..续本文上一页ber of years, really, because there was always strong resistance. But I began to understand the wisdom of the discipline of the vinaya, which is not all that apparent on reading the vinaya scriptures. Having an opinion on the traditions and the vinaya itself, you might think, ”This rule isn”t necessary.” And you could spend hours of your day just rationalising this, saying, ”This is the twentieth century, these things are not necessary.” And you would keep watching the discontent and proliferation going on inside you, and you”d ask yourself, ”Is this suffering
” You”d keep watching your reactions to being corrected, criticised, or praised.
Over the years, equanimity seemed to develop. One found that anger, annoyance and aversion began to fade out. And when your mind no longer inclines towards dwelling in aversion, you begin to have some joy and some peace of mind.
As I gained confidence in the practice and the teacher and then the monastery, I developed a kind of obsessive attachment to it. I couldn”t see any faults in it and I felt that this was what everybody should be doing. People would come to the monastery and I”d feet it was my duty to convert them. I can understand how missionaries must feel. You feel very inspired, very attached to something that has helped you and given you happiness and insight. You feel compelled to tell everybody about it, whether they want to hear it or not.
It was all right as long as the Westerners who came agreed with me. That was nice; I could inspire them and they would feel the same sense of dedication, and we would reinforce each other. We could get together and talk about our tradition and our teacher being the best, and how we had discovered something wonderful. Then inevitably some negative American or Englishman would come to the monastery and not fall for any of this.
This happened very strongly about my fifth year, when an American came who had been at the Zen Center in San Francisco. He proceeded to find fault with Ajahn Chah, with Wat Pah Pong, with Theravada Buddhism, with the vinaya - with everything. He was quite an intelligent person and he certainly had a lot of experience in going from one teacher to another, from one ashram to another, from one monastery to another, and finding fault with them. So this put doubt in the minds of people: ”Maybe there is a better way to do it, a quicker way. Maybe Ajahn Chah is an old-fashioned nobody.” There was a teacher in India who was giving meditation courses where people were “becoming sotapannas [See Note 2]almost immediately”. ”I don”t know if I am a sotapanna yet or not. If I could have a teacher come and tell me, verify, it would be really nice to know where you are in this meditation.” Ajahn Chah would not say anything to you. So I felt a strong aversion arise towards this American, I felt the need to tear down every other type of Buddhism, every other teacher, every possible alternative. I became very critical, and every time somebody would say, ”I know a better system,” I would immediately – rather than listen to why it was better – find every possibility of why it was worse. So I developed a habit of tearing down other teachers and traditions. But this brought me no joy. I began to see the suffering in always having to defend something and having to tear down anything that threatens the security you find in attachment.
If you never really understand doubt, the nature of uncertainty in you own mind, then you get overwhelmed by it, and when someone says, ”I know a better way, a quicker way,” you start doubting: ”Maybe there is a better way, a quicker way.” Then they would describe this better way in very rational terms, and you would think, ”Well, yes, maybe that”s the way to do it.” But when you are attached and feel loyal to you…
《Cittaviveka》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…