a full printed set of the Buddhist Canon, comprising a total of some
50 volumes.
- The dhutangas are a set of 13 specialized ascetic practices that
Buddhist monks voluntarily undertake. These dhutanga observances
are explained in detail in the next chapter.
8. The outer, upper, and lower robes of a Buddhist monk are the
sanghãåï, uttarãsanga, and antaravãsaka respectively.
9. Kilesa is a term that is crucial to understanding the aim of Bud-
dhist practice because it highlights the mind’s basic obstacle and thus
indicates what needs to be surmounted in order to make progress along
the spiritual path. Kilesas, or mental defilements, are negative psycho-
logical and emotional forces within the hearts and minds of all living
beings. They are of three basic types: greed, hatred, and delusion. All
are pollutants that contaminate the way people think, speak, and act
and thus corrupt from within the very intention and purpose of their
existence, binding them (through the inevitable consequences of such
actions) ever more firmly to the perpetual cycle of rebirth. Their man-
ifestations are many and varied. They include passion, jealousy, envy,
conceit, vanity, pride, stinginess, arrogance, anger, resentment, etc., plus
all sorts of more subtle variations that invariably produce unwholesome
and harmful states of mind that are responsible for so much human
misery. Kilesa-driven mental states interact and combine to create pat-
terns of conduct that perpetuate people’s suffering and give rise to all
of the world’s disharmony. - The citta is the mind’s essential knowing nature, the fundamen-
tal quality of knowing that underlies all sentient existence. In associ-
ation with a physical body, it is referred to as “mind” or “heart”. Nor-
mally, the “knowing nature” of the citta is timeless, boundless, and
radiant, but its true nature is obscured from within by mental defile-
ments (kilesa). Through the power of fundamental ignorance(avijjã), its
currents “flow out” to manifest as feelings (vedanã), memory (saññã),
thoughts (sankhãra), and consciousness (viññãõa). But, the true nature
of the citta simply “knows”. It does not arise or pass away; it is never born
and never dies.