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續前期：1975年8月19日星期二晚
比丘尼恆賢：
我知道有的人疑惑，為什麼我們說大部分時侯上人不很注意對個人個別的治療呢？因為上人是做大規模的治療，他給眾生的藥是治生死的；如果眾生依教奉行的話，就可以完全把握自己的命運，並且還可以轉教別人。所以上人這不僅是治療某一種的疾病，而是教人完全由生死之中解脫出來。
男眾：
心地中、相對世界中的事，常常要用例子來說明。我今天就想到了這麼一件事。我曾和一群人住在（夏威夷）毛夷（Maui）的麥克肯尼海灘。我們一起搭了一個帳篷，而在中央的位置有一處棄置的，軍用工事的加固水泥地基，約二呎高、一呎寬、好幾呎長，不管怎麼說一定要清除掉它。大家都忙著搭帳篷，沒人願意去對付這個麻煩，可它正在當中，保留又不行。結果在大家忙的時候，就會有一個人拿起大鎚子去敲幾下，它卻紋風不動，一整天都沒有進展。有人敲上五、十分鐘，就洩氣回來了。沒人願意做這件事，我也不例外，看來沒希望了。
過了半天，我突然想到世上無論什麼東西，只要定在一點上持續打擊，時間夠的時候就一定會被打破。因此我就去游泳使自己打起精神，回來再拿起大鎚子幹開了。我不斷地從一個點向中間，向底部打擊著，大約兩個小時後整塊水泥就被砸開了。我再叫來幾個人把兩大長條石頭拖走了。
這個例子說明了應如何在因地修行。像我們現在的情形，人們經常持咒、唸聖號。最初什麼都好，可心一專業障就浮現出來了。所修的法門越深入業障浮現得就越久。許多人不知這是怎麼回事，就會說：「禪真是無聊透了，和幾年前剛開始修時比起來，我更覺得洩氣了。」因此就停止了修禪。這是非常普遍的傾向，因為人們要迴避生活中較深入的問題。開始修一個法門時，比如唸佛，唸著唸著好像沒什麼，但過一段時間後就發現執著與妄想的呈現。這一切都跟當事人的個性、執著、弱點、特徵相關。經過相當長的明顯的階段，所有的不幸、憂鬱都會聚成一團，讓修行人非常難過。這是我們進步的症候。如果修禪集中觀照這一團，它就會放光；這是種平衡的境界。大體上是種唸佛持咒的境界，要用有意識的心念來唸佛，來克服下意識的妄想。
通常妄念都非常強，比有意識的心念強。當有意識的心念和下意識的妄想勢均力敵時，就互相排斥消長，心中出現光明。二者均衡的時間越久，光明持續得也越久，光明終會摧毀執著業障。我，或許很多人在唸佛、經行、坐禪時會總發現心中在說：「我不介意，我覺得這沒有必要。」這種情形發生時，我們就應問自己：「我如果認為這不是真的，那這是誰造成的？」認真考慮一下這個問題：「我們如果沒有執著這件事，那這境界是誰造成的？如果我沒做錯事，意識到我做錯事的人又是誰？」認識到我們或許錯了，別人或許是對的，要真地認識到這一點。如果對自心的態度不能改變，那全部的修行就都不會正確，修禪也會不對。如果對禪的態度不正確，彈就會成為障礙。對這點的認識很重要，否則幾年的修行就會空費。我們現在進行的念誦很好，因為我們曾在打坐上花了不少時間。但我知道許多朋友以及我自己從未經行，經行是很好的修行，很重要，應該提倡讓人認識到修禪不一定要打坐，這很重要。每天我們都有很多機會修禪，忙碌的人也不例外。我們生活中總是有需要排隊或等候的情形；若能利用這些時間，就能湊出幾個小時來修禪。
除了修禪，去除業障，明白自性，還有持戒。佛告誡出家弟子在他入滅後要以戒為師。出家持戒未滿五年之前大體上是不應修任何禪定的，這實在是事出有因。打個比方，好比一輛想停下來的車，關掉引擎而不煞車，車最終會停下來，當然這樣的時間會比較久些。可是因沒煞車，再起動也較容易，連小孩子都能推得動。持戒的道理也是一樣，要修禪有成就就須長期持戒，那修行人也不易為世間法所動。如果他看到美麗女人或包裝精緻的大麻菸或迷幻藥就不可能會這樣想：「啊！太好了！」就一頭栽進去了。另一方面，如果不顧戒律修行，則不僅會為舊習性所支配，還會養成新習性。這些習性變強大之後，修行就很困難了。
待續
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Continued from last issue: Tuesday, August 19, 1975 (evening)
Bhikshuni Heng Hsien:
Now I know that some people wonder why we've said that our Master does not concern himself particularly, in most cases, with individual cures. It's because the Master is curing on a much larger scale. He's giving people the medicine for curing birth and death; that is, if one follows those teachings that he teaches one can learn to have complete control over one's own destiny and be able to teach other people to do the same as well. So it's not just a matter of being cured of a given illness, but of completely being free of birth and death.
