I think in general, the practice of purification is found not just in Buddhist traditions.
I've noticed that almost all the world's major religious traditions have some form of purification,
confession and so forth.
What is Purification in Buddhism?
In Tibetan Buddhism, we have a strong element of Vajrayana practice.
Buddhist Vajrayana practice.
In Buddhist Vajrayana practices, there are sections of the teachings and practices that focus on purification.
Now here, the main part of purification is first of all,
to acknowledge the mistakes we make.
Under whatever circumstances.
By your own knowledge or without your knowledge,
due to the strong influence of attachment, aversion and ignorance, mistakes are made.
Unpleasant activities are committed with your body, speech and mind.
That is the first step of purification.
Without this kind of acknowledgement,
you can't do the purification practice.
Yes of course, you can do the recitation, the visualization and all those things,
but actual purification will not take place.
That's the first step: acknowledging that mistakes are made.
The second thing is to have determination.
Determination.
Mistakes have been made in the past,
and in the coming days, months and years,
I will try not to make such mistakes again.
That determination is very important.
When we have these two:
acknowledgement that mistakes are made and a determination not to do similar things again,
then we can apply what we call the antidote.
For example, if you've noticed that out of anger, you've done something very unpleasant to others,
the actual purification is then to develop a strong sense of love towards them.
Cultivating that kind of mental state is the actual purification.
Here people quite often have this concept or image
that during purification, they do this, this, this and this,
and the negativities are in a very dark, strange, unpleasant form,
so they do recitation or visualisation or prostrations,
and the very dark force or whatever is completely gone.
It's not like that.
For me, purification is like this, and I will give an example.
You have a garden, and spring is starting.
And you want to sow some seeds for vegetables for the summer and autumn.
You get the seed packets and you sow some seeds.
But a few weeks later, you look at the packet,
you've actually sowed seeds for winter vegetables, not summer and autumn ones.
So what can you do?
You don't take care of them, you don't water them, you don't add fertiliser.
So what's going to happen?
Even if they grow, they won't grow that much.
And in certain cases they will just stay as a seed, if you stop giving water.
Purification is similar in that sense.
When you stop doing the same unpleasant things again and again and again,
what has already been done won't have the full strength to bring results.
That is the meaning of purification.