[中译]良稹

　　Bathed in the Breath

　　by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu

　　When there’s a Dhamma talk, you don’t have to listen. The important thing is to stay with your breath. When the breath comes in, you know it’s coming in; when it goes out, you know it’s going out. Try to make that experience of the breath fill your awareness as much as possible. The Dhamma talk here is a fence to keep you corralled with the breath. When the mind wanders off, here’s the sound of the Dhamma to remind you to go back to the breath, but when you’re with the breath you don’t need reminding. You do your own reminding. That’s what the mindfulness does in the meditation. Each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, remind yourself to stay with the breath. Make just a little mental note: “This is where you want to stay, this is where you want to stay.”有开示时,你不一定要聆听。重要的是,跟你的气呆在一起。气入时,你知道它在入内; 气出时,你知道它在外出。试着尽量使那股气的体验填满你的觉知。这里的开示,是把你和气拢在一起的圈栏。心游荡出去时,有法音在这里提醒你返回到气; 不过当你跟气住在一起时,就不需要提醒了。你自己提醒自己。那就是念在禅定中的作用。每一次吸气,每一次呼气,提醒自己与气呆在一起。作一个小小的心理标记: “这是你要呆的地方,这是你要呆的地方。”

　　And try not to think of s yourself as inhabiting one part of the body watching the breath in another part of the body. Think of the breath as all around you. It’s coming in and out the front, coming in and out the back, down from the top, all the way out to your fingers, all the way out to your toes. There’s a subtle breath energy coming in and out of the body all the time. If you’re in one part of the body watching the breath in the other part, you’re probably blocking the breath energy to make space for that sense of “you” in the part of the body that’s watching. So think of yourself as totally surrounded by the breath, bathed in the breath, and then survey the whole body to see where there are still sections of the body that are tense or tight, that are preventing the breath from coming in and going out. Allow them to loosen up.试着不把自己想象成居于身体的某处,观察身体的另一处。把气想象成四面八方围绕着你。它在你的身前进出,在你的背上进出,从头顶往下走,一直到从你的手指外出,一直到从你的脚趾外出。有一股精细的气能,一直在进出身体。如果你位于身体的某一处,观察另一处的气,就有可能为了造就处在观察部位的那个“你”感,而阻碍了气能。因此,把自己想成整个被气所包围,沐浴在气中,接着,审视全身,看还有哪些身体节段仍然感到蹦紧、勒紧,仍然阻碍着气的出入。让它们松开。

　　This way you allow for the fullness of the breath to come in, go out, each time there’s an in-breath, each time there’s an out-breath. Actually the fullness doesn’t go in and out. There’s just a quality of fullness that’s bathed by the breath coming in, bathed by the breath going out. It’s not squeezed out by the breath. It’s not forced out by the breath. Each nerve in the body is allowed to relax and have a sense of fullness, right here, right now. Simply try to maintain that sense of fullness by the way you breathe. Your focus is on the breath, but you can’t help but notice the fullness.这样, 每一次入气,每一次出气,你都让气的那股充沛性进来、出去。实际上,不是充沛性在进出,只是有一种充沛的素质, 被入气所沐浴,被出气所沐浴。它不被气挤出。它不被气赶出。体内的每根经络, 此地此刻,都被允许放松,都有一股充沛感。你只要借着调节呼吸,试着维持那股充沛感。你把注意力放在气上,不过你不可能不注意到那股充沛。

　　If you can’t get that sense of fullness going throughout the whole body, find at least some part of the body that doesn’t feel squeezed out, that feels open and expansive, and then see if you can copy that same feeling tone in other parts of the body. Notice the other different parts of the body where it feels open like that and allow them to connect. At first, nothing much will happen from that sense of connection, but allow it to stay open, stay open. Each time you breathe in, each time you breathe out, maintain that sense of openness, openness, and the sense of connection will get stronger. 如果你不能够使那股充沛感到达全身,起码要找到某个身体部位,在那里你不感到挤压,而是感到开通、扩展,接下来,看看你能不能把同样的觉受基调,复制到身体的其它部位。注意观察别处有同样开通感的部位,让它们连通起来。一开始,从那股连通感当中,不会发生很多事,不过要允许它继续开着、继续开着。每一次吸气,每一次呼气,都要维持那股开通、开通的感觉,连通感就会增强起来。

