---
title: "Mindfulness In Plain English - Chapter 16: Whats In It For You"
description: "by Mahathera Henepola Gunaratana"
---

Mindfulness In Plain English

佛教禪修直解

by Mahathera Henepola Gunaratana

德寶法師著作
梁國雄居士譯

Chapter 16: What's In It For You

第十六章 禪修的效益

You can expect certain benefits from your meditation. The initial ones are practical, prosaic things; the later stages are profoundly transcendent. They run together from the simple to the sublime. We will set forth some of them here. Your own experience is all that counts.

你可以期望從禪修中得到一些利益，最初的利益很實際和平凡，往後階段所得的利益則是深遠與超凡的，它們從簡單的到崇高的都有，我們在這里會宣布一些，你自己的體驗才算是真的。

Those things that we called hindrances or defilements are more than just unpleasant mental habits. They are the primary manifestations of the ego process itself. The ego sense itself is essentially a feeling of separation -- a perception of distance between that which we call me, and that which we call other. This perception is held in place only if it is constantly exercised, and the hindrances constitute that exercise.

Greed and lust are attempts to get 'some of that' for me; hatred and aversion are attempts to place greater distance between 'me and that'. All the defilements depend upon the perception of a barrier between self and other, and all of them foster this perception every time they are exercised. Mindfulness perceives things deeply and with great clarity. It brings our attention to the root of the defilements and lays bare their mechanism. It sees their fruits and their effects upon us. It cannot be fooled. Once you have clearly seen what greed really is and what it really does to you and to others, you just naturally cease to engage in it. When a child burns his hand on a hot oven, you don't have to tell him to pull it back; he does it naturally, without conscious thought and without decision. There is a reflex action built into the nervous system for just that purpose, and it works faster than thought. By the time the child perceives the sensation of heat and begins to cry, the hand has already been jerked back from the source of pain. Mindfulness works in very much the same way: it is wordless, spontaneous and utterly efficient. Clear mindfulness inhibits the growth of hindrances; continuous mindfulness extinguishes them. Thus, as genuine mindfulness is built up, the walls of the ego itself are broken down, craving diminishes, defensiveness and rigidity lessen, you become more open, accepting and flexible. You learn to share your loving-kindness.

那些我們稱為蓋障或煩惱的東西，不僅是令人不快的心理習慣而已，它們是自我活動過程本身的主要表現。自我感覺本身基本上是一種疏離的感受，一種「自我」與「其他」之間的距離知覺。這種知覺要不斷重複演習才能穩固地保持，而那些演習就是蓋障所組成的。貪心與愛欲試圖為「自我」得到「其他」的一些東西，瞋恚與厭惡則試圖拉闊「自我」與「其他」之間的距離。所有煩惱皆因「自我」與「其他」之間有障礙的知覺而生起，而每次煩惱出現時，全都會助長此一知覺。靜觀能深入與極清晰地體會事物，它能帶領注意力到煩惱的根源，把它們的機制暴露無遺，它知道它們對我們所造成的後果與影響，它不會被愚弄。一旦你看清楚貪欲的真面目，真正認識到它對你及其他人的所作所為，你自會停止，不再參與其事。就好像一個小孩，當他的手被烤爐燙過後，你無需叫他縮手，他也自然會做的，而且是不假思索或決斷。神經系統自會作出此反射動作，且它的速度比思想還要快。當孩子感到火熱的感覺並開始哭的時候，他的手已急拉離開了致痛的源頭。靜觀的運作方式與此很相似，它是無言的、自發的、且絕對有效率。清晰的靜觀制止了蓋障的增長，持續的靜觀則可徹底消滅它們。因此，當真正的靜觀被建立起來時，「自我」的牆壁會瓦解、渴愛會減少、自我防御和頑固僵硬等亦會減輕，你會更為開放、更為包容與靈活變通，你學會與他人分享你的慈悲心。

Traditionally, Buddhists are reluctant to talk about the ultimate nature of human beings. But those who are willing to make descriptive statements at all usually say that our ultimate essence or Buddha nature is pure, holy and inherently good. The only reason that human beings appear otherwise is that their experience of that ultimate essence has been hindered; it has been blocked like water behind a dam. The hindrances are the bricks of which the dam is built. As mindfulness dissolves the bricks, holes are punched in the dam and compassion and sympathetic joy come flooding forward. As meditative mindfulness develops, your whole experience of life changes. Your experience of being alive, the very sensation of being conscious, becomes lucid and precise, no longer just an unnoticed background for your preoccupations. It becomes a thing consistently perceived.

