..续本文上一页r people can call it other things if they want, these are just words. We happen to use the words of our tradition. We”re not going to argue about Pali words, Sanskrit words, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English or any other, we”re just using the term Buddha-wisdom as a conventional symbol to help remind us to be wise, to be alert, to be awake.

　　Many forest bhikkhus in the North-East of Thailand use the word “Buddho” as their meditation object. They use it as a kind of koan. Firstly, they calm the mind by following the inhalations and exhalations using the syllables BUD-DHO, and then begin to contemplate, “What is Buddho, the “one who knows”

　　” “What is the knowing

　　”

　　When I used to travel around the North-East of Thailand on tudong I liked to go and stay at the monastery of Ajahn Fun. Ajahn Fun was a much-loved and deeply respected monk, the teacher of the Royal Family, and he was so popular that he was constantly receiving guests. I would sit at his kuti [hut] and hear him give the most amazing kind of Dhamma talks, all on the subject of “Buddho”— as far as I could see, it was all that he taught. He could make it into a really profound meditation, whether for an illiterate farmer or an elegant, western-educated Thai aristocrat. The main part of his teaching was to not just mechanically repeat “Buddho”, but to reflect and investigate, to awaken the mind to really look into the “Buddho”, “the one who knows” really investigate its beginning, its end, above and below, so that one”s whole attention was stuck onto it. When one did that, “Buddho” became something that echoed through the mind. One would investigate it, look at it, examine it before it was said and after it was said, and eventually one would start listening to it and hear beyond the sound, until one heard the silence.

　　A refuge is a place of safety, and so when superstitious people would come to my teacher Ajahn Chah, wanting charmed medallions or little talismans to protect them from bullets and knives, ghosts and so on, he would say, “Why do you want things like that

　　 The only real protection is taking refuge in the Buddha. Taking refuge in the Buddha is enough.” But their faith in Buddha usually wasn”t quite as much as their faith in those silly little medallions. They wanted something made out of bronze and clay, stamped and blessed. This is what is called taking refuge in bronze and clay, taking refuge in superstition, taking refuge in that which is truly unsafe and cannot really help us.

　　Today in modern Britain we find that generally people are more sophisticated. They don”t take refuge in magic charms, they take refuge in things like the Westminster Bank — but that is still taking refuge in something that offers no safety. Taking refuge in the Buddha, in wisdom, means that we have a place of safety. When there is wisdom, when we act wisely and live wisely, we are truly safe. The conditions around us might change. We can”t guarantee what will happen to the material standard of living, or that the Westminster Bank will survive the decade. The future remains unknown and mysterious, but in the present, by taking refuge in the Buddha we have that presence of mind now to reflect on and learn from life as we live it.

　　Wisdom doesn”t mean having a lot of knowledge about the world; we don”t have to go to university and collect information about the world to be wise. Wisdom means knowing the nature of conditions as we”re experiencing them. It is not just being caught up in reacting to and absorbing into the conditions of our bodies and minds out of habit, out of fear, worry, doubt, greed and so on, but it is using that “Buddho”, that “one who knows,” to observe that these conditions are changing. It is the knowing of that change that we call Buddha and in which we take refuge. We…

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