Wrongly Directed: Means a mind directed towards and motivated by the desire for sense pleasures induced by attractive sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, ideas, thoughts and mental states. A wrongly directed mind also means a mind motivated, influenced and tainted by hate, anger, aversion, irritation, resentment, opposition, rigidity and stubbornness and a mind burning with thoughts of harming, violence, revenge, jealousy and envy. [back]

Rightly Directed: Means a mind directed towards disentanglement, disengagement, withdrawal, renunciation, stilling, ending, disgust, disillusion, relinquishment, release, freedom and peace. It means a mind motivated by infinite goodness, boundless goodwill, universal friendliness, understanding pity, mutual joy rejoicing in others success, sympathy, tolerance, patience, endurance and utterly pure harmlessness. [back]

Corrupted Mentality: Means a mind concealing all actions, hiding behind secrecy, apparently fearing something. It means a mind dominated by wrong views such as: "I can do evil without consequence.", "There are neither good nor bad actions, neither any pleasure nor any pain resulting therefrom.", "Giving, charity, sharing and generosity is futile waste.","Parents, Elders and the Wise are best neglected.", "There is no other world nor any existence after death, there is not!","Yogis and recluses, that directly have realized other realms do not exist!", "Only this is true, everything else is false, outdated and primitive superstition".  [back]

Undisturbed: Means a mind neither distracted, divided nor scattered by any recurrent sensual craving, aversive ill will, nor endless speculation, worry, regrets, doubts and confusion. It is thus a mind capable of remaining focused on a single and same object for prolonged periods enabling mental absorption and penetration. [back]

Quickly Changing: What is the frequency of mental states? How many 'frames' or 'sweeps' or 'iterations' of mental moments does mind produce and process per second? The Buddha have never explicitly stated any rigidly fixed frequency, but the ancient commentaries imply something in the range of millions to billions of mental states per second. This frequency of discrete and discontinuous mental states may be dynamic and adaptable according to the circumstances. [back]

External Defilements: Like a mirror put up besides a highway gets increasingly blurred by dirt from the passing traffic, even so does the mind become increasingly imprecise and distorted by the ever changing contact with the passing world. The accumulating dirt in this case is the 5 mental defilements of greed, hate, lethargy and laziness, restlessness and regret, and doubt and uncertainty. The natural innate radiant clarity of mind enabling perception and penetration of even remote and subtle phenomena, is thereby impaired and the mental range is lost. From originally being of global or even universal range, it is reduced to a narrow and local range both spatially and temporally. Like when the lenses of both a telescope and a microscope are covered with dirt, these instruments lose their ability to see beyond and into things. Fortunately these mental obstructions can be removed and cleared by right mental purification and refinement. This gradual process of cultivation by meditation, reflection and study, is basically the purpose of the entire Noble 8-fold Path. The aim within reach is the, free, deathless, stilled bliss and peace of irreversible enlightenment.  [back]