浸於身內

有些人以爲佛陀描述五蘊時，他是在描述我們是什麼！然而，那與他的話恰恰相反。他是說，我們不是它。不過，心的確認同這些東西——有時認同的是身體、有時是感受、辨識、思維造作，有時是感官意識[色受想行識]；有時是不同的組合；有時是上面說的全部。

如果可以給心的自我感拍一部電影，它的樣子會是漂泊不定、擅變無常，就像水中的倒影——滑到這裏、滑到那裏；認同這個、認同那個，時時刻刻都在變形。在這樣一刻不停地改換位置的過程中，心耗費了大量的能量。我們禪定時需要試著做的，是令它待在一個地方不動。只要你還有一個自我感，它就會沉浸在身內，保持它的堅固——如磐石般堅固。

出入息念，就是浸於身內的一種方式。巴利語是 kāyagatāsati——念浸住於身內[身念住]。浸住這個素質是十分重要的，你要盡可能地填滿全身、占據身體、周遍全身。

現在，你的觀察者在哪裏？對我們許多人來說，它就像一隻棲息在肩膀上的怪鳥，透過我們的雙眼在注視。它看身體，是把它當成某件分立的東西來看的。不過，禪定時，我們是在嘗試脫離與那個觀察者的認同；我們要做一個占滿全身的觀察者。你的腳占滿你的腳、你的手占滿你的手、你的整個自我感占滿整個身體。

這就把你放到了一個有力的位置，因爲如果你在身內留下大片尚未占據的區域，其它東西將會占據它——各種思維、各種雜染。不過，如果你的覺知占據了你的全身，其它東西就不那麼容易進來了。聖典裏的比喻形象，是一扇硬木門，朝那扇門扔過去一個線團，根本不會留下一點凹痕。哪怕其它事物的確進來，在心裏製造出一個印象，你也會知道它，你也會看見它，因爲你就在那裏。你沒有跑到身體的另一個角落，去看別的東西。

因此，隨著你專注氣，要試著克服你在頭部某個位置，看身內其它地方的氣這個觀念。你要占據全身，沐浴於整個氣中。氣和身應該包圍著你的所在感。接下來，你要維持這樣定在身內的那股感覺，隨著你的入息，隨著你的出息，把你的覺知填滿全身。

爲什麼？首先，這股填滿全身的感覺，幫助你住於當下。當心跑去思考過去、未來時，它必須縮小它的覺知感，縮小它的自我感，變成小到一個點，才能溜到過去、溜到未來。換句話說，你攀附到體內你用來作爲思考過去或未來的立足點的那個部位，與此同時，其它部位卻被湮沒了。不過，如果你用覺知把身體填滿，並且能夠維持那個遍覺知，就不可能閃入過去未來了，除非你想去。因此，這是把你自己釘在當下的一種方式。你的內在之手給釘到你的身體之手，你的內在之腳給釘到你的身體之腳。你就不能動了。

把氣想象成進入全身，身體的每一個細胞都參與呼吸過程，而你就坐在其中。這樣就給你這個正在觀察的自我，賦予了更大的堅固性，以至當諸種想法進入心裏時，你不會給它們撞得失去平衡。你有一個牢固的基地。巴利文禪定對象一詞， ārammaṇa [所緣]，它的嚴格[字面]意義是“支撐”，意思是，你的心牢牢定立在某件事物上。這裏你是定立在身內，這就是你的位置。這就是你確立定姿的地方。當你的定姿牢固時，沒有人能把你踢倒或擊倒。

這就好比在紐約市乘地鐵。車廂在那裏前後、上下、四周搖晃。如果你的立姿正確——你在車廂加速、減速、或者左右搖晃時不會跌到——那麼無論發生什麼，你都能維持平衡。不過，生命的多變遠甚於地鐵的搖晃。周圍發生的事件——色、香、味、觸、人們做的事、人們說的話。它們撞擊你的心，可能會暴力得多、猛烈得多，遠遠超過地鐵車廂的搖擺和急刹的力量。因此心需要一個極其牢固的定姿。

