..续本文上一页oesn”t say, ”Look, there”s Venerable Sumedho - he keeps the moral precepts, I”m not going to bite him!” They are not human; they cannot rise up to the human plane.
But we can sink down to their”s very quickly. They are pain of the sensory realm and following the instinctual tendencies of those bodies with their survival mechanisms and all that. What we are doing in Buddhist practice is rising beyond mere human existence towards the refuges of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha - towards the transcendent, the Death-less, Nibbana. For this, the human foundation is necessary; we have to be fully human before we can expect to get beyond that. In order to transcend it, we have to fully accept the instinctual plane and respect it for what it is; we no longer condemn it or identify with it. We can respect the midges, and the mosquitoes, and all the other beings. So we are not judging the instinctual plane, or exalting it. It is what it is - it”s like this. We refrain from doing evil - from intentionally doing cruel, unkind, selfish, mean things, or using our ability to speak for harming others. Then from that human plane we can aspire to the transcendent Deathless Realm, Amaravati. Our bodies will die when it is the time for them to go; they die - that is their nature. The human realm is not an end in itself. We have to learn from the human experience - to know it, and rise up to it - but no longer attach to or identify with it, because humanity is not what we are. We are not really humans either! But, paradoxically, we have to be fully human to realise we are not human. From the human plane we can contemplate the instinctual plane. When you are caught in the instinctual plane you can”t very well contemplate it, be- cause you are just caught into that level of activity and reaction. But going to the human plane, one can be very much aware of the instinctual one for what it is. Then, from the transcendent plane, we can understand the human one. Much of our meditation is on seeing our own human limitations for what they really are; that”s why morality is such an important part of our training. Daily reflections are also very important. We take time to consider what it is to be human, and what is necessary for human survival: ”What do we really need
”, rather than ”What do we really want
” ”What is necessary for living in the society in the right way
” As a Sangha, we must consider how to be living examples for the society to see the beauty of humanity, the gentleness, the kindness, the propriety of it - the wisdom of the human realm. However, we are definitely not just pointing to the human realm, but also beyond it. 1 find it very helpful to just be able to contemplate what it is to be a human being - to be conscious. What is it to be born and to age
All the things-that are affecting each one of us are to be contemplated; none of it is to be dismissed or rejected. The instinctual realm, the realm of survival and procreation, the emotional realm, the intellectual realm, the ability to feel and to love and to hate and so forth - all these are natural phenomena (dhammas) for us to reflect on and to understand. Then as you awaken more and more, and contemplate and understand more of the Dhamma, you can understand why this world is the way it is.
《The Real World》全文阅读结束。