傳統上，佛教徒都不願意談有關人類的本性，不過，願意說的人會作出一般性的描述，謂我們的本性或佛性是清淨的、聖潔的、且本質上是善良的。人並不如是表現，僅因為對那本性的體驗被障蔽了，就像水壩里的水被堵住了一樣。蓋障就是那些建造水壩的磚塊，當靜觀溶解那些磚塊時，水壩就被洞穿，接著大量的悲心與喜心(四無量心之二)就會向外湧出。靜觀力隨著禪修發展時，你的整個人生體驗亦會改變，你活著的感受，亦即意識感覺本身會變得清晰明確，不再會因關注事物而不知不覺，而是一個可被持續知覺的東西。

Each passing moment stands out as itself; the moments no longer blend together in an unnoticed blur. Nothing is glossed over or taken for granted, no experiences labeled as merely 'ordinary'. Everything looks bright and special. You refrain from categorizing your experiences into mental pigeonholes. Descriptions and interpretations are chucked aside and each moment of time is allowed to speak for itself. You actually listen to what it has to say, and you listen as if it were being heard for the very first time. When your meditation becomes really powerful, it also becomes constant. You consistently observe with bare attention both the breath and every mental phenomenon. You feel increasingly stable, increasingly moored in the stark and simple experience of moment-to-moment existence.

經過的每一片刻都會各自顯現，它們不再混淆不清。沒有片刻的經驗被掩飾或被視為理所當然，也沒有經驗被標志為「普通的」，所有片刻間的經驗看起來都很活躍、明亮和特別，你不再把自己的經驗在心內分門別類，描述與解釋被棄置一旁，讓每一片刻可各自為自己言說，你則老實地聆聽著它要說的話，聆聽時就好像是第一次聽到一樣。當你的禪修真的有力時，它亦會變得持久。你連續不斷地留意觀察呼吸與每一個心理現象，你感到越來越穩定，越來越能令心隨時停泊在樸實而單純的當下經驗上。

Once your mind is free from thought, it becomes clearly wakeful and at rest in an utterly simple awareness. This awareness cannot be described adequately. Words are not enough. It can only be experienced. Breath ceases to be just breath; it is no longer limited to the static and familiar concept you once held. You no longer see it as a succession of just inhalations and exhalations; it is no longer some insignificant monotonous experience. Breath becomes a living, changing process, something alive and fascinating. It is no longer something that takes place in time; it is perceived as the present moment itself. Time is seen as a concept, not an experienced reality.

一旦你的心免受思想束縛，它會變得十分清醒，並安住于全然單純的覺知之中，這覺知無法可被充分描述，文字並不足夠，它只可被體驗。呼吸不再只是呼吸，它不再是你曾經熟悉的靜態呼吸概念，你不再僅僅視之為一連串的呼吸，它不再是些無關重要的單調感受，而是一個活生生的、不斷改變的過程，它生氣勃勃、引人入勝。它不再是時間中發生的事，而被視為當下的片刻本身，時間被認為是一種概念，而不是一種經驗到的事實。

This is simplified, rudimentary awareness which is stripped of all extraneous detail. It is grounded in a living flow of the present, and it is marked by a pronounced sense of reality. You know absolutely that this is real, more real than anything you have ever experienced. Once you have gained this perception with absolute certainty, you have a fresh vantage point, a new criterion against which to gauge all of your experience. After this perception, you see clearly those moments when you are participating in bare phenomena alone, and those moments when you are disturbing phenomena with mental attitudes. You watch yourself twisting reality with mental comments, with stale images and personal opinions. You know what you are doing, when you are doing it. You become increasingly sensitive to the ways in which you miss the true reality, and you gravitate towards the simple objective perspective which does not add to or subtract from what is. You become a very perceptive individual. From this vantage point, all is seen with clarity. The innumerable activities of mind and body stand out in glaring detail. You mindfully observe the incessant rise and fall of breath; you watch an endless stream of bodily sensations and movements; you scan a rapid succession of thoughts and feelings, and you sense the rhythm that echoes from the steady march of time. And in the midst of all this ceaseless movement, there is no watcher, there is only watching.

