Nature of Modern Life

现代生活的本质：

Today we are living in a world where people have to work very hard physically and mentally. Without hard work, there is no place for people in the modern society. Very often keen competition is going on everywhere. One is trying to beat the other in every sphere of life and man has no rest at all. Mind is the nucleus of life. When there is no real peace and rest in the mind, the whole life will collapse. People naturally try to overcome their miseries through pleasing the senses: they drink, gamble, sing and dance?all the time having the illusion that they are enjoying he real happiness of life. Sense stimulation is not the real way to have relaxation. The more we try to please the senses through sensual pleasures, the more will we become slaves to the senses. There will be no end to our craving for satisfaction. The real way to relax is to calm the senses by the control of mind. If we can control the mind, then we will be able to control everything. When the mind is free from mental disturbances it can see many things which others cannot see with their naked eyes. Ultimately, we will be able to attain our salvation and find peace and happiness. 

今天，我们的生活非常忙碌，人们不辛勤的工作，就无法生存于现代社会。现代社会充满了激烈的竞争，在每一个生活领域里，都有人想尽办法，无休无止的去打击另外一个人。「心」是生命的核心，如果「心」中没有和平与安宁，整个生命将会崩溃。人们很自然的以感官的乐趣来克制他们的忧虑，他们喝酒、赌博、唱歌、跳舞，把所有的时间幻想于他们在享受并获得心情的愉快，这样一来，就成为感官欲乐的奴隶了，我们的欲望是永远得不到满足的。真正放松的办法是：控制心识来冷静我们的感官。如果，我们能控制心识，就能控制一切。当「心」完全被控制和净化后，就能消除精神的困扰，就能看到别人用肉眼看不到的许多事物。到最后，我们将获得解脱和找到和平与幸福。

To practise meditation, one must have strong determination, effort and patience. Immediate results cannot be expected. We must remember that it takes many years for a person to be qualified as a doctor, lawyer, mathematician, philosopher, historian or a scientist. Similarly to be a good meditator, it will take sometime for the person to control the elusive mind and to calm the senses. Practising meditation is like swimming in a river against the current. Therefore one must not lose patience for not being able to obtain rapid results. At the same time the meditator must also cultivate his morality. A congenial place for meditation is another important aspect. The meditator must have an object for his meditation, for without an object the jumping mind is not easy to trap. The object must not create lust, anger, delusion, and emotion in the meditator's mind.

修学禅定要有坚韧不拔的决心、努力和耐心，不能企望马上收效。我们应该知道，一名医生、律师、数学家、哲学家、历史学家或科学家，都是经过长时间的学习才获得成就的。禅定也一样，修行者要花很长的时间去控制那不可捉摸的「心」，然后才能获得平静。修学禅定如逆水行舟，一个人不能因为得不到眼前的收获而失去耐心。禅定的修学者必须培养他的道德。在适当的场所修行也很重要。修行者必须为自己订下目标，那颗跳跃的「心」不容易捕捉，所订下的目标必须远离贪、嗔、痴这三种劣根性。

When we start to meditate, we switch the mind from the old imaginative way of thinking, or habitual thought into a new unimpeded or unusual way of thinking. While meditating when we breathe in mindfully, we absorb cosmic energy. When we breathe out mindfully with Metta; loving kindness, we purify the atmosphere. Intellect is necessary for the overcoming of emotionality and spiritual confusion as intuition is necessary for overcoming intellectual limitation and conceptual abstraction.

当我们开始修学禅定时，我们的「心」从旧有的或传统的思考方式，转变为新的、无障碍和不寻常的思考方式。在修禅时，我们以整颗「心」在呼吸，我们吸进宇宙能源，呼出慈悲喜舍。净化了整个胸怀，生起克服欲念和种种不善的智慧，以智慧克服了知识障碍、知识限制和抽象性的概念。

We spend most of our time on our body: to feed it, to clothe it, to cleanse it, to wash it, to beautify it, to relax it, but how much time do we spend on our mind for the same purposes?

我们花了很多时间在我们的身体上，如：吃饭、穿衣服、洗澡、洗手、洗脸、化妆等等。可是，为了同样的目的，我们却很少把时间花在我们的「心」。

Some people take the Buddha Image as an object and concentrate on it. Some concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. Whatever may be the method, if anyone tries to practise meditation, he is sure to find relaxation. Meditation will help him a great deal to have physical and mental health and to control the mind when it is necessary.

有些人以佛像为集中精神的目标，有些人关注在入出息念，面无论用什么方法，他肯定会发现禅定能令他获得轻松和宁静。禅定对其它方面的帮助也很多，如：身体健康、心理愉快。禅定在必要时，也能帮助我们控制自己的心念。

Man can do the highest service to the society by simply abstaining from evils. The cultured mind that is developed through meditation performs a most useful service to others. Meditation is not simply a waste of man's valuable time. The advanced mind of a meditator can solve so many human problems and is very useful to enlighten others. Meditation is very useful to help a person live peacefully despite various disturbances that are so prevalent in this modern world. We cannot be expected to retire to a jungle or forest to live in ivory towers?'far from the madding crowd'. By practising right meditation we can have an abode for temporary oblivion. Meditation has the purpose of training a person to face, understand and conquer this very world in which we live. Meditation teaches us to adjust ourselves to bear with the numerous obstacles to life in the modern world.

