In the Ofudesaki, the words shinjitsu, makoto shinjitsu, isamu, sumashite, osamaru, sadamete, and sunda are all words signifying the purification of the mind. The purification of mind is foremost in attaining the joyous life. People often ask me how do we reach the stage of purification. The answer is in the Ofudesaki. The picture below shows how to do this.

How to purify our minds.

1. Acknowledge that most of us have evil thoughts or dusts in our minds. These dusts are regret, covetousness, self-love, greed, and arrogance.
2. Acknowledge that obstacles and temptations occur in our lives. These are like angry coworkers, angry spouse, oppositions, alcohol, seductive pictures, material wealth, casinos, etc.
3. From these obstacles and temptations, emotions arise from our evil thoughts or dusts. These emotions are like anger that arises from the evil thought of arrogance, depression that arises from self’-love, lust that arises from covetousness, and compulsion that arises from greed.

When these emotions arise, we must calm our minds and ponder. What must we ponder? God tells us that these obstacles or temptations arise due to dusts in our own minds. We must ponder the dust or evil thought that may have initiated the inconvenience or temptations before us.  We must not blame the angry coworker or spouse that initiated the confrontation, but we must ponder the dusts in our mind. When we are able to do this, we will be able to calm our minds, and not act upon our emotions. This is how we purify our