這是簡單化的基本覺知，當中已被去除一切無關的細節。它的基礎是當刻活生生的流動，明顯地富有現實感覺特色；你確實地知道這是真的，可說比你過去的任何經驗更加真。一旦獲得這種絕對確定的洞察，你便擁有一個新的有力觀察點、一個新的標準，可用來衡量你的一切經驗。經過這次洞察後，你會清楚地看到那些自己在單獨參與純粹現象時的片刻，也會看到那些自己以某些心態介入、干擾著現象時的片刻。你會觀察到自心，正以某些評論、陳舊的印象與個人意見等扭曲著現實。無論做什麼，你都會知道自己正在做什麼；對于自己錯過現實的方式，你會變得越來越敏感，而且，你會被吸引，趨向簡單、客觀的視察方式，不會對現實稍作加減。你變成了一位知覺非常敏銳的人，依此有利條件，一切都會被看得清清楚楚，無數的身心活動亦會細節鮮明地顯現出來。你留意地觀察著呼吸不停的起起伏伏，你觀察到的身體感覺與活動，就好像一條不會停息、無窮無盡的河流一樣；當你審視念念相續的思想與感受時，你又會感到時間穩步前進的回響節奏。此外，在所有這些不停的活動之中，並沒有觀察者(Watcher)，只有觀察(Watching)本身。

In this state of perception, nothing remains the same for two consecutive moments. Everything is seen to be in constant transformation. All things are born, all things grow old and die. There are no exceptions. You awaken to the unceasing changes of your own life. You look around and see everything in flux, everything, everything, everything. It is all rising and falling, intensifying and diminishing, coming into existence and passing away. All of life, every bit of it from the infinitesimal to the Indian Ocean, is in motion constantly. You perceive the universe as a great flowing river of experience. Your most cherished possessions are slipping away, and so is your very life. Yet this impermanence is no reason for grief. You stand there transfixed, staring at this incessant activity, and your response is wondrous joy. It's all moving, dancing and full of life.

在這種覺知狀態中，沒有事物在兩個連續的剎那間可以保持不變，每一感知經驗都在不停地轉變，一切事物皆會生起、衰老與死亡，可以說無一例外。你醒覺到自己的生命在不停改變，你回顧周圍，發覺每一事物皆在不斷變遷、流動，每一事物，每一事物，每一事物……都在升起、落下，增強、減弱，出現、消失。生命里的一切，從極之微細的到太平洋那麼大的東西，其內的每一部分都在持續變動。你洞察到天地萬物就像一條流動著的經驗大河，你最珍愛的財物在悄悄離開，你的生命也是一樣。可是，沒有理由為這無常而悲傷的，你站在那里，嚇得不能動彈，注視著這飛奔不停的活動，你的反應是一種驚奇的喜悅，一切都在移動、舞動，並且充滿生命。

As you continue to observe these changes and you see how it all fits together, you become aware of the intimate connectedness of all mental, sensory and affective phenomena. You watch one thought leading to another, you see destruction giving rise to emotional reactions and feelings giving rise to more thoughts. Actions, thoughts, feelings, desires -- you see all of them intimately linked together in a delicate fabric of cause and effect. You watch pleasurable experiences arise and fall and you see that they never last; you watch pain come uninvited and you watch yourself anxiously struggling to throw it off; you see yourself fail. It all happens over and over while you stand back quietly and just watch it all work.