人类能以谢绝恶行这种简单的方式为社会做出高度的贡献。通过禅定开展的文明心念，对服务他人是最有效的。禅定并不浪费时间，禅修者的精进心解决了很多困扰，同时也对启发他人有很大的帮助。纵使生活在烦恼多多的现代社会，禅定也有助于人获得宁静的生活。在这人口密集，充满烦恼的现代社会里，我们无法企望到树林、山野去过那种远离尘嚣的生活──象牙塔的生活，禅定不是逃避主义，它不一定要求要隐藏自己才能获得宁静，禅定讲求的是通过训练心识去面对、去了解、去战胜尘俗的生活。我们必须学习调整自己，来承受在这世界过禅定生活的种种障碍。

Some people practise meditation in order to satisfy their material desires; they want to further their material gains. They want to use meditation to get better jobs. They want to earn more money or to operate their business more efficiently. Perhaps they fail to understand that the aim of meditation is not to increase but to decrease desires. Materialistic motives are hardly suitable for proper meditation, the goal of which lies beyond worldly affairs. One should meditate to try to attain something that even money cannot buy or bring.

If you practice meditation, you can learn to behave like a gentleman even though you are disturbed by others. Through meditation you can learn how to relax the body and to calm the mind; you can learn to be tranquil and happy within.

Just as an engine gets overheated and damaged when it is run for a prolonged period and requires cooling down to overcome this, so also the mind gets overtaxed when we subject it to a sustained degree of mental effort and it is only through meditation that relaxation or cooling can be achieved. Meditation strengthens the mind to control human emotion when it is disturbed by negative thoughts and feelings such as jealousy, anger, pride and envy.

有些人修禅是为了满足物质欲望，利用禅定获得工作或赚取更多的金钱。他们不了解禅定的意义，禅定不是为了增长，而是为了减少欲望，物欲的动机不适合于禅定。禅定的目的是超越世间的，追求那些非金钱能够买到的，或他人不能提供的精神领域。在修禅时受到他人骚扰，要以绅士的风度，冷静的面对他。透过修禅你将学会如何放松自己和使自己的内心安宁，你将获得宁静和愉快的内在。在修禅时，你会否定某些思想和感觉，如：嫉妒、嗔恚、傲慢、和羡慕等等，从而学到如何控制自己的心识。

If you practise meditation, you can learn to make the proper decision when you are at a cross-roads in life and are at a loss as to which way to turn. These qualities cannot be purchased from anywhere. No amount of money or property can buy these qualities, yet you attain them through meditation. And finally the ultimate object of Buddhist meditation is to eradicate all defilements from the mind and to attain the final goal--Nibbana.

如果你修学禅定，你将学会如何在迷失方向的十字路口，做出适当的决定。如果你修学禅定，你将会发展自己的涵养，涵养不是金钱能够买到的。佛教徒修学禅定的目的，是从心中涤除所有的污秽，从而达到终极的目标──涅槃。

Nowadays, however, the practice of meditation has been abused by people. They want immediate and quick results, just as they expect quick returns for everything they do in daily life. In Buddhism, as is the case with other eastern cultures, patience is a most important quality. The mind must be brought under control in slow degrees and one should not try to reach for the higher states without proper training. We have heard of over-enthusiastic young men and women literally going out of their minds because they adopted the wrong attitudes towards meditation. Meditation is a gentle way of conquering the defilements which pollute the mind. If people want 'success' or 'achievement' to boast to others that they have attained this or that level of meditation, they are abusing the method of mental culture. One must be trained in morality and one must clearly understand that to be successful in the discipline of meditation worldly achievement must not be equated with spiritual development. Ideally, it is good to work under an experienced teacher who will help his student to develop along the right path. But above all one must never be in a hurry to achieve too much too quickly.

今天，禅定已被人们滥用，他们想即刻获得成就，有如在他们日常生活中所得到的一样。在佛教和其它东方文化一致认为耐心是修学禅定的最重要因素。我们必须按步就班的控制我们自己的心识，我们不应该要求不通过专心训练，就想达到最高的境界，我们理解到某些人对禅定抱着错误的观念。禅定是以一种温驯的方式来克服我们心灵的烦恼。如果修禅是为了炫耀我们的成就，就是在滥用禅定。修学禅定必须以道德为基础，并清楚的了解禅定必须在有经验老师的指点下，才能在正道有所发展。总的来说，我们修学禅定，不能渴求在短期内获得最大利益。