调入气中
[作者]坦尼沙罗尊者
[中译]良稹
Tuning-in to the Breath
by Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu
When I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, one of the questions I asked him was, “What do you need to believe in order to meditate
” He answered that there was only one thing: the principle of kamma. Now when we hear the word “kamma,” we usually think, “kamma-and-rebirth,” but he meant specifically the principle of action: that what you do shapes your experience. 我跟随阿姜放之初，曾经问过的一个问题是:“为了禅定，需要信什么
”他回答，信一件事: 业的原则。不过我们听见“业”这个词，常常想到的是“业与轮回”，他所特指的却是行动的原则，即: 行为塑造体验。
If you”re convinced of this, you can do the meditation because, after all, the meditation is a doing. You”re not just sitting here, biding your time, waiting for the accident of Awakening to happen. Even in very still states of meditation, there”s an activity going on. Even the act of “being the knowing” is still a doing. It”s a fabrication, a sankhara. In one of the suttas, the Buddha says that all the different khandhas, all the different aggregates that make up experience as a whole, have to get shaped into aggregates by the process of fabrication. In other words, there”s a potential for a form, a potential for a feeling, potential for perception, fabrication, consciousness; and the act of fabricating is what turns these potentials into actual aggregates. 如果你确信这一点，就可以作禅定，因为毕竟，禅定是一种作为。你并非仅是坐在这里守候时光，等待觉醒的偶发突现。即使在极其寂止的禅定境界之中，仍然有一种动作进行着。即使“成为觉知”的动作，仍然是一种作。它是一种造作，一种行[sankhara]。在一篇经文当中，佛陀说， 构成整个体验的所有蕴，所有聚集体[khandhas]，必须被造作的过程塑造成诸蕴。换句话说，有一种色的潜在可能性，一种受的潜在可能性，有想、行、识的潜在可能性。正是造作的动作，把这些潜在可能性转为实际的诸蕴。
It sounds abstract, but it”s a very important lesson for the meditation even from the very beginning. You sit here in the body—and of course, that”s a fabrication right there: the idea that you”re sitting in the body—but given all the many different things you could focus on right now, there”s the possibility of choice. This possibility of choice is where kamma comes in. You can choose any of the sensations that are coming into your awareness. It”s as if there were a buzz in all the different parts of the body. There”s a potential for pain here, a potential for pleasure over there. All these different sensations are presenting themselves to you for you to do something about them, and you have the choice as to which ones you”ll notice. 听起来抽象，但它对禅定来说，甚至从一开始，就是极其重要的一课。你在这里， 坐于身内——当然，那里就有一个造作: 你坐在身内的这个想法——不过，既然有许多东西你现在可以专注，那就有选择的可能性。这个选择的可能性，正是业力因果发生作用的地方。你可以选择来到你觉知范围内的任何觉受。就仿佛体内所有不同的部位都在滋滋作声。这里有痛的潜势，那里有乐的潜势。所有这些不同的觉受都把自己放在你面前，让你对它们做点什么，你将会注意其中的那些，是有选择的。
Doctors have done studies showing that pain isn”t just a physical phenomenon. It isn”t totally a given. There are so many different messages coming into your brain right now that you can”t possibly process them all, so you choose to focus on just some of them. And the mind has a tendency to focus on pain because it”s usually a warning signal. But we don”t have to focus there. In other words, there can be a slight discomfort in a part of the body, and you can focus on it and make it more and more intense, more and more of an issue. That”s one thing you can do right now, but—even if you may not realize it—you have the choice of whether or not to do that. You can choose not to make it more intense. You can choose even to ignore it entirely. Many times we have habitual ways of relating to sensations, and they”re so habitual and so consistent that we think there”s no choice at all. “This is the way things have to be,” we think, but they don”t. 医生们做过一些研究显示，痛不仅仅是一种身体现象。它不完全是先决的。当下来到你的大脑中的讯息如此之多，你不可能全部处理，因此你选择只专注其中的一部分。心有专注痛感的倾向，是因为通常它是一种预警讯号。不过，我们并不是非得专注那里。换句话说，可能在身体的某处略微有点不舒适，你可以盯着它，使不舒适感越来越激烈，越来越成问题。那是你当下可以做的一件事，然而——即使你或者没有意识到——做与不做，你是有选择的。你可以选择不令它更激烈。你甚至可以选择彻底漠视它。很多时候，我们对觉受有一些习惯性的反应，它们如此习惯化，如此常规化，我们以为不存在选择。“事情只能这样，”我们这么想，然而，它们并非如此。
Tha…
《调入气中》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…