當你繼續觀察這些改變時，你了解到所有一切是如何配合在一起，你也覺察到所有心理、感覺與感情現象間的緊密聯系。你觀察到一個思想引發起另一個思想，你看到破壞所引起的情緒反應、感受所引起的思潮。行動、思想、感受與欲望等，你了解到它們一切皆在因果的微妙結構中緊密地聯系在一起。你看見愉快的經驗生起與消失，也知道它們是不會持久的；你看見苦痛不請自來，也看見自己焦急地掙扎著想把它拋開；你也看見自己的失敗。這一切皆一次又一次地重複發生，當你站在一旁靜觀它們運作時自會領悟。

Out of this living laboratory itself comes an inner and unassailable conclusion. You see that your life is marked by disappointment and frustration, and you clearly see the source. These reactions arise out of your own inability to get what you want, your fear of losing what you have already gained and your habit of never being satisfied with what you have. These are no longer theoretical concepts -- you have seen these things for yourself and you know that they are real. You perceive your own fear, your own basic insecurity in the face of life and death. It is a profound tension that goes all the way down to the root of thought and makes all of life a struggle. You watch yourself anxiously groping about, fearfully grasping for something, anything, to hold onto in the midst of all these shifting sands, and you see that there is nothing to hold onto, nothing that doesn't change.

從這人生實驗室中，一個內心無懈可擊的結論會自己彈出，讓你知道：生命實有令人失望與挫敗的標志，而你也清楚知道其原因所在。這些反應皆源于：(一)你無力取得你想要的東西，(二)你恐懼失去你已擁有的東西，以及(三)你貪得無厭、永不滿足的習性。這些都不再是理論性的概念，你已親身體驗過，知道它們是真的。你感知到自己的恐懼，以及面對生死時的根本不安穩。這極度深切的壓力(緊張)可一直追溯到思想的根部，並使全部生命成為一種掙扎。你觀看著自己在焦慮地摸索，惶恐地在流沙中亂抓，希望可以抓到任何可以牢牢握住的東西，而你發覺沒有東西可以握得住、沒有東西是不變的。

You see the pain of loss and grief, you watch yourself being forced to adjust to painful developments day after day in your own ordinary existence. You witness the tensions and conflicts inherent in the very process of everyday living, and you see how superficial most of your concerns really are. You watch the progress of pain, sickness, old age and death. You learn to marvel that all these horrible things are not fearful at all. They are simply reality.

你明白到失落與悲傷的痛苦，你發覺自己要在日常生活中，日復日地被迫要適應痛苦的新發展，你目睹日常生活過程中所固有的壓力與沖突，而你也了解到，自己的大多數顧慮皆淺薄不堪，你觀看著痛苦、疾病、衰老與死亡的進展，你學識驚訝地讚嘆：這些恐怖事情其實並不可怕，它們只不過是現實(Reality)而已。

Through this intensive study of the negative aspects of your existence, you become deeply acquainted with dukkha, the unsatisfactory nature of all existence. You begin to perceive dukkha at all levels of our human life, from the obvious down to the most subtle. You see the way suffering inevitably follows in the wake of clinging, as soon as you grasp anything, pain inevitably follows. Once you become fully acquainted with the whole dynamic of desire, you become sensitized to it. You see where it rises, when it rises and how it affects you. You watch it operate over and over, manifesting through every sense channel, taking control of the mind and making consciousness its slave.

通過對自己生命的負面進行透徹之研究，你深切地了解「苦(Dukkha)」── 所有生存皆不能令人滿意的性質。你開始在人生的所有層面中知覺到「苦」，從最明顯的到最微細的皆然。你明白到執取與苦惱的因果關系，無論你執取任何東西，苦痛都會無法避免地尾隨而至。一旦熟悉了欲望的整個動態，你會對它敏感起來，你知道它從哪里生起，在何時生起，以及如何影響著你，你旁觀著它的反覆運作，透過每一個感官通道表現出來，控制著心並使意識成為它的奴隸。

In the midst of every pleasant experience, you watch your own craving and clinging take place. In the midst of unpleasant experiences, you watch a very powerful resistance take hold. You do not block these phenomena, you just watch them, you see them as the very stuff of human thought. You search for that thing you call 'me', but what you find is a physical body and how you have identified your sense of yourself with that bag of skin and bones. You search further and you find all manner of mental phenomena, such as emotions, thought patterns and opinions, and see how you identify the sense of yourself with each of them. You watch yourself becoming possessive, protective and defensive over these pitiful things and you see how crazy that is. You rummage furiously among these various items, constantly searching for yourself--physical matter, bodily sensations, feelings and emotions--it all keeps whirling round and round as you root through it, peering into every nook and cranny, endlessly hunting for 'me'.