這就是爲什麼我們要修練爲心提供這個支撐，不僅在坐禪的這段時間內，而且終日不失。有些人抱怨說，要自己既關注日常事件，同時又關注氣，太難了。當然，如果你是坐在後腦勺裏，既要觀身內的氣，又要看外面的事物，的確是額外的負擔。任何同一時刻你要看的東西不止一件，而是兩件。不過，如果你把自己想象成浸住在身內、遍居於全身，就把自己放到了一個不同的位置。你定立在氣中，定立在一個堅固的位置上、一個有力的位置上。你從那個位置出發看外面，就不是作額外的事了，你只是處在一個維持定姿的更佳位置上。如果你的自我感，是住在體內某個小小的部位，外面的事物帶著強力沖進來——某人做了什麼、說了什麼，惹到了你——你很容易被撞得失去平衡，因爲你的定姿不牢固。心太習慣於從一個位置閃到另一個位置，它極其容易被撞翻。不過，如果你立定，把覺知遍滿全身——這就是你的定姿，這就是你的支撐——那麼無論來的是什麼，你都可以保持平衡。

因此，試著維持這股住於身內之感、浴於氣中之感、被氣全面包圍之感，不僅在這段坐禪時間裏，而且隨著你度過整日。試著維持這個遍浸身內、遍覺知、遍念住、遍警醒的素質。一旦你能夠在不同場合下維持這個定姿，接下來就可以開始觀察你在這裏造作起來的自我感了。如果你的自我感閃來閃去——先是[認同]某一感受、然後是某個辨識、然後回到感受、接著是辨識連同和感受，就像閃動在水面上的那些古怪的阿米巴變形蟲一樣的形影——那麼“這個自我是什麼？爲什麼心需要一個自我感？”的問題，是很難觀察、很難弄明白的。不過，隨著你維持這個遍居身內、浸於身內、周遭被氣包圍的單一的自我感，你就有足夠長的時間觀察它：這是由什麼構成的，這個形色是什麼，感受在哪裏，辨識在哪裏，思維構造在哪裏，意識在哪裏？它都在這裏，相對寂止，足以讓你真正地觀察它。

有一股念浸於身內之感、“我”浸於身內之感，是有許多好處的，最終你要把那個自我感拆解開來，不過現在這個時候，要學會利用它，使你不被世間各種風潮撞倒。也不被外流的各種心流撞倒。經典中談到以身爲島嶼、以身爲依止時，就是這個意思：河水奔流而過，島嶼堅固不動，因爲它的根基深厚，它由磐石構成，一如曼哈頓島；它不是一塊沙洲。你已經把覺知深深地紮根在你的雙手、你的雙腳、你的身體的各個部位，而不是單單住在你的頭部，不會從這裏到那裏亂閃。你就有了一個填滿當下的擴大的覺知。

這就把你放在一個有力的位置，你要盡可能長久地維持它。它助你抵擋各種來自外在、內在的激流，它也讓你以高得多的清晰度看見你的自我感，領悟它是什麼——看見即使在這個有力的位置，哪裏還存在苦，哪裏還存在張力、不確定、無常。不過，首先你要盡量地做到使它恒常。你怎麼能相信佛陀的無常教導，除非你已經在自己的覺知中找到了某種恒常? 你要力推極限。只有你真正力推極限時，才能真正懂得事情在哪裏開始反推。佛陀傳法時，並非是只要人們信他的話。他說，在你的內心對它們作反推、作檢驗。

因此，無常、苦、非我: 怎麼檢驗它們? 是藉著在身內造就出一股恒穩的安適感，因爲這個覺知必須放松下來，才能夠持久。你可以認同它，遍居其中。只有這樣，你才能夠反推極限，才能看見即使在這樣的心態之下，無常、苦 、非我的原則將會在哪裏反推回來。

