..续本文上一页ws them to grow. If you move off to someplace else, if you”re thinking of something else, there will have to be a tensing-up in the body to allow that thought to happen. Whatever sense of fullness might have developed—say, in your arms or your legs, in different parts of the body, down your back—doesn”t have a chance to develop. It gets squeezed off because you”re not paying attention to it any more. 这就是为什么，与这些觉受呆在一起的能力如此重要，因为正是你跟它们呆在一起，才是让它们增长的原因。如果你挪到了别处，如果你去想其它事，体内必须有一种紧绷，才能那个想法发生。不管已经发展出什么充沛感——比如在你的胳膊或腿内，在身体的不同部位，沿背而下——就没有继续发展的机缘了。它给挤缩了，因为你对它不再关注。

　　This is why the Buddha talks about concentration as mahaggatam cittam: an enlarged awareness. If your awareness is limited just to one little spot, everything else gets squeezed out, everything else gets blotted out—and what is that if not ignorance

　　 You”re trying to make your awareness 360 degrees, all around in all directions, because the habit of the mind is to focus its awareness in one spot here, then one spot there, moving around, but there”s always the one spot, one spot, one spot. It opens up a little bit and then squeezes off again, opens up a little bit, squeezes off again, and nothing has a chance to grow. But if you allow things to open up throughout the whole body, you realize that if you think about anything at all you destroy that openness. So you”ve got to be very, very careful, very, very still, to allow this open fullness to develop. 这就是为什么，佛陀把定说成 mahaggataṃ cittaṃ——大至心——扩大的觉知。如果你的觉知只局限在一个小点上，其它一切都给挤了出去，其它一切都给遮了出去——那不是无明，又是什么

　　 你在试着使你的觉知达到360度，立体全方位，因为心的习惯是，把觉知聚焦到这一点，接着聚焦到那一点，但总是只盯那一个点、一个点、一个点。它略略展开，接着又给挤缩，略略展开，又给挤缩，什么也没有机缘增长。不过，如果你允许那些东西在全身到处展开，就会意识到，你若是想任何事，就会破坏那股开通性。因此，你不得不极其、极其地仔细，极其、极其地寂止，让这股开通的充沛继续展开。

　　So these qualities of consistency, care, and heedfulness are important in allowing this state of concentration to develop. Without them, nothing much seems to happen. You have a little bit of concentration, then you step on it, a little bit of concentration, then you squeeze it off as you go looking at something else, thinking about something else. And so whatever little bits and pieces of concentration you do have, don”t seem very remarkable. They don”t get a chance to be remarkable. Concentration takes time—and our society”s pretty extraordinary in fostering the expectation that things should happen quickly. If anything”s going to be good, it has to happen quickly, it has to be instant. And so, by and large, we”ve lost the ability to stay with things as they develop slowly. We”ve lost the ability to keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away at a large task that”s going to take time and can”t be speeded up. 因此，为了让这个定境展开，持恒、仔细、审慎等这些素质是十分重要的。没有它们，什么也不会发生。你有一点定，接着却踩上它，有一点定，又把它挤掉，因为你去看别的东西，想别的事。这样，不管得了什么细碎的定，它们似乎没有什么特别。它们没有特别起来的机缘。修定是费时的——我们的社会，在鼓励“事当速成”的期待方面，是超乎寻常的。任何东西，若是好的，则必须速成，必须立得。因此，我们多数人已经失去了对慢慢发展起来的事物不弃不离的跟随能力。我们已经失去了对一桩耗时长久、不能速成的大型工件，不停地削凿、 削凿、 削凿的能力。

　　When the Buddha gives images for practicing concentration, he often relates them to skills. Skills take time, and he was teaching people who had taken the time to master many useful skills. In Thailand, they still sharpen knives against stones, and it”s a skill you have to learn: how not to ruin the knife as you”re sharpening it. If you get impatient and try to speed things up, you”ll ruin the sharpness, the straightness of the blade. So you have to be very still. The mind has to be still, and you have to maintain just the right amount of pressure constantly as you sharpen the blade. At first it may seem like nothing is happening, but over time the blade does get sharper and sharper. The consistency of your pressure is what guarantees that the blade won”t get worn in one particular spot—too sharp in one spot and not sharp enough in another, too sharp in the sense that the blad…

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