在每次愉快的經驗中，你看到自己的渴愛與依戀執著出現；在不愉快的經驗中，你看到自己的強力抗拒；而你不會妨礙這些現象發生，你只是觀看著它們，你知道它們不過是人的思緒而已。你想尋找自稱為「我」的東西，但你發現到的是一個軀體，以及你如何認同此袋皮包骨為「自我」的意識。進一步尋找，你發現到各式各樣的心理現象，例如情緒、思維模式與種種意見，以及你如何認同每一心理現象為「自我」的意識。你看到自己越來越想擁有、保護與防衛這些令人憐憫的東西，也自知那是多麼的瘋狂、愚昧。你暴躁地在這些東西之中到處翻尋、搜索，不斷尋找「自我」；當你徹底追究下去，查看每一個角落和罅隙，不斷追尋「自我」時，那些東西仍繼續旋轉不休。

You find nothing. In all that collection of mental hardware in this endless stream of ever-shifting experience all you can find is innumerable impersonal processes which have been caused and conditioned by previous processes. There is no static self to be found; it is all process. You find thoughts but no thinker, you find emotions and desires, but nobody doing them. The house itself is empty. There is nobody home.

你什麼也找不到。在這身心集合體內持續不斷的經驗流轉中，你所能找到的，只有數不清的客觀過程(Impersonal Processes)，它們皆各自隨已逝去的過程為因緣而生起，沒有固定不變的「自我」被發現，一切都是過程，你發現思想，卻找不到思想的人；你發現情緒與欲望，卻找不到實行的人，房子本身是空的，也沒有人在家。

Your whole view of self changes at this point. You begin to look upon yourself as if you were a newspaper photograph. When viewed with the naked eyes, the photograph you see is a definite image. When viewed through a magnifying glass, it all breaks down into an intricate configuration of dots. Similarly, under the penetrating gaze of mindfulness, the feeling of self, an 'I' or 'being' anything, loses its solidity and dissolves. There comes a point in insight meditation where the three characteristics of existence--impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and selflessness-- come rushing home with concept-searing force. You vividly experience the impermanence of life, the suffering nature of human existence, and the truth of no self. You experience these things so graphically that you suddenly awake to the utter futility of craving, grasping and resistance. In the clarity and purity of this profound moment, our consciousness is transformed. The entity of self evaporates. All that is left is an infinity of interrelated non-personal phenomena which are conditioned and ever changing. Craving is extinguished and a great burden is lifted. There remains only an effortless flow, without a trace of resistance or tension. There remains only peace, and blessed Nibbana, the uncreated, is realized.

至此你對「自我」的觀點徹底改變了，你開始看待自己有如報紙上的相片一樣，以肉眼看時，相片有一明確的肖像；當用放大鏡看時，它卻全部分解為複雜的點狀結構。同樣地，在靜觀力的透視下，「自我」、「我」或「任何存在」的感覺都會溶解並失去其堅實性。隨著內觀禪修的進展，你會上升至某一點，瞥見(頓悟)三法印(存在共有的三個特性)── 無常、苦、無我，有力地燒毀諸種顛倒見解。你鮮明地體驗到生命的無常、人生是苦的性質、以及無我的實相。你如是生動、確實地體會到這些特性後，突然醒悟到渴愛、執著與抗拒實全無意義。就在這意義深遠的片刻明淨之中，我們的意識轉化了，「自我」的實體消失了，剩下來的只有無窮無盡的、互相聯系的、非個人的(Non-personal)現象，它們緣生緣滅地不斷變化著。渴愛熄滅了，重擔消除了。余下的只有輕松自在、毫不費力的流動，沒有絲毫抗拒或壓力的痕跡；余下的只有安寧，可喜的涅槃與無生(The Uncreated)[1]終于實現了。

May all the merits accrued in this Dhamma dana go towards
the attainment of nibbana for all able beings in this very life time.

【注釋】[1]無生(The Uncreated)： 涅槃的道理，又稱不生不滅，或無生滅。另外，諸法之實相無生滅(無生無滅)。所有存在之諸法本空── 無實自體，故無生滅變化可言。但凡夫迷此無生之理，起生滅之煩惱，故流轉生死，若依佛教修持，可破除生滅之煩惱，證得無生。