Clearing and Cleaning

As the bodhisattva progresses on the path, two distinct but related practices become essential: clearing and cleaning. Understanding the difference between them—and when each is appropriate—is a crucial discernment.

The Distinction

Cleaning is expanding loving-kindness energy within us. It is the inner purification work—working with our own obstructions, our aggression, our shadow, our unexamined patterns. This is the work of transforming our own mindstream.

Clearing is excluding energies that are absent of loving-kindness. It is not about inner purification but about maintaining clear space. Other energies—beings, presences, influences—may occupy our space, thicken the walls, dim the light. Clearing removes them.

At earlier stages of development, cleaning is the primary work. There is much inner purification to do. At more advanced stages, after years of practice and genuine accomplishment in loving-kindness, clearing becomes increasingly important. The bright light attracts other energies, and maintaining clear space becomes essential for the work to continue.

Why Clearing Becomes Necessary

As consciousness brightens through practice and realization, it becomes visible—attractive—to other energies. These may be beings, presences, extraterrestrial consciousnesses, or simply energetic patterns that are drawn to light. Not all of these are aligned with loving-kindness.

These energies can clog the channel, suppress transmission, introduce fatigue and confusion. The practitioner may experience symptoms—intense fatigue, mental fog, emotional interference—that are not their own inner obstacles but external presences occupying their space.

Clearing practices—using sage, direct energetic work, ritual exclusion—become necessary. These practices, which many dismiss as superstition, are actually powerful and effective. They thin the walls, remove occupying presences, and allow more light to stream through.

The Mahayana Development and Its Bypass

The Mahayana path develops immense compassion. Through practices like metta, tonglen, the paramitas, and the bodhisattva vow, the practitioner cultivates genuine loving-kindness for all beings. This is real accomplishment—the practices do what they are designed to do in the mindstream.

However, a subtle bypass can occur. The core wound—whatever personal karmic pattern drives the individual—may get ignored in favor of immense compassion. Because one is living a life of such ahimsa (non-harming), the sight of harm—especially unintentional harm caused by oneself—becomes very hard to bear.

The practitioner may bear it, but also avoid situations that trigger it—isolating, withdrawing, shrinking their engagement with the world. The compassion becomes, in part, a way to not look at the wound.

The Tantric Shift

The Tantrayana introduces something different from the Mahayana: the recognition that "killing" energies that clog things up is sometimes necessary. This is not aggression—it is wrathful compassion. The protector deities are fierce, boundaried, exclusive, AND fully loving.

This can be difficult for practitioners who have developed primarily through the Mahayana. The vow to help all beings seems to preclude excluding anyone or anything. The logic runs: to exclude is to harm, to abandon, to violate the vow.

But this logic is mistaken.

Not Being IN All Beings

A crucial realization: I do not have to be IN all beings to keep my vow of helping all beings.

One can be fully in loving-kindness and still help beings that are not in loving-kindness. To exclude energies absent of loving-kindness is not to give up on them. One does not need to martyr oneself—to let harmful energies occupy one's space—in order to fulfill the bodhisattva vow.

In fact, the opposite is true: the bodhisattva who allows their light to be dimmed by occupying presences helps no one. Maintaining one's capacity to help requires maintaining clear space. The vow is better served by excluding than by drowning.

This breaks the logic that kept the wound in place:

• Old: My existing harms → Must minimize harm → Ahimsa to extreme → Must include ALL beings → Cannot exclude → Harmful energies accumulate → Fatigue, suppression
• New: My existing in loving-kindness helps all beings → Can exclude energies absent of loving-kindness WITHOUT abandoning vow → Excluding is clarity, not aggression → Help them more by maintaining light than by letting them dim it

Wrathful Compassion and Compassionate Wrath

Two related but distinct approaches exist for working with beings or energies that are not aligned with loving-kindness:

Wrathful Compassion: We stay IN the realm with them and help them purify it. We remain present with the being or energy, working within their space, helping transform from inside. This is the long patient work of purification together.

Compassionate Wrath: We take them OUT of it. We remove the being or energy from the space. This is clearing, excluding—the fierce protective action. "You cannot stay here"—said from love, not from aggression.

Delineating which is appropriate is a key part of the bodhisattva path. The most difficult discernment: when to stay and purify together versus when to remove and exclude. And doing either from loving-kindness, not from aggression or fear.

