..续本文上一页四)正事良药，为疗形枯。
(五)为成道业，应受此食。
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.
今天晚上开始打禅七，我们金山圣寺的禅七，和中国各大丛林的禅七不同。他们打禅七是「打食七」，在晚上一定要吃麻油包子，就是镇江的金山圣寺和扬州的高旻寺也不例外。有很多禅和子，专门到有麻油包子吃的寺庙去打禅七，哪个地方包子好吃，就到哪里去打禅七。他们不选择寺庙而选择包子的大小，所以有的寺庙以麻油包子又大又香为号召。并不是我毁谤出家修道人放不下吃，的确是如此。
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!
我们金山圣寺没有吃麻油包子的规矩，就是连小吃也没有。
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!
在中国打禅七时，有很多居士来供众：这一炷香，你供养四个桂圆；那一炷香，他供养两个花生糖，或者饼干，或者锅粑。总之，每炷香都有人来供养，令无心道人生出贪吃的心来，吃得肚子满满的，无法静坐。我们这里什么都没有，所以我们和他们不同。
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.
我们从早晨两点三刻开始行行坐坐，坐坐行行，到晚上十二点钟休息。我们是修苦行，是苦干，是苦炼，行人所不能行的事情。可是如果不将「生死」二字挂在眉梢上，反而觉得睡眠不够，坐在那里，正好入睡觉三昧；如果是这样子，永远不会有所成就。
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.
我们要「舍死忘生」地来打禅七，要认真用功打七，必须要得到自己应得的才受用。不要随波逐流，看人行我也行，看人坐我也坐，看人睡我也睡，这样是不行的，徒然浪费时间，对自己毫无益处。
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.
我在以前曾经参加过几个地方的禅七，在任何地方都没有被监香者打过香板，为什么？因为我不睡觉，白天在禅堂里坐，晚上也在禅堂里坐，一天二十四小时都坐在禅堂，也不知道什么叫休息？什么叫睡眠？就是一秒钟的时间，也不随便放过，时刻用自己应该用的功夫，时刻把功夫提起来。
In my younger…
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