[This is a “back-post”; it is a work-in-progress, so it may change partially or completely, with materials added or taken away, over the next several days or weeks. This is “day 10(a)” of my stay at the Vipassana Meditation retreat. For general comments and summary, see “day 11.”]
My problem with purity.
Purity is a problematic concept. It seems well and good. And it has all sorts of cultural manifestations, and seems close to a human universal.
But purity, and concommitant, oppositional notions like “pollution” and “defilement,” are dangerous memes. When applied to cultural and psychological constructs, they seem to lead down a slippery slope to intolerance and fanaticism, almost unfailingly.