The nuance: Most people exclude easily but from aggression and fear (shrinking realm, line-kat-vi thickening). This is different—exclusion from TRUE bodhisattva motivation. Loving-kindness that maintains its own integrity in order to serve. The wrathful compassion of protector deities—fierce, boundaried, exclusive, AND fully loving.

The Universal Human Question

The question of clearing versus staying is not esoteric at all. It is perhaps the most perennial human question: Should I go or should I stay?

Should I break up with this person? Should I quit this job? Should I leave this community? Should I move from this place? Should I call this person or not call them? Should I end this friendship? Should I stay in this marriage?

We struggle with these questions constantly. They occupy enormous amounts of our mental energy, cycling through our minds, generating anxiety, confusion, and paralysis.

The Human Realm and "Grass Is Greener"

The Buddhist teachings on the six realms identify the human realm with a specific quality: desire, and particularly the restless sense that maybe if I just go over there, it will be better. This is the signature energy of human existence.

The god realm is characterized by blissful absorption. The jealous god realm by competitive envy. The animal realm by ignorance and routine. The hungry ghost realm by insatiable craving. The hell realm by aggression and hatred.

The human realm is characterized by this particular form of desire: the grass-is-greener quality, the endless wondering whether somewhere else, someone else, some other situation would be better. This is why humans are uniquely positioned for spiritual development—we have enough suffering to motivate change, but not so much that we are overwhelmed. And we have this restless questioning that can become genuine inquiry.

But usually it doesn't become genuine inquiry. Usually it remains as cycling rumination: should I stay or should I go, endlessly, never resolving, never truly choosing.

The Wrong Way to Answer

Most people try to answer this question through the thinking mind. They make lists of pros and cons. They analyze. They seek advice. They try to figure out the "right" answer.

This rarely works. The thinking mind goes around and around—this is the whirlpool pattern we described earlier. Each cycle thickens the line-kat-vi walls, increasing confusion rather than resolving it. The more we think about whether to go or stay, the less clear we become.

This is because the answer does not live in the thinking mind. The thinking mind can analyze, but it cannot know. It can weigh options, but it cannot feel truth.

The Answer Lies in Realming

The answer is: do what is described in this book. Realm your way into the answer.

Instead of trying to figure out whether to go or stay, focus on becoming more of your true self. Clean and clear. Develop spiritually. Become more of what you know yourself to truly be. Discover what lives in your heart.

As you do this, the answer will arise—not as a conclusion of analysis, but as a felt knowing. The situation will resolve itself, one way or another.

The Two Possible Outcomes

When you focus on becoming more of your true self—more honest, more generous, more patient, more wise—one of two things will happen:

Harmony increases: The person, situation, or place adapts and comes closer into resonance with who you are becoming. The relationship transforms. The job evolves. The community grows. You don't have to leave because the situation itself changes in response to your change.

Disharmony increases: The person, situation, or place moves farther from resonance with who you are becoming. The gap widens. What was tolerable becomes intolerable. What was unclear becomes obvious. You don't have to decide to leave; the leaving becomes inevitable, natural, clear.

Either way, you don't have to figure it out. You have to become more yourself, and the answer reveals itself.

Contemplation as Practice

This is also what formal contemplation means. In contemplation, we sit with a question—not analyzing it, but holding it. We let the question be present without grasping for an answer.

Eventually, the answer arises—not as words, not as a logical conclusion, but as a felt experience. The body knows. The heart knows. Something shifts, settles, clarifies.

This is not the same as thinking about the question. Thinking cycles through options, weighs pros and cons, generates more thinking. Contemplation holds the question in open awareness and allows knowing to arise from deeper than thought.

The practice is simple: Sit. Breathe. Hold the question lightly. Do not try to answer it. Let the answer come to you.

The Key Discernment

Most people exclude easily—but from aggression and fear, building the walls that shrink their realm.

The bodhisattva must learn to exclude from loving-kindness. Exclusion from fear shrinks the realm and imprisons the excluder. Exclusion from loving-kindness maintains the realm's capacity to help and serves all beings—including the one being excluded.

The question is always: What is the fabric of my action? Am I excluding because I am afraid, or because loving-kindness requires it? Am I staying because genuine help is possible, or because I am avoiding the difficult action that love demands?

There is no formula. There is only clarity, moment by moment, examining the fabric of our action and choosing from loving-kindness.