浸于身內

　　[作者]坦尼沙羅尊者

　　[中譯]良稹

　　Immersed in the Breath

　　by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu

　　Some people think that when the Buddha describes the five aggregates he”s describing what we are, but that”s precisely what he”s not saying. He”s saying that we”re not that. But the mind does identify with these things—sometimes with the body, sometimes with feelings, perceptions, thought-formations, sometimes with sensory consciousness, sometimes different combinations, sometimes all of the above. If you could take a movie of the mind”s sense of itself, it would be erratic and mercurial, like a reflection on water—slithering here and there, identifying with this, identifying with that, shape‐shifting all the time. In changing position all the time like this, the mind expends a lot of energy. One of the things that we want to try to do as we meditate is to get it to stay in one place, to save some energy. As long as you”re going to have a sense of self, keep it solid—rock solid—immersed in the body. 有些人以爲佛陀描述五蘊時，他是在描述我們是什麼，然而，那與他的話恰恰相反。他是說，我們不是它。不過，心的確認同這些東西——有時認同的是身體，有時是感受、辨識、思維造作，有時是感官意識[色受想行識]，有時是不同的組合，有時是上面說的全部。如果可以給心的自我感拍一部電影，它的樣子會是漂泊不定、擅變無常，就像水中的倒影——滑到這裏、滑到那裏，認同這個、認同那個，時時刻刻都在變形。在這樣一刻不停地改換位置的過程中，心耗費了大量的能量。我們禅定時需要試著做的，是令它呆在一個地方不動。只要你還有一個自我感，就把它沈浸在身內，保持它的堅固——如盤石般堅固。

　　Breath meditation is one way of staying immersed in the body. The term in Pali is kayagatasati, mindfulness immersed in the body. And the quality of immersion is important. You want to fill the whole body, occupy the body, inhabit the whole body, as much as you can. 出入息念，就是浸于身內的一種方式。巴利語是 kāyagatāsati——念浸住于身內[身念住]。浸住這個素質是十分重要的。你要盡可能地填滿全身、占據身體、遍居全身。

　　Where is your observer right now

　　 For many of us, it”s like a weird bird perched on our shoulders and peering through our eyes. It watches the body as if the body were something separate. But as we meditate, we”re trying to get away from identifying with that particular observer; we want to be an observer filling the whole body. Your feet fill your feet, your hands fill your hands. Your entire sense of who you are fills the entire body. 現在，你的觀察者在哪裏

　　 對我們許多人來說，它就像一只棲息在肩膀上的怪鳥，透過我們的雙眼在注視。它看身體，是把它當成某件分立的東西來看的。不過，禅定時，我們是在嘗試脫離與那個觀察者的認同; 我們要做一個占滿全身的觀察者。你的腳占滿你的腳，你的手占滿你的手。你的整個自我感占滿整個身體。

　　This puts you in a position of strength, because if you”re leaving big gaps of unoccupied territory in your body, other things will occupy it—different thoughts, different defilements. But if your awareness occupies your whole body, other things can”t get in so easily. The image in the Canon is of a solid wooden door: a ball of string thrown at the door won”t leave a dent at all. Even if things do come in and make a dent on the mind, you”re going to know it, you”re going to see it because you”re right there. You”re not off in some other corner of the body looking at something else. 這就把你放到了一個有力的位置，因爲如果你在身內留下大片尚未占據的區域，其它東西將會占據它——各種思維、各種雜染。不過，如果你的覺知占據了你的全身，其它東西就不那麼容易進來了。聖典裏的比喻形象是一扇硬木門: 朝那扇門扔過去一個線團，根本不會留下一點凹痕。哪怕其它事物的確進來，在心裏製造出一個印象，你也會知道它，你也會看見它，因爲你就在那裏。你沒有跑到身體的另一個角落，去看別的東西。

　　So as you focus on the breath, try to get past the idea that you”re in one part of the head watching the breath in other parts of the body. You want to occupy the whole body, bathed in the whole breath. The breath and the body should be surrounding your sense of where you are. And then you want to maintain that sense of being centered in the body like this, filling the whole body with your awareness as you breathe in, as you breathe out. 因此，隨著你專注氣，要試著克服你在頭部某個位置看身內其它地方的氣這個觀念。你要占據全身，沐浴于整個氣中。氣和身應該包圍著你的所在感。接下來，你要維持這樣定在身內的那股感覺，隨著你的入息，隨著你的出息，把你的覺知填滿全身。

　　Why

　　 For one thing, this sense of filling the body helps you stay in the present moment. When the mind goes off thinking thoughts about past and future, it has to shrink its sense of awareness, shrink its sense of itself, down to a …

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