Mindfulness in plain english - meditation in everyday life

(任何时候都可以禅修)

It is crucial for you to understand what meditation is. It is not some special posture, and it's not just a set of mental exercises. Meditation is a cultivation of mindfulness and the application of that mindfulness once cultivated. You do not have to sit to meditate. You can meditate while washing the dishes. You can meditate in the shower, or roller skating, or typing letters. Meditation is awareness, and it must be applied to each and every activity of one's life. This isn't easy.

了解禅修是什么对你很重要，它不是一些特殊姿势，也不是一套心灵体操；禅修是静观的培育及对刚培育出来的静观之运用。你不一定要坐着来禅修，你可以在洗碟时禅修，可以在洗澡时禅修，也可以在溜冰或写信时禅修。禅修即是觉察或觉知，它必须被运用于人生的所有活动之中，这并不容易。

We specifically cultivate awareness through the seated posture in a quiet place because that's the easiest situation in which to do so. Meditation in motion is harder. Meditation in the midst of fast-paced noisy activity is harder still. And meditation in the midst of intensely egoistic activities like romance or arguments is the ultimate challenge. The beginner will have his hands full with less stressful activities.

我们选择在安静的地方用坐姿来培育觉察力，是因为那是最容易修习的情境。在行动中禅修则较难，在节奏快速、热闹嘈杂的活动中禅修则更难，而在极度自我中心的活动中，例如：谈情说爱或激烈争论中禅修，那真是测试极限的挑战。事实上，初学者在低压力的禅修活动中已忙得不可开交。

Yet the ultimate goal of practice remains: to build one's concentration and awareness to a level of strength that will remain unwavering even in the midst of the pressures of life in contemporary society. Life offers many challenges and the serious meditator is very seldom bored.

可是，禅修练习的终极目标依然是：建立起定力(集中力)与觉察力至足够的强度水平，好让禅修者能在现代的社会的生活压力下，仍然可以屹立不摇。对于生活中源源不绝的挑战，认真的禅修者是极少会感到厌烦的。

Carrying your meditation into the events of your daily life is not a simple process. Try it and you will see. That transition point between the end of your meditation session and the beginning of 'real life' is a long jump. It's too long for most of us. We find our calm and concentration evaporating within minutes, leaving us apparently no better off than before. In order to bridge this gulf, Buddhists over the centuries have devised an array of exercises aimed at smoothing the transition. They take that jump and break it down into little steps. Each step can be practiced by itself.

把禅修带入你的日常生活之中，决不是一个简单的过程，试一试你就会明白。从坐禅结束到「现实生活」的开始之转捩点是一大跃进，对大多数人而言，那个距离实在太长了。我们发觉在几分钟之内，我们的平静与定力被蒸发得无影无踪，接下来的状态并不比以前好。为了跨越这道鸿沟，佛教徒在过去多个世纪以来，已设计出一系列的练习方法，以便顺利促成这个转移。他们成功了大跃进，然后把它分成几个小部分，每一部分都可以单独练习。

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Mindfulness in plain english - what's in it for you?

You can expect certain benefits from your meditation. The initial ones are practical, prosaic things; the later stages are profoundly transcendent. They run together from the simple to the sublime. We will set forth some of them here. Your own experience is all that counts.

你可以期望从禅修中得到一些利益，最初的利益很实际和平凡，往后阶段所得的利益则是深远与超凡的，它们从简单的到崇高的都有，我们在这里会宣布一些，你自己的体验才算是真的。

Those things that we called hindrances or defilements are more than just unpleasant mental habits. They are the primary manifestations of the ego process itself. The ego sense itself is essentially a feeling of separation -- a perception of distance between that which we call me, and that which we call other. This perception is held in place only if it is constantly exercised, and the hindrances constitute that exercise.

Greed and lust are attempts to get 'some of that' for me; hatred and aversion are attempts to place greater distance between 'me and that'. All the defilements depend upon the perception of a barrier between self and other, and all of them foster this perception every time they are exercised. 

Mindfulness perceives things deeply and with great clarity. It brings our attention to the root of the defilements and lays bare their mechanism. It sees their fruits and their effects upon us. It cannot be fooled. Once you have clearly seen what greed really is and what it really does to you and to others, you just naturally cease to engage in it. 

When a child burns his hand on a hot oven, you don't have to tell him to pull it back; he does it naturally, without conscious thought and without decision. There is a reflex action built into the nervous system for just that purpose, and it works faster than thought. By the time the child perceives the sensation of heat and begins to cry, the hand has already been jerked back from the source of pain. 

AMindfulness works in very much the same way: it is wordless, spontaneous and utterly efficient. Clear mindfulness inhibits the growth of hindrances; continuous mindfulness extinguishes them. Thus, as genuine mindfulness is built up, the walls of the ego itself are broken down, craving diminishes, defensiveness and rigidity lessen, you become more open, accepting and flexible. You learn to share your loving-kindness.

那些我们称为盖障或烦恼的东西，不仅是令人不快的心理习惯而已，它们是自我活动过程本身的主要表现。自我感觉本身基本上是一种疏离的感受，一种「自我」与「其他」之间的距离知觉。这种知觉要不断重复演习才能稳固地保持，而那些演习就是盖障所组成的。

贪心与爱欲试图为「自我」得到「其他」的一些东西，瞋恚与厌恶则试图拉阔「自我」与「其他」之间的距离。所有烦恼皆因「自我」与「其他」之间有障碍的知觉而生起，而每次烦恼出现时，全都会助长此一知觉。

静观能深入与极清晰地体会事物，它能带领注意力到烦恼的根源，把它们的机制暴露无遗，它知道它们对我们所造成的后果与影响，它不会被愚弄。一旦你看清楚贪欲的真面目，真正认识到它对你及其他人的所作所为，你自会停止，不再参与其事。

就好像一个小孩，当他的手被烤炉烫过后，你无需叫他缩手，他也自然会做的，而且是不假思索或决断。神经系统自会作出此反射动作，且它的速度比思想还要快。当孩子感到火热的感觉并开始哭的时候，他的手已急拉离开了致痛的源头。

静观的运作方式与此很相似，它是无言的、自发的、且绝对有效率。清晰的静观制止了盖障的增长，持续的静观则可彻底消灭它们。因此，当真正的静观被建立起来时，「自我」的墙壁会瓦解、渴爱会减少、自我防御和顽固僵硬等亦会减轻，你会更为开放、更为包容与灵活变通，你学会与他人分享你的慈悲心。

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