　　This is why the ability to stay with these sensations is so important, for your staying with them is what allows them to grow. If you move off to someplace else, if you’re thinking of something else, there will have to be a tensing-up in the body to allow that thought to happen. Whatever sense of fullness might have developed—say, in your arms or your legs, in different parts of the body, down your back—doesn’t have a chance to develop. It gets squeezed off because you’re not paying attention to it any more.这就是为什么,与这些觉受呆在一起的能力如此重要,因为正是你跟它们呆在一起,才是让它们增长的原因。如果你挪到了别处,如果你去想其它事,体内必须有一种紧绷,才能那个想法发生。不管已经发展出什么充沛感——比如在你的胳膊或腿内,在身体的不同部位,沿背而下——就没有继续发展的机缘了。它给挤缩了,因为你对它不再关注。

　　This is why the Buddha talks about concentration as mahaggatam cittam: an enlarged awareness. If your awareness is limited just to one little spot, everything else gets squeezed out, everything else gets blotted out—and what is that if not ignorance? You’re trying to make your awareness 360 degrees, all around in all directions, because the habit of the mind is to focus its awareness in one spot here, then one spot there, moving around, but there’s always the one spot, one spot, one spot. It opens up a little bit and then squeezes off again, opens up a little bit, squeezes off again, and nothing has a chance to grow. But if you allow things to open up throughout the whole body, you realize that if you think about anything at all you destroy that openness. So you’ve got to be very, very careful, very, very still, to allow this open fullness to develop.这就是为什么,佛陀把定说成 mahaggata? citta?——大至心——扩大的觉知。如果你的觉知只局限在一个小点上,其它一切都给挤了出去,其它一切都给遮了出去——那不是无明,又是什么? 你在试着使你的觉知达到360度,立体全方位,因为心的习惯是,把觉知聚焦到这一点,接着聚焦到那一点,但总是只盯那一个点、一个点、一个点。它略略展开,接着又给挤缩,略略展开,又给挤缩,什么也没有机缘增长。不过,如果你允许那些东西在全身到处展开,就会意识到,你若是想任何事,就会破坏那股开通性。因此,你不得不极其、极其地仔细,极其、极其地寂止,让这股开通的充沛继续展开。

　　So these qualities of consistency, care, and heedfulness are important in allowing this state of concentration to develop. Without them, nothing much seems to happen. You have a little bit of concentration, then you step on it, a little bit of concentration, then you squeeze it off as you go looking at something else, thinking about something else. And so whatever little bits and pieces of concentration you do have, don’t seem very remarkable. They don’t get a chance to be remarkable. Concentration takes time—and our society’s pretty extraordinary in fostering the expectation that things should happen quickly. If anything’s going to be good, it has to happen quickly, it has to be instant. And so, by and large, we’ve lost the ability to stay with things as they develop slowly. We’ve lost the ability to keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away at a large task that’s going to take time and can’t be speeded up.因此,为了让这个定境展开,持恒、仔细、审慎等这些素质是十分重要的。没有它们,什么也不会发生。你有一点定,接着却踩上它,有一点定,又把它挤掉,因为你去看别的东西,想别的事。这样,不管得了什么细碎的定,它们似乎没有什么特别。它们没有特别起来的机缘。修定是费时的——我们的社会,在鼓励“事当速成”的期待方面,是超乎寻常的。任何东西,若是好的,则必须速成,必须立得。因此,我们多数人已经失去了对慢慢发展起来的事物不弃不离的跟随能力。我们已经失去了对一桩耗时长久、不能速成的大型工件,不停地削凿、 削凿、 削凿的能力。

