..续本文上一页to a more receptive awareness practice, fixing on a single object has to be dropped to allow for a flowing moment-to-moment awareness (khanika samadhi) of whatever is predominant in your experience.

　　For the Vipassana meditator the following are ways of relating to the meditation experience to maintain the balance:

　　• Witnessing your experience: an attitude of neutrality, which is restricted to the bare registering of physical and mental events without posturing or positioning oneself - ”just witnessing”.

　　• Non-clinging: rather than seeking gratification of wishes, impulses, desires, there has to be at least some degree of non-clinging to create the space to see and ”let go”.

　　• Removal of the Censor: an attitude of acceptance of all thoughts, emotions, feelings and sensations coming into awareness, with impartiality, without censorship.

　　• Cultivating Receptivity: Vipassana meditation is tuning in and being sensitive to, and intimate with, what is observed, from a place of spaciousness - ”receptivity”.

　　An image often used to describe the practice of awareness is that of walking a tightrope. In order to do so, you must necessarily pay attention to the balance. In meditation practice, this applies to how you are relating to your experience. Reaching out to grasp the object (attaching) or pushing it away (rejecting) are both reactions that are unbalancing. Keeping your balance is developing a mind that does not cling or reject, like or dislike, and is without attachment or condemnation. Balance and equanimity in the face of life”s inevitable stress and conflict is to practise the Buddha”s Middle Way.

　　For a meditator, developing the ability to adjust and manage one”s own effort in practice is essential. A certain effort is involved in developing ”moment-to-moment awareness”, but it is not the effort to attain anything in the future. The effort is to stay in the present, just paying attention with equanimity to what is happening in the moment.

　　The Buddha gave an example of just how attentive we should be. He told of a person who was ordered to walk through a crowd with a jug of oil, full to the brim, balanced on his head. Behind him walked a soldier with a sword. If a single drop were spilled the soldier would cut off his head! That is the quality of attention needed. So you can be sure that the person with the jug walked very attentively.

　　Yet, it has to be a relaxed awareness. If there is too much force or strain the least jostling will cause the oil to spill. The person with the jug has to be loose and rhythmic, flowing with the changing scene, yet staying attentive in each moment. This is the kind of care we should take in practicing mindfulness, being relaxed yet alert. In this way, the training helps to maintain your balance and the ability to live in harmony with others.

《The Vipassana Retreat: 8· Keeping the Practice in Balance》全文阅读结束。