The basis of purification is the universal-ground primordial awareness, like the sky;

the incidental stains are the object of purification, like clouds;

the purifying agent is the truth of the path, like a relentless wind;

and the fruit of purification is Perfect Enlightenment, like the sky free of clouds.

What does this mean to me?

I lived in South Florida for around ten years. Hurricane season was the absolute worst. The scariest part was hunkering down inside behind your boarded up windows and listening to that raging wind for hours at a time. It was relentless.

Our prayer starts by saying, “the basis of purification” is “primordial awareness, like the sky”. Primordial enlightenment is like a cloud-free sky. The prayer goes on to say that “incidental stains” are what need to be purified.

The third line talks about a “purifying agent” that will clear away the incidental stains such as wrong views and afflicted emotions. So the prayer begins by telling us that our true nature is enlightenment, like a clear blue sky. But there are clouds or “incidental stains” tainting that blue sky.

This very much reminds me of digging up an ancient golden coin. When you first look at it, it’s all stained up with grime and dirt. You know you’ll need all kinds of cleansers to remove decades or maybe even centuries of clinging dirt.

Our true nature of enlightenment is like that dirt encrusted coin. We have spent lifetime after lifetime acquiring the encrusted dirt of wrong views and afflicted emotions. Again the prayer is telling us that enlightenment isn’t something to be sought out, but rather something inherent in us that needs to be uncovered.

That sounds pretty daunting, doesn’t it? How do we remove lifetimes of dirt and grime to uncover our true nature? Our prayer outright tells us that “that the purifying agent is the truth of the path” and it’s like a “relentless wind”, just like a hurricane.

How would I explain this to someone else?

Christianity has the idea that ‘sins’ can be washed away by ‘the blood of the lamb [Jesus]’. Thankfully no one has to be crucified for us to uncover our true nature.

Samsara is a realm of struggle and desire. We are forever struggling to fulfill some desire or other. And sadly, even when we get what we thought we wanted, it’s never what we thought it would be. When I was a little girl I watched a lot of Star Trek. I thought it was so cool how they had a talking computer. All they had to do to make things work was press buttons on a console.

Watching that show, I promised myself that when I grew up, I’d have a job where I pressed lots and lots of buttons. Well, here I am some decades later and practically all I do at work is press buttons. Is it everything I thought it would be? I can assure you I’m not visiting different planets every week. Heck, I don’t leave home to go to work.

This on a small somewhat childish scale is what those lost in samsara do for lifetime after lifetime. Sadly, chasing after struggle and desire only leads to suffering. Fortunately , we have the “truth of the path” to cleanse away the incidental stains we have from living in samsara.

What is “the truth of the path”? We call this the Dharma. This is the only cleansing agent we need to uncover our true nature. But how does it work? Is it abrasive like a brillo pad, scrubbing away at us constantly? Well, yes and no. We’re all caught up in the illusions of samsara. There are lifetimes of ground in dirt covering up our true nature.

The Dharma, our prayer tells us, is like a “relentless wind”. I’ve never been in a storm in the desert, but I imagine that anything left out in that sand laden wind would be scrubbed pretty clean. The Dharma is not meant to lull us into a comfortable sleep. We are already asleep. No. The Dharma works to wake us up from the nightmare that is samsara.

How do I bring this into my life?

I have a confession to make. I just adore that snooze feature on my phone. I actually set my alarm for earlier than I need to get up. Why? Because snooze button. The Dharma is like an alarm clock, a warning to wake up! So many people press the snooze button. They say, “I don’t have time to meditate” or “I’m too busy to study the Dharma” or “I’ve got kids. I don’t have a spare moment in my day.” But the Dharma is undeterred. Like a relentless wind, it will blow until you awaken.

Before I began studying the Dharma, I always had this deep seated feeling of being dissatisfied. Not just with my life. It extended to everything. It never gave me a moment’s peace. I felt as though I was wandering a desert, sand as far as the eye could see, a blazing sun overhead. And no matter how much water I drank, I’d be just as thirsty. It would give no relief.

I’d like to say that when I began studying the Dharma, that feeling immediately went away. It didn’t. But gradually over the course of about a year of study, I was less and less dissatisfied. And I can pinpoint the reason. I came to rely less and less on samsara for my sense of satisfaction. I began to experience tiny glimpses of my Buddha Nature.

Don’t get me wrong. I still get caught up in the illusions of samsara, but there’s always a part of my mind that in some way, doesn’t get wholly caught up anymore.

Today when I see people completely caught up in the quagmire of samsara, I do the only thing I know how to do. I recite my go to prayer, “May all be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all embrace happiness and the causes of happiness.” Doing this brings me a measure of peace, and I pray it brings peace to others.

There’s a story told of children playing inside a burning house. Their father is outside urgently exhorting them to come out. But the children are very distracted. Today it would be Netflix, iPhones, x-boxes, Instagram, or X fka Twitter.

This again is the relentless wind of the Dharma trying to wake people from the stupor of samsara. And the funny thing is if we simply go in the direction of that relentless wind, things get easier, less exhausting. We’re no longer devoting so much energy to upholding the illusions of samsara.

If we allow ourselves to be caught up in the relentless wind of the Dharma, we will find more and more of the illusions of samsara falling away. We will experience the great wind setting us free of the incidental stains left by samsara. We will find the true nature of our primordial enlightenment uncovered bit by bit. And bit by bit, we will be free of the illusions of samsara.