　　When the Buddha gives images for practicing concentration, he often relates them to skills. Skills take time, and he was teaching people who had taken the time to master many useful skills. In Thailand, they still sharpen knives against stones, and it’s a skill you have to learn: how not to ruin the knife as you’re sharpening it. If you get impatient and try to speed things up, you’ll ruin the sharpness, the straightness of the blade. So you have to be very still. The mind has to be still, and you have to maintain just the right amount of pressure constantly as you sharpen the blade. At first it may seem like nothing is happening, but over time the blade does get sharper and sharper. The consistency of your pressure is what guarantees that the blade won’t get worn in one particular spot—too sharp in one spot and not sharp enough in another, too sharp in the sense that the blade is no longer straight. You’ve worn it down too much in one spot. There are a lot of things you have to watch out for, simply in the act of sharpening a blade. But if you have that skill in your repertoire, then when the time comes to meditate, it’s easier to relate to what you’re doing: that same kind of consistency, that same evenness of pressure, the continual mindfulness and alertness that are needed to maintain the proper pressure.佛陀给修定赋予的形象,常常把它比作诸种技能。技能的培养需要时间,他是在教导那些已经花时间学会许多有用技能的人。在泰国,人们仍然用沙石磨刀。怎样在磨刀时不损坏它,是一门需要学习的技能。如果你失去耐心,一味图快,就会破坏刀锋的锐利和平直。因此你必须相当地静止。心必须静止。磨刃时你还必须维持那股恰到好处的压力。起初像是什么也没有发生,然而慢慢地,刀刃就会越来越锋利。你施压的稳定,是保证刀刃不在某个地方缺刻的原因——所谓缺刻就是某处太锐利,另一处又不够锐利。你把某处磨过了头,造成卷口。单单磨刀的动作,就有许多需要注意的地方。不过,如果你的库存当中有那个技能,等到禅定时,就容易对应自己正在做的事,联想到那个技能: 同样的持恒、同样的均匀施压、维持适当的压度所必要的那种连续的念住和警醒。

　　Another skill sometimes used as an analogy is that of a hunter. A hunter has to be very quiet so as not to scare the animals off, and at the same time very alert so as not to miss when a particular animal comes by. In the same way, we as meditators have to be careful not to slip off in either direction: into too much stillness or too much mental activity. You have to find the proper balance. I was once talking to an anthropologist who said that of all the skills in primitive societies that anthropologists try to lean, the hardest is hunting. It requires the strongest concentration, the most sensitivity. So here we’re not hunting animals, but we’re hunting concentration, which is even more subtle and requires even more stillness and alertness.另一个有时用来比喻修定的技能是狩猎。猎人必须极其静止,才不会把动物吓跑,同时又必须极其警觉,才不会在某个猎物近前时,把它放过。同样地,我们作为禅修者,必须极其仔细,不朝两个方向滑陷: 一个是过度的寂止,一个是过度的心动。你必须找到适当的平衡。有一次,我同一位人类学家交谈,他说,人类学家们尝试学习的原始社会所有技能当中,难度最高的是狩猎。它需要的定力和敏感度最高。因此我们在这里,不是猎兽,我们是在猎定,它更加精细,要求更高的寂止和警醒。

　　Sometimes we in the West think that we come to the Dhamma with an advantage: We’ve got so much education, we’re so well-read. But we have a major disadvantage in that we lack the patience and consistency that come with mastering a skill. So keep that in mind as you’re meditating, when you find yourself getting impatient for results. You have to be watchful and consistent. You need that sense of being bathed by the breath, being open to the breathing sensations in all parts of the body down to every little pore of your skin. Then you learn the sensitivity that’s required, the consistency that’s required, to maintain that. That way the sense of fullness can grow and grow and grow until it becomes really gratifying, really satisfying, to give your concentration the kind of strength, the sense of refreshment, the sense of nourishment it needs in order to keep going.有时候,我们西方人以为自己是带着优势来学法的: 我们受过这么多教育,我们如此博览。不过,我们有一大劣势,那就是缺乏伴随的一门技能的掌握而带来的耐心与恒心。因此,你修禅定,发现自己为求果报失去耐心时,要记得这一点。你需要那股浴于气中的感觉,那股对全身各处乃至每个皮肤细孔的气感开通的感觉。那时你就学会了必要的敏感、必要的持恒。那样,充沛感才会增长、增长、增长,直到它变得极其享受,极其满足,给你的定赋予继续下去所需要的那股力量、那股清新感、那股滋养感。

　　Ajaan Fuang once said that without this sense of fullness, refreshment, or rapture, your meditation gets dry. You need this lubricant to keep things smooth and running: the sense of well-being and refreshment, the immediate visceral pleasure of being in a concentrated state.阿姜放曾经说,没有这股充沛、清新、或者说喜乐感,你的禅定就会变得枯燥。你需要这付润滑剂——也就是那股安适、清新之感,那股住于定境的直接、切身的恬愉感——才能保持禅修的平稳与进行。

