《2024靜坐大綱》

2024.01.06► [Q&A] 解脫道中的信望愛

(無)

2024.01.13► [Q&A] 导引：内在探寻／導引：內在探尋

• Locating the feeling of me in the body

• Are you that sensation or are you the awareness of that sensation?

• Where is this awareness situated?

• Being yourself/being aware: does it require exertion?

• If you detect exertion, is it not an instance of attention, as opposed to awareness

• Marveling at awareness as it is the most wondrous "non-thing"; gazing at God; loss in God

• It is intention, thought, attention that are lost in God; you are not lost

• The sense of self that is devoid of/ vs that comprises of intention, thought, attention...

• The I thought, intention, attention... borrows the light, cannot exist on their own, other than being supported by awareness

• Awareness itself is unsupported; not a thing 

• the so-called mind are only thoughts, put together by concerns and love and treated as if possessing real meanings; thoughts are only animated when infused with intention

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2024.01.20► [Q&A] 寂止默然

• The Buddha's own preference; the true indication of attainments

• Inner speech, narratives, multitudes of mental defilements

• Constructive vs indeterminate nondiscrimination; Inner quietude as a sign of surrendering intentions

• Superficial connections vs partaking in peace/recognizing sentience

• Right Speech, and the Superior Speech

• How and where are you expending energies

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2024.01.27► [Q&A] 有关灭尽定／有關滅盡定

• The nirodha

• The model: layers of sankharas and the undefinable core (as opposed to the commentarial reductionism); shedding off the sankharas means sustained seclusion from them; seclusion from eager participation in them; your eager participation perpetuates them

• The role of equanimity; the possible subtle sankharas relating to equanimity

• The cessation of feeling & perception

• The former means non-dependence and non-feeding (using the Form Realm as example)

• The latter means non-discrimination and non-participation (using the Formless Realm as example)

• The nirodha in the "three dependences" is same as this nirodha

• The post-nirodha transformation: permanently altered relationship with and regarding to sankharas; the experiencing of the Deathless; technically, both should happen; such a transformation is non-reversible, and remains regardless the episodic contents

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2024.02.03► [Q&A] 识缘名色 名色缘六入／識緣名色 名色緣六入

• Name and form; new interpretation

• how it relates to consciousness and six senses

• Dhammapada 24: "Gone to the beyond of becoming,

you let go of in front,

let go of behind,

let go of between.

With a heart everywhere let-go,

'you' don't come again to birth

& aging." 

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2024.02.17► [Q&A] 解脫道中的培植福本

• For those who are earnest...

• More important than rules and regulation is embodied mindset

• Embodied abundance; aristocratic elegance; equality and sincerity to all

• Embodied security; connected to the source; fundamental to all experiences, which are not suppressed, is peace

• Embodied happiness; giving not because of self-denial, but because it is joyful

• Your life will change for the better without scheming or striving

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2024.02.24► [Q&A] 五蓋 和 心念住

• The hindrances (i.e. hindrances to jhanas) are not just impediments to attentional focus, but are described as "causes of blindness, causes of ignorance, destructive to wisdom, not conducive to Nibbana." (SN 46:40)

• The commentarial notion of knocking out vs killing bandits

• Satipatthana is dynamic

• Dispassion toward mental processes; they are not here to serve you; don't trust them; they are but repetitions of restlessness, torpor, boredom, excitation...

• It's only in mental processes that the five hindrances are evident; they are the "wrinkles"; it's only in self identification that they are evident; they are the symptoms of a mind that has already been wrapped up and swept away

• Pacify the mind until the currents are not felt; if the currents are not felt, the water is not felt; emptiness of mind

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2024.03.02► [Q&A] 厌离 是 高级懒／厭離 是 高級懶

• Not complaining and not explaining, inside and outside

• Too lazy for thoughts, descriptions, conclusions, judgments...

• The "I am so and so” is but the loudest of noises, the most recurring of

impressions

• Too lazy to cohere as a person, to borrow something from past or future

• Too lazy to turn attention every which way, and too lazy to suppress it

• Only stress, its origination and disappearance; only presence, space, awareness, not-a-thing... 

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2024.03.09► [Q&A] 松进觉知中／鬆進覺知中

• When you're embodying sadness, tension, etc. in the background awareness

• The intensity of the movie and the untouchability of the screen; even smoothness is an attribute

• The undefinable, attribute-less...Doing nothing and entrusting; no struggle 

• Parasympathetic vs sympathetic; stress mode vs relaxation mode

• Primary verb at the moment: want, do, have

• The intensity of that verb; seclusion from that verb; to be

• Relaxation at the levels of muscles, attitudes, grip on thoughts

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2024.03.16► [Q&A] 超越一切见(見)

• The indeterminate; loosening grip on everything; conserving energy; letting go of doership and control

• All explanatory models break down; the example of time: beginningless or with beginning

• Will an explanation satisfy? How long will it satisfy? Can you remember this after death/trauma?

• Explanation as placating and appeasement; explanation just as a practical means of directing and guiding intention; be content with just this

• Instead of working on views, work on the intention behind questioning

• Omniscience in the Dhamma

• What doesn't need explanation? Self knowing, origination and disappearance of stress

• Stay with those what is self-evident, and don't be swayed by contents of thoughts; do you become dogmatic, insistent, quarrelsome?  