A man:
Oftentimes examples are used to illustrate things that happen on the mind ground that happen in the world of the relative. An example such as this occurred to me today. I used to live with a group of people on a beach on Maui, called McKenna Beach. We were all engaged in setting up a camp. Right smack-dab in the middle of the camp was a part of the foundation to an old army bunker of reinforced concrete that was about a foot thick, two feet high, and quite a few feet long. Anyway, it had to go. We were all busy setting up camp and none of us really wanted to face the task of getting that thing out of there. Nevertheless, it was right in the way of the camp and impractical to keep. So, we're all busy setting up camp and one person would go over with a sledge hammer and hit it a few times, and the thing wouldn't move. This went on throughout the course of the day. A person would get on it for five or ten minutes, get discouraged and bummed out about the thing, then go back to whatever they were doing. Basically no one wanted to get on this thing. I was avoiding it altogether. It just looked hopeless.
An idea occurred to me about half way through the day that with anything in the world, if you hit hard enough and long enough in one spot, it will eventually break up. After I took a swim to refresh myself, I grabbed a sledge hammer and worked on that piece of concrete. I just kept hitting it in the same place—toward the middle and toward the bottom—for about two hours. Finally, the entire thing broke. A couple of us hauled it out in two long pieces and got it out of there.
This illustrates how one should cultivate on the mind ground. Often people will begin cultivating a Dharma door such as reciting mantras or perhaps a Bodhisattva's name or a Buddha's name like we're doing now. The beginning is usually fine, but after one achieves a little bit of concentration, one's karmic obstacles rise to the surface and the more one meditates or recites or whatever Dharma door it is, the longer the obstacle will stay up on the surface. Many people don't understand what is actually happening and say, "Well, meditation is just an utter drag. I'm more bummed out now than a few years ago when I started," and they quit. This is a very, very common tendency and a tactic that people use to avoid facing the deeper problems of life.
Basically when cultivating a Dharma door, such as reciting the Buddha's name for example, one recites and recites. At the beginning notices nothing. After 'a while one notices that attachments and false views come into view. These will take a very definite personalized form according to who the individual is and what his attachments and shortcomings are. After a long as definite, tangible forms, these attachments all merge together into a kind of a blob within oneself of misery and melancholy and total, utter blah. This actually shows a little bit of success. Then one focuses one's attention on this blob a little bit more, concentrating and meditating on it, and lo and behold, this blob starts producing light. This is when a state of equilibrium is achieved. It's basically the same whether one is reciting a Buddha's name or reciting a mantra.
One takes a conscious thought, this thought of the Buddha, and uses it to overcome one's unconscious thoughts or false thoughts. Normally one's false thinking is most definitely strong, very strong, stronger than one's conscious thoughts. When one's conscious thought, one's recitation becomes as strong as one's unconscious thoughts or false thoughts, they start bouncing back off one another and this will produce light in the mind. The longer you can keep the conscious thought equal to the unconscious thoughts arising, the longer the light will actually appear. And eventually this light will destroy one's attachments and obstacles.
Very often--know I find myself doing it all the time and many of you may notice the workings of your mind while reciting and walking around outside and sitting in here-one tends to say to oneself, "Oh, I don't care about that. I don't think that is necessary or I don't think this is necessary." When this kind of thinking occurs, one should ask oneself, "If I don't think this is really so, then who is it that does?" Look into this question and really contemplate it. "If I'm not really attached to such and such a thing, who is it that is? If I don't think I'm doing this wrong, who is it that thinks I'm doing such and such wrong or incorrectly?" These are things that should be looked into in order for one to realize who one really is. It's very important to recognize the fact that you may be wrong and everybody else may be right, and really acknowledge this fact. Otherwise if one can't bring a change of attitude to one's mind, even one's own cultivation could be totally incorrect. Basically, even meditation is false. If one's attitude isn't correct toward meditation, meditation itself will become an obstacle. It is important to realize this, so one doesn't spend years of cultivation in vain.
This sort of reciting that we're doing today here in the session is really fine, because sitting is fine and most people here have probably done quite a bit of sitting in meditation, but I know I, myself, and a lot of my friends never practice walking meditation. Walking meditation is a really fine practice and should be introduced more because it's very important for people to realize that one doesn't have to be seated in or- der to meditate. In our daily activities there is ample opportunity to practice meditation, even for very busy people. There are always times when one is waiting in line or one has to just bide one's time. One can take these opportunities to get in quite a few hours of meditation a day, even in the course of daily activities.
In addition to meditation, to eliminate obstructions and what-not and to help one to realize one's fundamental nature, there's the keeping of precepts. The Buddha instructed his left-home disciples that after he passed into Nirvana the monks should take the precepts as their teacher. Basically, a person who becomes a monk is not supposed to get involved with any meditation whatsoever before keeping the precepts for at least five years, and there is a very good reason for this. To draw another analogy, it's sort of like going along in an automobile and trying to stop the automobile by just turning off the motor and not even bothering to apply the brakes. Now, the car will eventually stop and if it does stop, it will take a lot longer and it will also be a lot easier to get going again with no brakes applied, a child could come along and push it. The same principle applies to keeping precepts. If one achieves success in meditation and one has held the precepts for a good length of time, his chances of falling into worldly ways are pretty slim. Suppose one runs across a beautiful woman or a nice beautiful bag of ganja (marijuana) or psilocybum (another drug) or whatever one may like. It's highly unlikely that one will think, "Oh, that's really great," and get involved in it. On the other hand if one cultivates on one's own and ignores precepts, one can very easily not only fall into one's old attachments, but create very new ones that will emerge very strong and make it very difficult to cultivate.
To be continued
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