Mindfulness In Plain English
佛教禅修直解
by Mahathera Henepola Gunaratana
德宝法师著作
梁国雄居士译
Chapter 4: Attitude
第四章 禅修的态度
Within the last century, Western science and physics have made a startling discovery. We are part of the world we view. The very process of our observation changes the things we observe. As an example, an electron is an extremely tiny item. It cannot be viewed without instrumentation, and that apparatus dictates what the observer will see. If you look at an electron in one way, it appears to be a particle, a hard little ball that bounces around in nice straight paths. When you view it another way, an electron appears to be a wave form, with nothing solid about it. It glows and wiggles all over the place. An electron is an event more than a thing. And the observer participates in that event by the very process of his or her observation. There is no way to avoid this interaction.
在上一世纪，西方的科学有一惊人发现，我们都是我们所看见的世界的一部分，我们的观察过程本身会改变我们正在观察的东西。例如：电子是极为微小的东西，没有仪器是观察不到它的，而观察者会看到什么则取决于那件仪器。用某一方法看电子时，它是一颗微粒(Particle)，像细小的皮球硬体一样依直线弹来弹去；用另一方法看它时，它是一种波动(Wave form)，空而不实，它发光发热，扭动着遍布该处，此时，电子看来不是一个实物，而是一件事(Event)。而观察者在其观察过程中自然地会成为该事件的参与者，这种互动作用是无法避免的。
Eastern science has recognized this basic principle for a very long time. The mind is a set of events, and the observer participates in those events every time he or she looks inward. Meditation is participatory observation. What you are looking at responds to the process of looking. What you are looking at is you, and what you see depends on how you look. Thus the process of meditation is extremely delicate, and the result depends absolutely on the state of mind of the meditator. The following attitudes are essential to success in practice. Most of them have been presented before. But we bring them together again here as a series of rules for application.
至于东方科学，很早已认识此基本原理了。心本身就是一系列事件，每一次你向内观心时，一定会参与那些事件的。禅修是参与性的观察，你的观察对象会对观察过程产生反应，你看的对象是你自己，而你看到什么则取决于你怎么样看。因此，禅修是一种非常微妙的过程，其结果完全取决于禅修者的心态。下列态度，对禅修实践的成功与否至为重要，大部分在前面已经讲过，我们把它们集合起来，好让禅修者作为一系列的准则来应用。
1. Don't expect anything. Just sit back and see what happens. Treat the whole thing as an experiment. Take an active interest in the test itself. But don't get distracted by your expectations about results. For that matter, don't be anxious for any result whatsoever. Let the meditation move along at its own speed and in its own direction. Let the meditation teach you what it wants you to learn. Meditative awareness seeks to see reality exactly as it is. Whether that corresponds to our expectations or not, it requires a temporary suspension of all our preconceptions and ideas. We must store away our images, opinions and interpretations someplace out of the way for the duration. Otherwise we will stumble over them.
(1) 不要期望任何东西只管坐着，看看什么事情会发生。把整件事看成是一种实验，对试验本身提起积极的兴趣，不要对结果有所期望，以免分心。就此而言，不可为任何会发生的结果而担忧，让禅修依其步伐与方向前进，让禅修教导你。禅修的觉察试图了解现存事物的实相，因此，不管是否符合期望，我们实有必要暂时中止一切预想与意见。在禅修期间，我们必须把心中的影像、意见、解释或描述等都封存起来，否则将会被它们绊倒。
2. Don't strain: Don't force anything or make grand exaggerated efforts. Meditation is not aggressive. There is no violent striving. Just let your effort be relaxed and steady.
(2) 不要太过绷紧不要过分勉强行事，不要作重大与夸张的努力。禅修不是侵略性行为，实无需作激烈性的斗争，只须从容不迫地、平稳地用功即可。
3. Don't rush: There is no hurry, so take you time. Settle yourself on a cushion and sit as though you have a whole day. Anything really valuable takes time to develop. Patience, patience, patience.
(3) 不要匆促行事不必匆忙，从容地进行吧，让自己好整以暇地端坐在垫子上，就好像你有一整天的时间一样，任何真正有价值的东西，都需要时间去慢慢发展的，要忍耐、忍耐、再忍耐。
4. Don't cling to anything and don't reject anything: Let come what comes and accommodate yourself to that, whatever it is. If good mental images arise, that is fine. If bad mental images arise, that is fine, too. Look on all of it as equal and make yourself comfortable with whatever happens. Don't fight with what you experience, just observe it all mindfully.