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2024.03.23► [Q&A] 渡化苦厄

• Mental defilement IS the learned response to certain feelings; all three feelings make the body/mind fidget, in the form of craving, aversion, boredom……

• Hardship is nothing other than resistance to feelings; let go of resistance, feel feelings fully, no expectations, accept even the feelings of resistance, let go of even the striving to let go

• Forsaking reactions

• Ghosts and demons

• Daqi, non-cowering, no self pity, not playing the victim…… 

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2024.03.30► [Q&A] 内在的宁静 是道／內在的寧靜 是道

• Natural peace; which is present when one is awake or asleep; which is not in the least bit disturbed

• The path is only there when there's not one with, or when there's a tendency toward rebellion against, peace

• Quiet the mind; different methods; not by ways of forceful fabrication; the example of recollecting the sages' minds

• Convincing consciousness of its own source and nature

• Simulation; artificial

• Ways to correct the artificiality: what separate intentions are there? What controlling desires are there? What remaining pushing away is there? How did you lose it? Did you really lose it? I am peace 

2024.0.06► [Q&A] 内在的净居天／內在的淨居天

• The psycho-behavioral archetypes of Buddhist heavens

• 淨居天一切時不住於輪迴側

• Meaningless differentiation between figurative and literal places

• Don't just leave behind sensuality for dogma; what is the reason...

• What destroys peace...

• Letting go of guilt; Think of sensuality in terms of: clarity and peace compromised

• What compromises peace: eagerness, impatience, hunger, fever……

• What compromises clarity: ignorance about sensuality (limitations; doesn't lend itself to hoarding; endless rivalry and worry...) 

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2024.04.13► [Q&A] 心安静下来後／心安靜下來後

• Quieting down via non-formal-meditative techniques

• What to do with equanimity?

• 1. deepen and familiarize it

• 2. examine if there's sankhara, in support of it, in identifying it

• 3. examine craving

• 4. knowing the nature of mind, via the liberation gates

• Some of these might be redundant or unnecessary

• All leading to letting go 

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2024.04.20► [Q&A] 没有捉执(執)的意识(識) 是觉(覺)知

• AN10.81, the Buddha abides in unrestricted awareness, having been released from the aggregates; this means that unrestricted awareness is not consciousness

• Consciousness as that which maps reality; consciousness with attributes, landing, reflected surface...consciousness as that which is intoxicated by its reflected image

• As a traveler, as a story, as a hoarder, as a sensory experiencer……

• Be dispassionate about memory, inclination, doership, ownership, character...

• The cohering of a glob of foam; where is mind when its structures are not believed in?Where is mind when there's no activity to hold together the structure?

• The border of a personality is held together by continual striving; when there's surrender, there's unrestricted awareness; the pattern of a river

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2024.04.27► [Q&A] 身念住導引

• Not the usual idea of  body, but as bundle of neuroticism; mental defilements as strugle

• One angle to "pacifying activities": make them fewer

• Another angle: regard them with indifference

• Looking for ways to conserve energy; looking for ways that you can content the body

• See mental defilements as bodily agitation and inner tightening  

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2024.05.04► [Q&A] 十六胜行最初二阶／十六勝行最初二階

• MN10 turner assessment, to Patisambhidamagga's contact point

• Task focused, not point or location focused

• Parimukha:正念現前(菩提流支);住對面念(玄奘);正念而住(義淨)

• Situational awareness vs attentional fixity; Citta-ekagga

• The so-called optimal environment, or conducive environment; But in the end, learn to be at ease even at one's failure to be at ease; learn to let go even at one's struggle at letting go

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2024.05.11► [Q&A] 涅盘临界／涅槃臨界

• AN9.36; discerning the verge of nibbana

• What is nibbana and stream entry; regarding/selfing

• Cessation; neither existence or non-existence; not having come from or going to somewhere 

• Imperturbable peace

• What is more compelling? The call of sankharas, or the refuge in peace? Initially, the contrast and lopsidedness are not complete, but there will be signs that they are beginning to lean

• The way they lean: the locus of one's security; the waning sankharic forces; the increasing pervading of peace; complete disillusionment about what selfing does; the destruction of pride; the destruction of insistence on harmfulness; readiness for humility and faith 

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2024.05.25► [Q&A] 身念住的关键(關鍵)在身行 而非身体(體)

• Body as a lump of mass vs body as bundles of neurotic tendencies and reactions; the former is but a forerunner to enhanced sensitivity for the latter

• Don't focus so much on the border, but on the borderless impulses; the manner in which you seize, pick up, rush forward, cower, aggress...

• Even in physical stillness, one should focus on sankharas: those yet to arise, or the subtle ones, or the state of absence of them

• In your dreams, your body is not the literal body, but the neurotic tendencies you take with you; the body you're reborn with is but an emblem/representation of karmic tendencies

• The euphoric and charismatic phenomena; not to be duplicated in themselves; rather, it's the pacification of craving/sankhara that leads to wellbeing; focus on the latter

• The satipatthana topic is always a key whose focus leads to liberation; in this case, the sankharas that is behind intentions

• Pacification of bodily sankharas: relax them; not reveling in them; not embedding your sense of self; not rushing in with passion; indifference; disinterested in fabrications

• Sankharas made to seem illusory