不過，首先要修練它。記得，這是一門技能: 采取這個定姿、維持這個定姿、定在身內，然而要帶著一種擴展的安適感而定，使它不至壓抑。練習把你的覺知填滿身體，以至於達到如果對你的自我感照一張相，它就會如同聖典中的比喻形象: 一個從頭到腳被一塊白布整個包裹的人。或者，如同阿姜李的那個汽燈比喻——它的每根燈芯都浸浴在明亮、色白、不動的火焰之中。試著用這股放松然而平穩的覺知，飽和你的身體，看看作爲果報 ，將會發生什麼。

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Some people think that when the Buddha describes the five aggregates he’s describing what we are, but that’s precisely what he’s not saying. He’s saying that we’re not that. But the mind does identify with these things—sometimes with the body, sometimes with feelings, perceptions, thought-formations, sometimes with sensory consciousness, sometimes different combinations, sometimes all of the above. If you could take a movie of the mind’s sense of itself, it would be erratic and mercurial, like a reflection on water—slithering here and there, identifying with this, identifying with that, shape‐shifting all the time. In changing position all the time like this, the mind expends a lot of energy. One of the things that we want to try to do as we meditate is to get it to stay in one place, to save some energy. As long as you’re going to have a sense of self, keep it solid—rock solid—immersed in the body.

Breath meditation is one way of staying immersed in the body. The term in Pali is kayagatasati, mindfulness immersed in the body. And the quality of immersion is important. You want to fill the whole body, occupy the body, inhabit the whole body, as much as you can.

Where is your observer right now? For many of us, it’s like a weird bird perched on our shoulders and peering through our eyes. It watches the body as if the body were something separate. But as we meditate, we’re trying to get away from identifying with that particular observer; we want to be an observer filling the whole body. Your feet fill your feet, your hands fill your hands. Your entire sense of who you are fills the entire body.

This puts you in a position of strength, because if you’re leaving big gaps of unoccupied territory in your body, other things will occupy it—different thoughts, different defilements. But if your awareness occupies your whole body, other things can’t get in so easily. The image in the Canon is of a solid wooden door: a ball of string thrown at the door won’t leave a dent at all. Even if things do come in and make a dent on the mind, you’re going to know it, you’re going to see it because you’re right there. You’re not off in some other corner of the body looking at something else.

So as you focus on the breath, try to get past the idea that you’re in one part of the head watching the breath in other parts of the body. You want to occupy the whole body, bathed in the whole breath. The breath and the body should be surrounding your sense of where you are. And then you want to maintain that sense of being centered in the body like this, filling the whole body with your awareness as you breathe in, as you breathe out.

Why? For one thing, this sense of filling the body helps you stay in the present moment. When the mind goes off thinking thoughts about past and future, it has to shrink its sense of awareness, shrink its sense of itself, down to a small enough dot so that it can slip into the past or slip into the future. In other words, you latch onto the part of the body that you use as a basis for thinking about the past or the future, while other parts of the body get blotted out. But if you’re filling the body with your awareness and can maintain that full awareness, you can’t slip off into the past and future unless you want to. So this is one way of nailing yourself down to the present moment. Your inner hands are nailed to your physical hands, your feet to your feet. You can’t move.

Think of the breath coming into the whole body. Every cell of the body is participating in the breathing process, and you’re sitting here in the midst of it. This gives your sense of observing self a greater solidity, so that when thoughts come into the mind you’re not knocked off balance by them. You’ve got a solid foundation. The word they use for the object of meditation in Pali, arammana, literally means “support,” the idea being that your mind is standing firm on something. You’re standing here in the body. This is your location. This is where you take your stance. And when your stance is solid, nobody can kick you over or knock you down.

It’s like riding on the subway in New York City. The subway sways back and forth and up and down and all around. If your stance is planted just right—so that you don’t get knocked over either by the acceleration or deceleration of the train or the swaying to the left or the riht—you can maintain your balance no matter what. But life is a lot more erratic even than a subway train. The things that happen around you—sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, things that people do, things that people say: They can hit the mind with a lot more violence, with a lot more force than the wobbling or sudden braking of a subway train. So the mind needs a really solid stance.

