..續本文上一頁四)正事良藥，爲療形枯。
(五)爲成道業，應受此食。
1. Consider the effort it took to bring this food to where it is eaten.
2. Calculate your own merit and virtue. Are they sufficient for you to accept this offering
3. Guard your mind against transgressions, of which greed is the major cause.
4. See the food as medicine, taken to prevent the body from wasting away.
5. Accept the food only so that you can succeed in your cultivation of the Way.
今天晚上開始打禅七，我們金山聖寺的禅七，和中國各大叢林的禅七不同。他們打禅七是「打食七」，在晚上一定要吃麻油包子，就是鎮江的金山聖寺和揚州的高旻寺也不例外。有很多禅和子，專門到有麻油包子吃的寺廟去打禅七，哪個地方包子好吃，就到哪裏去打禅七。他們不選擇寺廟而選擇包子的大小，所以有的寺廟以麻油包子又大又香爲號召。並不是我毀謗出家修道人放不下吃，的確是如此。
Our Chan Meditation Session will begin tonight. The Chan ses-sions held at Gold Mountain Monastery are different from those held in the great Chan halls of China. Their Chan sessions were actually great feasts. Each night of the session, every participant ate a huge sesame-oil dumpling. Even the famous Way-places such as Gold Mountain Monastery in Zhejiang and Gao Min Monastery in Yangzhou were not exceptions to this rule. When it was time for the session, many of the old-hand meditators would show up only at the doors of the monasteries that were known to serve sesame-oil dumplings. Wherever the dumplings were the best, that”s where they would go to attend the sessions. The criterion for choosing which session to attend was not the quality of the session, but the size of the dumplings! Some places earned a reputation based solely on their oversized, tasty, stuffed dumplings. I”m not slandering left-home cultivators by falsely making them out to be gluttons. This is a statement of fact!
我們金山聖寺沒有吃麻油包子的規矩，就是連小吃也沒有。
At Gold Mountain Monastery, we haven”t established sesame-oil dumplings as the drawing card of our Chan sessions. We don”t serve snacks at all!
在中國打禅七時，有很多居士來供衆：這一炷香，你供養四個桂圓；那一炷香，他供養兩個花生糖，或者餅幹，或者鍋粑。總之，每炷香都有人來供養，令無心道人生出貪吃的心來，吃得肚子滿滿的，無法靜坐。我們這裏什麼都沒有，所以我們和他們不同。
At the Chan sessions in China, many laypeople made offerings to the assembly. After the first hour of meditation, one layman might give each participant four longan fruits. After another hour, another layman might distribute two pieces of peanut candy to each meditator, or maybe cookies or rice-crackers. There would be some kind of offering every hour. Those "spiritual adepts who have tamed their minds" became rather greedy for food. Their bellies were so stuffed that they simply couldn”t sit still in meditation. At our place, you won”t find such offerings; we are different from them.
我們從早晨兩點叁刻開始行行坐坐，坐坐行行，到晚上十二點鍾休息。我們是修苦行，是苦幹，是苦煉，行人所不能行的事情。可是如果不將「生死」二字挂在眉梢上，反而覺得睡眠不夠，坐在那裏，正好入睡覺叁昧；如果是這樣子，永遠不會有所成就。
Each day in our Chan sessions, we rise at 2:45 a.m. to begin our daily regimen of walking and sitting, sitting and walking, and we continue like this until midnight. This is an ascetic path; it”s hard training. We call it "doing what people are unwilling to do." You must suspend the three words "birth and death" right between your eyebrows and forget that you haven”t slept long enough. Don”t enter the "sleeping samadhi" right there on the meditation bench, or else success in Chan will forever elude you.
我們要「舍死忘生」地來打禅七，要認真用功打七，必須要得到自己應得的才受用。不要隨波逐流，看人行我也行，看人坐我也坐，看人睡我也睡，這樣是不行的，徒然浪費時間，對自己毫無益處。
In this meditation session we must "renounce death and forget about life." We must truly and earnestly work hard at meditation. Make a determined resolve to get your rightful share of results from your work. Don”t simply follow the crowd, sitting when you see others sitting, walking when your neighbors do, and sleeping when you see others sleeping. That kind of practice won”t work. It will only waste your time, without bringing you any benefit.
我在以前曾經參加過幾個地方的禅七，在任何地方都沒有被監香者打過香板，爲什麼？因爲我不睡覺，白天在禅堂裏坐，晚上也在禅堂裏坐，一天二十四小時都坐在禅堂，也不知道什麼叫休息？什麼叫睡眠？就是一秒鍾的時間，也不隨便放過，時刻用自己應該用的功夫，時刻把功夫提起來。
In my younger…
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