Picking Up Mangoes
捡起芒果
当你有了智慧,在接触到感官的对象时,不论是好坏,快乐或痛苦,就像我们站在树下收集果实一般。有人爬到芒果树上为我们摇芒果,我们只须在芒果之中挑选好的与烂的,而不必浪费力气,因为我们不须爬到树上去。
When you have wisdom, contact with sense objects, whether good or bad, pleasant or painful, is like standing at the bottom of a mango tree and collecting the fruit while another person climbs up and shakes it down for us. We get to choose between the good and rotten mangoes, and we do not waste our strength because we do not have to climb up the tree.
这是什么意思呢?所有的感官对象(外尘)正带给我们知识,我们不须去添加什么世俗的八风──得与失、誉与毁、称与讥、乐与苦──它们是自己来的。如果你的内心已经增加了平静和智慧,你就能够好好享有捡拾和挑选的喜悦。
他人所称的好或坏、这里或是那里、快乐或是痛苦,都使你大为获益,因为已经有人爬到树上去摇芒果,你没有什么好担心害怕的。
What does this mean? All the sense objects that come to us are bringing us knowledge. We do not need to embellish them. The eight worldly winds gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, pain and pleasure-come of their own. If your heart has developed tranquility and wisdom, you can enjoy picking and choosing. What others may call good or bad, here or there, happiness or suffering, is all to your profit, because someone else has climbed up to shake the mangoes down, and you have nothing to fear.
那八风就好像从你头上掉下来的芒果,运用你的专注(定)和平静去观照、去采集,知道哪些水果是好的、哪些是坏的,就叫做智慧、内观。不必去使它生起或创造它。如果有了智慧,内观就会自然地生起。虽然我称之为智慧,但其实是不须要给它名字的。
The eight worldly winds are like mangoes falling down to you. Use your concentration and tranquility to contemplate, to collect. Knowing which fruits are good and which are rotten is called wisdom, vipassana. You do not make it up or create it. If there is wisdom, insight arises naturally. Although I call it wisdom, you do not have to give it a name.