15th Issue (Mar, 2010)

Psychological Perversions (vipallāsa) and Freedom from Them

Ven. S.Upali
revupalisramon@gmail.com
University of Peradeniya

The perception of reality has been explained from two perspectives in Buddhism: that of untrained (asekho), general people (known as puthujjana-s) and that of trained (sekho), noble persons with developed spiritual purity (known as the ariyapuggala). The objective in the journey through the Buddhist path is to lift one from the domain of inferior intellect (avijjā) to the supreme purity of moral, spiritual, and intellectual perfection (paññā). In the process every minor and major defect of the worldly individuals are comprehensively and categorically explained by the Buddha and elaborated by his followers. How an individual gets involved in Saṃsāra – the cycle of births and deaths of immense suffering has been very clearly explained as an individual’s failure to comprehend the reality of things and one’s persistent tendency to cling to the ‘distorted perception of things’ also known as ‘psychological perversions’ (vipallāsa).
In this essay I extract some passages from the canonical texts to explain how one is exposed to wrong or improper knowledge due to psychological perversions.

According to traditional definitions perversion (vipallāsa) and ignorance (avijjā) are associated very closely. Major feature of both is ‘being affected by rigid or wrong views’ (micchādiṭṭhihata).[1] Their relationship is explained as: “Ignorance has the characteristic of not penetrating ideas according to the actuality; its footing is the perversions (sabbadhammāyāthāva asampuṭivedhalakkhaṇāvijjā).”[2] Perversion (vipallāsa), it is said, has the characteristic of distorted apprehension (viparītagāhalakkhaṇa vipallāso). It generally concerns three factors[3] :

1. Perversion of perception (saññāvipallāsa),
2. Perversion of thought (cittavipallāsa), and
3. Perversion of Views (diṭṭhivipallāsa)

These perversions function in two levels: In the general level – mis-comprehending things in our day to day life; and, in the deeper psychological level – when certain views get deeply rooted in the mind and in turn becomes responsible for many other misdeeds. In the general level they are similar to hallucination, delusion, illusions, and etc. concepts in Psychology. Venerable Ledi Sayadaw[4] elucidates those using very simple examples which could be summarized briefly as follows:

1. Perversion of perception – a deer mistaking a scarecrow for a real man due to preconceived notions of a human figure.
2. Perversion of thought – a magician plays some tricks presenting a lump of soil as a different form (e.g. gold) making others think the soil to be gold.
3. Perversion of View – a person who forgets his way and takes a wrong path that leads him to dangers.

In the general level, people who are mentally disturbed suffer from hallucinations, schizophrenia etc. themselves. They do not cause much serious harm to the society. Most often they can be cured to behave like the normal people. In the Buddhist literature there is an example of a monk named Gagga severely affected by perverted thoughts (‘cittavipariyāsa’). In his own words: “While I was mad, out of my mind, I perpetrated much and spoke in a way not worthy of a recluse.”[5] This caused disharmony in the community life of monks. “When his colleagues blamed him, the Buddha interceded on his behalf and suggested that he be given absolution for his offences, in view of his insanity.”[6] Thus he became normal.

In the deeper psychological level – it is the average common or normal person who persistently continues to make such errors of perception, thoughts, and views. Each of the three perversions is explained in the following four perspectives. (It is noticeable here that the perversions are explained in reference to the psycho-physical frame of beings consisting of the aggregates as follows):

1. Seeing beauty in the ugly – (Perversion of Rūpa)
2. Pleasure in the painful – (Perversion of Vedanā)
3. Self in the non-self – (Perversion of Saññā and Saṅkhārā)
4. Permanence in the impermanence – (Perversion of Viññāṇa)

In that sense most of the human beings are affected by perversions. Therefore the Buddha refers to the common people as psychological patients (sabbe puthujjanā ummattakā). When one’s mind is possessed by these perversions one begins to believe non-existent thing as existent and fails to understand the true nature of the existent things. The danger in such a position is when mind becomes rigid on the perverted perceptions, thoughts, and views. Such a person fails to see the dependent arising of things and is not ready to accept the diversity of phenomena – their processes, actual functions and constituents. As a result one’s attitudes are narrowed down to build a complex ‘Self’. Due to perversion one fails to recognize the distinction between the form/appearance (rūpa) from the self or ego (attā).[7]

Therefore the perversions are said to be built on the grounds of self-hood (attabhāvavatthu). Consequently one considers everything keeping oneself at the centre. It causes great agitation within one’s mind as well as tension in the society. Wrong-decision making is a major issue of perversion. Owing to wrong-decision making the activities and interpersonal relationships also get troubled. The Society becomes a collection of individuals who are all victims of perverted perceptions, thoughts, and views. In that way the mind gets involved with all the negativities or defilements (saṃyojanāand kilesa) multiplying miseries and often leading the mind to a point of no-return.

In discussions on the subject of perversions there is always reference to an unprotected mind (arakkhitacitta) which has no power to fight against the negativities. The Buddhist path guides this unprotected mind to fight against the negativities. The negativities refer to all the influences that link and define the material or conceptual things egoistically. The main objective of protecting or training the mind is to see the things objectively: without getting the self or ego involved with that. The arising and passing away should be concentrated deeply so that the true nature of impermanence can be realized. The freedom from perversions has been explained by Venerable Buddhaghosa and translated into English by Nyanatiloka as follows: “Of the perversions, the following are eliminated by the 1st path-knowledge (Sotāpatti): the perversions of perception, consciousness and views, that the impermanent is permanent and what is not a self is a self; further, the perversion of views that the painful is pleasant, and the impure is pure. By the 3rd path-knowledge (Anāgāmitā) are eliminated: the perversions of perception and consciousness that the impure is pure. By the 4th path-knowledge (Arahatta) are eliminated the perversions of perception and consciousness that the painful is pleasant" (Vis.M. XXII, 68).”[8] This is possible only if one exercises the Path of Vipassanā. And that is how the freedom from perversion has to be obtained.