Painstaking Hard Work

　　不要命的用功

　　I know there are a few people whose legs hurt so badly that they almost cry out. This is useless. The more you cry, the more they will hurt. your crying does not help one bit. your legs will not say, “okay. since you have cried, i will not hurt anymore!” your legs will not sympathize with you. ordinary folks say we have a good practice of sitting in meditation here. This is actually because we ask people to come and suffer a little. “good practice” means “suffering.” we wake up before dawn, around one or two in the morning, and rest only an hour during the day. we don”t rest until midnight, so each day, we only rest for a total of about three hours. This is painstaking hard work! it is “giving up death and forgetting life.” as the saying goes, “unless you can give up death, you cannot exchange it for life. unless you can give up the false, the truth cannot be accomplished. If you can endure suffering, you can then enjoy blessings.” If you want to attain real skill, you will have to endure suffering, grit your teeth, and carry on with your cultivation. Basically, this pain is avoidable; however, we want there to be pain so we can endure it. This is to “endure what others cannot endure.” If you cannot endure a little pain, you fail the test.

　　我知道有幾個人腿痛，痛得哭起來了，這是沒有用的！愈哭，它愈痛，你怎麼哭也不會不痛的，腿不會說：「哦！你哭了，那我就不痛了。」它不會同情你。一般人說我們這兒坐禅很好，這其實就是叫人來受一受苦，所謂「很好」就是很苦。你想一想我們從一早兩點多鍾就起來，白天休息一個鍾頭，到晚間十二點鍾休息，每一天只休息兩叁個鍾頭，這可以說是不要命的來用功，這叫舍死忘生，所謂「舍不了死，換不了生；舍不了假，成不了真；你受不得苦，也享不得福。」你要想得到真正的工夫，必須要忍苦耐勞，在這兒咬著牙挺著。本來這個痛我們可以不痛的，但是我們歡喜教它痛，所以就腿痛也還是忍著，所謂「忍人所不能忍的」就是忍這個。你一痛就不能忍了，那還是考試不上的。