, and we forget
that it is a metaphorical or magical idea of purity that is invoked.
Believers take the distinction between the pure and the impure to
be a real distinction in things. Their wills and emotions become
entangled in the distinction and their reactions to the thought
of purity or impurity become inflamed. The obsession with purity
is a snare and delusion, and the sooner we come to recognize magical
thinking for what it is, the better.
.
Mason's
Meditations will next be updated mid September 2003
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