　　At the same time, it heals all our mental wounds: any sense of tiredness, of being stressed-out, mistreated, abused. It’s like medicine for these mental wounds. Now, medicine often takes time to work, especially soothing and reconstituting medicine. Think of the creams you put on chapped skin. The skin isn’t immediately cured when you first rub on the cream. It takes time. The skin has to be exposed to the cream for long periods of time to allow the cream to do its work. The same with concentration. It’s a treatment that takes time. Your nervous system needs to be exposed to the sense of fullness for a long period of time, giving it a chance to breathe in, breath out all around so that the mindfulness and the breath together can do their healing work.同时,它修复我们的一切心理创伤: 疲劳感、紧张不堪感、受虐待感、被欺压感。它就像对治这些心理伤痛的良药。当然,医药的生效常常需要时间,特别是那种抚平性、重建性的药物。想一想你在干裂的皮肤上涂抹药膏的情形。最初擦上时,皮肤不会立即愈合。它需要时间。皮肤必须长久地受到药膏的覆盖,才能让药物做它的工作。修定也一样。它是一场需时良久的治疗。你的经络系统需要长久受到那股充沛感的覆盖,给它全方位入气、出气的一个机缘,才能让念和气共同做它们的修复工作。

　　So don’t get impatient. Don’t feel that nothing is happening. A lot of things that are very important require time, and they do their work subtly. If you give them the time they need, you find that you’re more than repaid. After all, you could be sitting for the whole hour planning next week, planning next month, planning next year. What will you have at the end of the hour? A lot of plans. And part of you may feel satisfied that you’ve provided for the future, but when you reflect on how many of your past plans have actually borne results, you’ll realize the odds against your new plans’ ever amounting to much. What would you have to show for your hour then? Nothing very certain. Maybe nothing but mouse-droppings and straw. But if you give the breath an hour to do its healing work, totally opening up the body to allow the breath to bathe every nerve out to every pore, you know that you’ll come out at the end of the hour with a body and mind in much better shape. The body will be soothed; the mind, bright and alert.因此,不可失去耐心。不要觉得什么也没有发生。许多极其重要的事物需要时间,它们以微妙的方式施展功效。如果你给予它们所需的时间,你会发现,回报远远超出你的付出。毕竟,整整一个小时,你可以坐着计划下周、计划下月、计划明年。到了那个小时的末尾,你有什么? 有许多计划。一部分的你,也许觉得自己为将来作了贡献而满意。不过当你考虑一下,自己过去的计划当中有多少实际生出了果报,将会发现,你那些新计划有巨大价值的可能性并不高。因此你那一个钟头有什么可以展示的成果? 没有确定的东西。不过,如果你给气一小时做它的修复工作,彻底开通身体,让气浸浴每根经络,从气从每个毛孔中排出,到了那个小时的末尾,你会知道,出定时,你的身心的状态将会大有改善。身将会被抚平,心将会明亮、警醒。

　　And you don’t need to stop being bathed in the breath when the hour is up. You can keep it going in all your activities. That way, even though you may not be armed with a whole set of plans for facing the future, at least you’re in a position where you don’t need that kind of armor. You’ve got the armor of a healthy body and mind. You’ve got an invisible armor: the force-field of this all-encompassing breath, continually streaming out from your center to every pore, protecting you on all sides. That’s something you feel in every cell of your body, something you know for sure, for you can sense it all around you, right here, right now. And you know that whatever the future brings, you’re prepared. You can handle it.这一小时结束时,你没有必要停止浴于气中。你可以在一切活动当中维持它的继续。那样,尽管你也许没有一整套应付未来的计划充作防卫,起码你的状态就不需要那种盔甲了。你已经得到健康的身心这副盔甲: 这股包围一切的气的力场,连续地从你的中心流向每个毛孔,从各个方面护卫着你。那是你在自己体内每个细胞当中都感受到的东西,是你确知不虚的东西,因为你可以在此地此刻,感受它笼罩着你。你知道,不管将来会带来什么,你已经作好准备。你能够应对。

　　This sense of fullness, brightness, alertness: That’s all you’ll need to keep the mind capable, healthy, and strong.

　　这股充沛、明亮、警醒: 即是你使心保持能力、健康、强壮所需的一切。

　　(根据2002年12月某日开示录音整理,本文来自坦尼沙罗尊者开示集《禅定》)