戒律的療愈力
[作者]坦尼沙羅尊者
[中譯]良稹
The Healing Power of the Precepts
by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The Buddha was like a doctor, treating the spiritual ills of the human race. The path of practice he taught was like a course of therapy for suffering hearts and minds. This way of understanding the Buddha and his teachings dates back to the earliest texts, and yet is also very current. Buddhist meditation practice is often advertised as a form of healing, and quite a few psychotherapists now recommend that their patients try meditation as part of their treatment. 佛陀好比是一位對治人類精神疾症的醫者。他教導的修行之道，好比是治愈心意之苦的療程。對佛陀及教說的此番解意，可上溯至最早的經典，卻又相當地應時。佛教禅修常常被人們宣傳爲療愈之道，如今頗有幾位心理診療師建議病人嘗試禅修，以之爲療法的一部分。
Experience has shown, though, that meditation on its own cannot provide a total therapy. It requires outside support. Modern meditators in particular have been so wounded by mass civilization that they lack the resilience, persistence and self-esteem needed before concentration and insight practices can be genuinely therapeutic.Many teachers, noticing this problem, have decided that the Buddhist path is insufficient for our particular needs. To make up for this insufficiency they have experimented with ways of supplementing meditation practice, combining it with such things as myth, poetry, psychotherapy, social activism, sweat lodges, mourning rituals, and even drumming. The problem, though, may not be that there is anything lacking in the Buddhist path, but that we simply haven”t been following the Buddha”s full course of therapy. 然而經驗表明，禅修本身，是不足以成爲一套完整療法的。尤其是，現代禅修者受大衆文明的創傷之深，以至于缺乏必要的堅韌、精進與自尊，達不到真正有療愈性的止觀境界。不少禅修導師注意到這個問題，于是斷定，佛教禅修之道不足以滿足我們的特定需要。爲了彌補這項不足，他們嘗試了種種輔助形式，添加了神話、詩歌、心理療法、社會活動、[印第安人的]發汗屋、哀悼儀軌、乃至鼓藝等形式，把它們與禅修結合在一起。然而，問題未必出在佛教之道有什麼缺陷，而是我們還沒有完全貫徹佛陀的整套療法。
The Buddha”s path consisted not only of mindfulness, concentration, and insight practices, but also of virtue, beginning with the five precepts. In fact, the precepts constitute the first step in the path. There is a modern tendency to dismiss the five precepts as Sunday-school rules bound to old cultural norms that no longer apply to our modern society, but this misses the role that the Buddha intended for them: They are part of a course of therapy for wounded minds. In particular, they are aimed at curing two ailments that underlie low self-esteem: regret and denial. 佛陀的修行道不僅包括了念、定、內明的修練，還包括以五戒爲起點的持戒。實際上，戒德構成了行道的初階。現代人往往把五戒當作[基督教]主日校規加以排斥，認爲這些戒律來自已不適應我們的現代社會的舊式傳統規範。然而，這種說法忽視了佛陀製定戒律的本意: 戒律是受傷心靈的對治療程的一部分，特別是針對自卑心理的兩種病根——悔恨與否認。
When our actions don”t measure up to certain standards of behavior, we either (1) regret the actions or (2) engage in one of two kinds of denial, either (a) denying that our actions did in fact happen or (b) denying that the standards of measurement are really valid. These reactions are like wounds in the mind. Regret is an open wound, tender to the touch, while denial is like hardened, twisted scar tissue around a tender spot. When the mind is wounded in these ways, it can”t settle down comfortably in the present, for it finds itself resting on raw, exposed flesh or calcified knots. Even when it”s forced to stay in the present, it”s there only in a tensed, contorted and partial way, and so the insights it gains tend to be contorted and partial as well. Only if the mind is free of wounds and scars can it be expected to settle down comfortably and freely in the present, and to give rise to undistorted discernment. 當我們的行爲未能達到某些操行標准時，我們或者爲之悔恨，或者作兩種形式之一的否認，一是否認該行爲確實發生，二是否認該標准的有效性。這些反應，就像是心的諸種傷創。悔恨的傷創是開放性的，一碰就痛; 否認的傷創則好比是某個痛點周圍的痂疥，硬化扭曲。心以這些形式受創之後，就難以安住當下，因爲它發現自己停歇之處，不是生疼外露的血肉，就是鈣化堅硬的糾結。即使強迫它住在當下，它也只能以一種緊張、扭曲、片面的方式呆在那裏，那麼它得到的洞見，往往也是扭曲、片面的。心只有去除了傷創疤痕時，才能夠指望它舒適、安適地住于當下，升起真如明辨。
This is where the five precepts come in: They are designed to heal these wounds and scars. …
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