This is why we work on providing this support for the mind not only while we’re sitting here meditating but also throughout theday. Some people complain that it’s asking too much of them to pay attention to the events of the day and to the breath at the sametime. Well, if you’re sitting in the back of your head watching the breath in the body and watching things outside, it does add an extra burden: You’ve got two things to watch at any one time instead of just one. But if you think of yourself as immersed in your body, inhabiting your whole body, this puts you in a different position. You’re standing in the breath, in a position of solidity, a position of strength. From that position you watch things outside, so that instead of having extra things to do, you’ve simply got a better place to maintain your stance. If your sense of self is inhabiting one little part of the body, and things come in from the outside with great force—somebody does something or says something that hits you the wrong way—you can get knocked off kilter really easily because your stance isn’t solid. The mind is so used to flitting around from one position to another that it’s very easily knocked off balance. But if you’re standing, filling your whole body with your awareness—this is your stance, this is your support—then no matter what comes, you can keep your balance.

So try to maintain this sense of inhabiting your body, being bathed in the breath, being surrounded by the breath on all sides, not only while you’re sitting here but also as you go through the day. Try to maintain this quality of being fully immersed in the body, fully aware, fully mindful, fully alert. Once you can maintain this stance in different situations, then you can start observing the sense of self you’ve created here. If your sense of self is flitting all around—first with a feeling, then with a perception, then back to a feeling again, then to perception and feeling, like those weird amoeba-like shapes that flit across the surface of water—it’s hard to observe, to get a sense of, “What is this self? Why does the mind need a sense of self?” But as you maintain this one sense of self inhabiting the body, immersed in the body, surrounded on all sides by the breath, it’s there long enough for you to observe it: What’s it made of? What’s the form here? Where’s the feeling? Where’s the perception? Where are the thought-formations? Where’s the consciousness? It’s all right here, relatively still, enough that you can really observe it.

There are lots of advantages to having a sense of mindfulness immersed in the body, your sense of self immersed in the body. Eventually you take that sense of self apart, but in the meantime you learn how to use it so that you don’t get knocked over by all the winds and currents of the world. You don’t get knocked over by all the currents flowing out of the mind either. When they talk about taking the body in-and-of-itself as your island, as your refuge, this is what they mean: The current of the river flows past, but the island stays solid because it’s deeply rooted. It’s made of rock, like Manhattan; it’s not a sand-bar. You’ve got your awareness deeply rooted in your hands, in your feet, in the different parts of your body, not just in your head, not flitting around from here to there. You’ve got a large sense of awareness filling the present.

This puts you in a position of strength, which you want to maintain for as long as you can. It helps ward off the currents that come flowing from outside or inside, and it also allows you to see your sense of self a lot more clearly, to understand what it is—where there’s still suffering even in this position of strength, where there’s still stress and uncertainty and inconstancy. But first you do your best to make it constant. How are you going to believe the Buddha’s teachings on inconstancy until you’ve found some constancy in your awareness? You push the limits. It’s only when you really push the limits that you can gain a true sense of where things start pushing back. When the Buddha gave his teachings, he didn’t simply ask for people to believe what he said. He said to push back inside yourself to test them.

So. Inconstancy, stress, not-self: How do you test those? By creating a constant sense of ease in the body, because this awareness has to be relaxed in order to last. And you can identify with it, inhabit it fully. It’s only in this way that you can push against the limits and see where the principles of inconstancy, stress, and not-self will push back even in this state of mind.

But work on it first. Remember, this is a skill: taking this stance, maintaining this stance, being concentrated in the body, but concentrated with an expansive sense of ease so that it doesn’t become oppressive. Work at filling the body with your awareness so that if they were going to take a picture of your sense of self, of the mind’s sense of self, it would be like the image in the Canon: a person totally surrounded by a white cloth from head to toe. Or like Ajaan Lee’s image of the mantle of a Coleman lantern—all its threads bathed in a bright, white, unmoving flame. Try to saturate your body with this sense of relaxed but steady awareness, and see what happens as a result.

(根據2004年9月19日開示錄音整理，本文來自坦尼沙羅尊者開示集《禪定——第三集》)