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我可以看到，這大體就是大乘傳統教化的起因，激發起無私的心，雖然任務艱巨，但不管三七二十一地承擔下來，我們就自然對別人流露出利他的情懷和緣份。我們承認和所有其他眾生的生命是相互聯繫的，出於尊重之心，我們對能夠幫助他人感到快樂。
有趣的是，同時有人給了我一本書，書上說，同樣的理念不限於佛教。作者舉出印度教、猶太教的例子，其中講了 Sri
Ramakrishna 的故事。在 Sri Ramakrishna
和 Swami Vivekananda 出生之前，
Ramakrishna 就到最高的梵天跟蹤 Vivekananda
（他的主要弟子）。 Vivekananda
正入定，對世間毫無興趣。「接近那絕對的巔峰」，多麼偉大的一句話！
Vivekananda 坐在那兒，完全沉浸在禪悅之中，然後
amakrishna 變成一個小孩，從高天道來的金色的小孩，開始在這位聖者面唱歌、玩耍。
不久，聖者終於注意到了這小孩，他睜眼看面前這個極為可愛的小孩在跳躍玩耍。最後，他眼睛全睜開了，看著小孩；小孩說：「我要下凡，你陪我一起去。」
Vivekananda 就跟他去了。
另一例子是講猶太教法師 Leib。他告訴弟子們，「在此生之前我不願投胎，不願來到這裡；人世間充滿了愚蠢瘋狂的人。我受夠了，不能再管了。一天一個農民模樣的人走過來，肩上扛著鏟子，對我說，『你整天躺著享受永恆的快樂，難道沒有更好的事可做了嗎？我忙個不停，只為給別人帶來一點點快樂；你在做甚麼？閒著沒事。』」他受了感動，同意下凡。扛著鏟子那人就是
Hassidim 的創始人之一的
Baal Shem Tov。據說他在宇宙高級世界遨遊，選擇能下凡來救我們的人。因此，在不同傳統中，我們看到同樣的原理，真有趣！
為自身著想會使我們感到孤獨，即使當我們的粗煩惱減少、驅除之後，也是如此，當我們的焦慮、貪心、瞋心、妒嫉不強烈，內心平靜時也不例外。你們可能注意到，禪修已經有一個星期了，你們坐在那兒，心念集中寧靜，但是還沒有經驗到整體的善與禪悅。心裡在想：「這沒甚麼，難道佛將他的教化建立在這個基礎上的嗎？這是種空白的精神狀態，沒有甚麼事情發生。」既沒有甚麼念頭、感覺，也沒有甚麼大的熱情，好像處在一個小灰屋裡。這境界一點不煩人，似乎是種挺平和的經驗，可以用來做一種世界性宗教的基礎。你想，「這是個突破！我已經奮鬥了五、六年了，有時有欲望，有時又恐懼，現在總算到了自由的空間。我們到了露天，可卻是一片沙漠。這不對啊！」接著你認識到這還不是佛所說的聖道生活的目的，因為即使你沒有什麼東西明顯地使你煩惱，當下卻有「你」，或「我」存在，有「我。的感覺存在，有「人」在感知，有個「人」，有種「個體」的感覺存在，雖然不強烈，不突顯，可它恆常存在著。「我見」，是種像牆，像監獄一樣圍繞著我們的心理結構，因為我們對監獄中的生活過於執著，所以注意不到自己被包圍著的實際情形。只有當一切都冷靜下來以後，人才有機會覺察到自己處境的局限性，是又貧乏又乏味的。
大乘佛教外向，強調利他、布施、慈悲，為一切眾生修行。即使如此，如果修行止於「我要將生命獻給一切眾生」的境界，那儘管已修至很高的程度，最終仍然有個「我」和「你」，有這個「在幫助一切眾生的人」。即使得到了許多快樂，你還是會有這個障礙，一種孤立的感覺，這是種隔離態，所以修禪很重要，不要沉醉於利他的想法和感受。如果你注意到佛的許多開示都是圍繞著「無私」、「空」，而進行的，比如關於「無我」等等，如果沒有我，那又是誰在向全世界釋放出那慈悲之光呢？如果沒有我，是誰在慈悲？這個人是誰？這裡可以看到有一個理解、存在的層次，它超越了人我見解的束縛。無論我們的信願多麼高尚、精緻、純潔，除非我們超越了個人的感覺、分別，就總會有種不完美感覺，不由地就有種孤獨的感受。我們如果發了大心，就會認識到，它是求無上智慧的實相所必須的因素，這稱為金剛乘。金剛意為金剛石、雷電、不可壞，極其有力，鐵一樣的真理。這就是對「無我」的瞭解。將注意力指向「我」的感受，用修行來觀照我們對於自身個體所做的假設，我們一定要將心從外境上移開，觀照我們對於「觀照者」所做的假設。當心寧靜下來後，探詢以下這類的問題是有益的：「誰是這一切的中心？」「在修禪的是誰？」「瞭知這些狀況的人是誰？」「瞭知者是誰？」「知道念頭感覺的是甚麼？」對於自我個體存在的假設，如果我們進行觀察挑戰，這座獄牆就會突然間倒塌了，六、七年前我有一次這種經驗。那時，我在一次長久的禪七中，問「我是誰？」或「我是甚麼？」用此產生疑情，拿對自我的感覺來觀察，就好像走出了灰色的監獄，步入了陽光燦爛，鮮花遍地的原野，我感到極度的清新和解放，像在沙漠中遇到了綠洲似的。
佛說一切快樂中最快樂的，莫過於從自我的直覺中解脫出來。也許有人會覺得可笑，無意義，因為「我」似乎是全宇宙間最真實的東西－－「如果有甚麼東西是真實的，那就是『我』了。」可這都是因為我們從未好好探究過「我」、「我的」之類的感覺而已，這都是因為我們從未好好研究並看清楚，所有幻覺才一直保留了下來。一旦你仔細觀察，那幻覺就會破滅，你就不會再被它所欺騙。
用疑情來挑戰我們所做的假設和自己在內心建立的牆壁。對這些假設的挑戰會將幻覺瓦解，「我見」會本能地立刻開始產生一些東西，做一些事以分散我們的注意力，使我們停止下來。「我見」，就如同任何怕死的生命一樣，一旦我們挑戰其至高無上的中心的地位時，就會產生一種慌亂的反應；你會發現，內心會拋出各種有趣，有迫力的想法，使你趕緊去做別的事。所以人們需要很大的決心才能說「不」，並將心拉回來問，「這是誰？」「是甚麼在覺察到這種慌亂？」「是甚麼在覺察到這種感受？」
待續
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I could see that this was very much the cause of the spirit of the Mahayana tradition and teaching: to arouse that unselfishness, that readiness, even if it is a pointlessly vast task, to take it on anyway. It then releases the natural altruism and affinities we have for other beings. We recognize our interconnectedness with all other beings, all other lives, and out of respect for that, one feels a sense of joy in being able to give, to help and to serve.
