Almost everyone has had an experience of digestive infection at some point. Although it may not be immediately accessible, a vague feeling of a great deal of unpleasantness persists. Nausea, diarrhoea, weakness, loss of appetite, and a dozen other symptoms made our existence terrible for some time.

Thanks god, we don’t have to suffer that frequently. Access to better medical facilities and proper care helps us recover quickly. And without any doubt, we become extra cautious, at least for the next few months, to prevent any such occurrences. The suffering has taught us a lesson!

But unfortunately, we haven’t figured out our way through mental contamination. Unlike the prior, this happens continually. Life becomes miserable, doesn’t it, if one has to bear through the ever-existing pain of stress and anxiety. 

Why is it so difficult to get rid of mental contamination? Why aren’t the pills working as in the case of other physical ailments? But before that, let’s understand a bit more about this situation.

What is Mental Contamination?

Unlike the gut, in the case of the mind, the contaminants are not physical objects but rather thoughts and ideas. These are the subtle objects that do not enter our minds from outside but rather are generated within the mental faculties. Sometimes, their origin is triggered by physical cues that are impressed upon the sensory organs, but mostly they emerge from the imagination.

An argument with the boss, for example, isn’t a tangible thing like a microbe that enters the brain and renders it malfunction. The whole physical and verbal act led to the emergence of an angry thought in the mind. This becomes the mental pollutant. 

In several other situations, mere imagination bubbles up as contaminants. For example, even after months of that heated argument with the boss, angry thoughts may arise, and you may enter into an imaginary dialogue where you respond with extraordinary, mighty wit. 

Effects of Mental Contamination

It is not hard to predict the effects of such poisoning: Stress, fear, anxiety, restlessness, mental fatigue, worrisomeness. The agony is not limited to the mind alone; it trickles to the body’s functions in the form of constipation, appetite loss, indigestion, insomnia, high blood pressure, headache, body pain, and muscle tension.

If you notice, most of the symptoms of digestive contamination are due to the immune system’s response, not directly due to the pathogens. Diarrhoea, for example, is caused by the inflammation of the intestine that causes it to move too quickly, so there isn’t enough time to absorb fluids and salts.

Similarly, the symptoms of mental contamination are primarily due to the response of the mind to these contaminants, and not the direct result of these pollutants themselves. These mental objects are considered a threat, and thus, the mind declares war against them.

Suffering Results from Reaction

How the mind responds to a certain thought determines the real suffering. A person with a minor injury can suffer a lot owing to constant rumination, as compared to someone undergoing a major surgery with a positive attitude.

As Buddha said, suffering can be explained as 2 arrows shot at you. The first arrow is the act of nature, just like the emergence of a thought of anger, jealousy, fear, lust, etc., in response to a physical cue. But the second arrow is the reaction to that thought. 

It’s the 2nd arrow that is the primary cause of suffering. A lasting impact is the result of this arrow and not the first one. In fact, the mind doesn’t stop firing arrows with the 2nd one; it keeps shooting the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and so on continuously. 1st arrow is not under our control, but the 2nd arrow is. 

Perception Controls the Reactions

The person with a positive attitude understands that this surgical pain is temporary. It will pass. He perceives the true nature of pain. However, the other person, engulfed in the terror of pain, catches hold of the fear and doesn’t let go of it.

Even though the fear emerges and passes in his mind, his wrong perception is that the pain will remain constant and continue to affect him. With this perception, the mind begets fear from fear. This, which would have extinguished early otherwise, gets prolonged.

The same is the case with our earlier example of the angry employee. A perception that the same anger would continue to make him miserable forces him to repeat the episode in his mind again and again. 

And mind, having tricked you to lock your attention in this ping pong game, squeezes out your energy. It is its favourite game, maybe this is how nature has designed it, and there is no inherent hedonistic motive behind this.

Complexity of Getting rid of Mental Contaminants

The mind, with its flawed perception and belief, continues feeding the chain reactions. To end this, the same mind needs to be withdrawn, reminded of the true impermanent nature of all reality, and then immersed back to stop shooting more arrows. 

It’s a complicated task, which has to be achieved by itself through itself. At this point, I am afraid of sounding like jibberish. But that’s true with all subtle things; no words can fully express them. They can only be experienced. 

Anyways, in our gut contamination example, it is comparatively easy because the microbes and medicines are both physical entities. They can even be administered by an external agent without our conscious effort. 

But in the case of the mind, pills won’t work directly, because the contaminants are of a subtle nature, i.e. thoughts. At best, the pills tone down our nervous system. 

Mental Effort is Inevitable for Clean Up

As we saw that the mind has to change its mindset in order to stop reacting and multiplying the contaminants. The perception and belief system that regulates its habitual functioning has to be corrected by knowledge. If it learns that, then the generated ones automatically attenuate.

Knowledge requires mental effort and practice. One can gain a lot of knowledge, but still, the patterns need to be broken with the continuous application of that knowledge to bring real effects.

The knowledge that everything is impermanent, which is the universal permanent law of nature, needs to be strongly imprinted in our minds at its roots, so that all its cognition is perceived through this lens. 

This happens gradually as it requires time for the mental patterns to shift. Mindfulness of your mental activities and honestly accepting what you truly perceive are the recommended ways to bring about these changes. 

As you proceed with your self-effort, you shall progressively experience the ease of withstanding mental contamination.