(4) 不要执着任何东西，也不要排斥任何东西要来的就让它来，无论遇到什么事情，都应随遇而安。若内心出现美好的影像，那是好的；若内心出现丑恶的影像，亦佳。对所有出现的东西应等量齐观，万事都要泰然自若，不要和你的经验作对，只须留心地观察着它们即可。
5. Let go: Learn to flow with all the changes that come up. Loosen up and relax.
(5) 放下学习随顺一切遇到的转变，好好地松开和松弛。
6. Accept everything that arises: Accept your feelings, even the ones you wish you did not have. Accept your experiences, even the ones you hate. Don't condemn yourself for having human flaws and failings. Learn to see all the phenomena in the mind as being perfectly natural and understandable. Try to exercise a disinterested acceptance at all times and with respect to everything you experience.
(6) 接受一切发生的事情接受你的任何感受，即使那是你所不想有的。接受你的任何经验，即使那是你所憎恨的。不要责怪自己拥有人性上的缺点与过失，学习了解内心之一切现象完全是自然的，是可以理解的。对自己所经验的一切，要随时采取公正无私的接受态度。
7. Be gentle with yourself: Be kind to yourself. You may not be perfect, but you are all you've got to work with. The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.
(7) 好好善待自己对自己仁慈一点吧！你也许并不完美，可是，你只有自己这个合作伙伴，别无他选。你的自我改变过程，首先得由完全接受你自己现在的样子开始。
8. Investigate yourself: Question everything. Take nothing for granted. Don't believe anything because it sounds wise and pious and some holy men said it. See for yourself. That does not mean that you should be cynical, impudent or irreverent. It means you should be empirical. Subject all statements to the actual test of your experience and let the results be your guide to truth. Insight meditation evolves out of an inner longing to wake up to what is real and to gain liberating insight to the true structure of existence. The entire practice hinges upon this desire to be awake to the truth. Without it, the practice is superficial.
(8) 审查你自己质疑每一件事，没有什么是理所当然的。不要因为它听起来似有见识、虔诚、或出于圣者之口就相信，要亲自去查看。这不是要你愤世嫉俗、放肆无礼、或是不敬，而是要你根据经验，要你亲自验证所有观点，让结果作为你接近真理的向导。内观禅的逐步形成，乃源于欲领悟现实的内在渴求，以及获得洞悉生存结构的解脱智慧。整个修行都是以此为依归── 欲领悟真理的渴求；若缺少了它，禅修是肤浅的。
9. View all problems as challenges: Look upon negatives that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself or bear your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in and investigate.
(9) 视所有问题为挑战视一切出现的逆境为学习与成长的机会，不要逃避它们、不要责备自己、或独自黯然神伤。你有问题吗？太好了！自我砥砺的良机来了，欣喜吧！投入其中，作深入的考察吧！
10. Don't ponder: You don't need to figure everything out. Discursive thinking won't free you from the trap. In mediation, the mind is purified naturally by mindfulness, by wordless bare attention. Habitual deliberation is not necessary to eliminate those things that are keeping you in bondage. All that is necessary is a clear, non-conceptual perception of what they are and how they work. That alone is sufficient to dissolve them. Concepts and reasoning just get in the way. Don't think. See.
(10) 不要考虑太多你不必事事都要搞清楚，散漫的思考是不能令你解困的。在禅修中，透过静观与无言的单纯注意，你的心自然得到净化。要消除束缚你的东西，并不需要惯性的思虑，你需要的只是清楚地、非概念性地直接觉知到「那是什么」，以及「它是怎么样运作的」，即可化解；概念与推理思维只会造成障碍，不要想，要观察。
11. Don't dwell upon contrasts: Differences do exist between people, but dwelling upon then is a dangerous process. Unless carefully handled, it leads directly to egotism. Ordinary human thinking is full of greed, jealousy and pride. A man seeing another man on the street may immediately think, "He is better looking than I am." The instant result is envy or shame. A girl seeing another girl may think, "I am prettier than she is." The instant result is pride. This sort of comparison is a mental habit, and it leads directly to ill feeling of one sort or another: greed, envy, pride, jealousy, hatred. It is an unskillful mental state, but we do it all the time. We compare our looks with others, our success, our accomplishments, our wealth, possessions, or I.Q. and all these lead to the same place--estrangement, barriers between people, and ill feeling.
(11) 不要耽于比较或对照人与人之间确实有很多差异，耽于比较是危险的。若不小心处理，这会直接演变成唯我主义(Egotism) ── 自私自利、自尊自大。世人的思想充满贪欲、妒忌与傲慢。一个男人在街上遇到另一个男人时，或会立刻想到：「他比我好看。」内心即时就会生起妒忌与羞愧；一个女孩看到另一个女孩时，或会立刻想到：「我比她漂亮。」内心即时就会生起骄傲。类似这些比较都是一种心理习惯，它会直接引起一些不良的心态，例如：贪欲、妒忌、傲慢、怨恨与敌意等。比较是一种不善巧的心态，而我们竟一直做个不停。我们与他人比较外观、成功、成就、财富、财产或智商，这一切做法只会导致人与人之间的疏离、不和、隔阂与反感。
The meditator's job is to cancel this unskillful habit by examining it thoroughly, and then replacing it with another. Rather than noticing the differences between self and others, the meditator trains himself to notice similarities. He centers his attention on those factors that are universal to all life, things that will move him closer to others. Thus his comparison, if any, leads to feelings of kinship rather than feelings of estrangement.
禅修者的主要工作，是通过彻底审察这些不善的习惯来消除它，然后代之以善者；不是去注意彼此间的差异，而是训练自己去留意彼此相同的地方。禅修者的关注点是所有生命的共同要素，那些能令他更接近别人的东西。因此，即使有所比较，那也只会带来亲密而非疏离感。
Breathing is a universal process. All vertebrates breathe in essentially the same manner. All living things exchange gasses with their environment in some way or other. This is one of the reasons that breathing is chosen as the focus of meditation. the meditator is advised to explore the process of his own breathing as a vehicle for realizing his own inherent connectedness with the rest of life. This does not mean that we shut our eyes to all the differences around us. Differences exist. It means simply that we de-emphasize contrasts and emphasize the universal factors. The recommended procedure is as follows:
呼吸是生命共有的过程，所有脊椎动物的呼吸方式基本上是相同的，众生皆以某一方式与环境交换气体。禅修采用呼吸为集中对象，原因之一就在于此。禅修者被教导去探索自己的呼吸过程，其实是了解自己与其他生命的内在联系的一个方便法门。这不是说，我们要闭上眼睛，对身边的一切差异漠不关心，差异是存在的，只是我们不想强调差异，而是强调共同的地方。
When the meditator perceives any sensory object, he is not to dwell upon it in the ordinary egotistical way. He should rather examine the very process of perception itself. He should watch the feelings that arise and the mental activities that follow. He should note the changes that occur in his own consciousness as a result. In watching all these phenomena, the meditator must be aware of the universality of what he is seeing. That initial perception will spark pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings. That is a universal phenomenon. It occurs in the mind of others just as it does in his, and he should see that clearly. Following these feelings various reactions may arise. He may feel greed, lust, or jealousy. He may feel fear, worry, restlessness or boredom. These reactions are universal. He simple notes them and then generalizes. He should realize that these reactions are normal human responses and can arise in anybody.
以下是可取的步骤：作为禅修者的我们，当觉知到任何一种感官对象时，不可依惯常的自我中心方式去持续地细想着它，而是审察那个觉知过程本身。我们应观看那个对象如何影响着感官与知觉，应观看生起的感受与随后而来的心理活动，接着，我们应注意在意识中出现的改变。在观看这些现象时，禅修者要觉察到所观现象的普遍性。知觉开始时，快乐、不快乐、或中性的感受是会出现的，这是一种普遍现象，在自己与在别人的心里也会生起，我们应清楚地看到这一点。在这些感受之后，可能会出现各种各样的反应，我们可能生起贪欲、色欲、或妒忌，也可能感到恐惧、忧虑、不安或厌倦。这些反应也都很普遍，我们只须注意它们，然后加以概括。我们应了解，这些都是平常人所有的反应，在任何人的身上都会发生。
The practice of this style of comparison may feel forced and artificial at first, but it is no less natural than what we ordinarily do. It is merely unfamiliar. With practice, this habit pattern replaces our normal habit of egoistic comparing and feels far more natural in the long run. We become very understanding people as a result. we no longer get upset by the failings of others. We progress toward harmony with all life.
上述的修习方式，开始时可能令人觉得有点勉强和做作，可是，与我们的惯常做法相比，它不算过分，我们只是不熟悉而已。透过练习，这个习惯会取代我们惯常的以自我为中心的比较模式；长远来说，它会令人觉得较为自然；我们会变得善解人意，对别人的错失也不再介怀，并且逐渐能与一切众生和谐共处。