It is interesting that, at about that same time, someone gave me a book which showed me that this principle was found not only in the Buddhist tradition. The author was talking about this principle and gave examples from both the Hindu and the Judaic traditions. He told the story of Sri Ramakrishna and how, before he and Swami Vivekananda were born, he had tracked down Vivekananda (who was his chief disciple) up in one of the high Brahma heavens, where he was absorbed in meditation, utterly disinterested in the world, "Close to the mountain of the Absolute." What a great phrase! Anyway, Vivekananda was seated there, totally enraptured in bliss. Then Ramakrishna took on the form of a little child; he wove the body of a golden child out of the atmosphere of this high realm and he started to sing and play in front of this sage. Eventually, after some time, the sage's attention gets caught and he opens his eyes and sees this incredibly charming little child, playing and cavorting in front of him. And finally, with his eyes completely opened, he is looking at the child, and the child says to him, "I'm going down; you come with me." So, Vivekananda went down and joined him.
The other example was of a Rabbi named Rabbi Leib. He was telling some of his disciples, "Before this life I did not want to be born; I did not want to come here. This human world is so full of foolishness and crazy, idiotic people. I had had enough of the whole thing and just couldn't be bothered with it. One day this fellow who looked like a peasant came along, with a shovel over his shoulder, and he said to me, 'Haven't you got anything better to do than to lie around here all day just enjoying the bliss of eternity? I work non-stop just trying to bring a little happiness, a little more joy, into the lives of other people, and what are you doing? You're just hanging around!'" The Rabbi said that he was so touched by this person that he agreed to go along. The fellow with the shovel was the Baal Shem Tov, one of the founders of the Hassidim. It is said that he roams around the upper realms of the cosmos looking for likely characters whom he can dispatch down to earth to take care of the likes of us. So, it is interesting to see that this same principle exists in human experience in different traditions.
Self-concern takes us into a desert experience - even when we notice that the more coarse defilements of mind have abated or have worn themselves out, when we're not possessed by too much anxiety or lust, greed, aversion, jealousy, or whatever, and the mind is quite peaceful. As you may be aware, now that you've been a week into the meditation retreat, you can be sitting there with your mind quite concentrated, quite still and, rather than feeling rapture or a sense of wholeness and totality, the feeling is one of, "So what? Is this really what the Buddha built his teaching around, this blank mental state, with nothing much happening?" With nothing much in the way of thoughts and feelings, no great passions to wrestle with, it's like being in some little grey room. It's not disturbing in any way, but it seems a pretty tame experience to build a world religion around.
You think, "This is a rip-off! I've been struggling away for five or six years with fear and lust and so on, and now I get to the free space - here we are out in the open - and it's a desert. This is not... right!" But then, what you realize is that this is not what the Buddha was pointing to as the goal of the holy life, because even though one can't see any outstanding objects causing obstruction or defilement, what is there is you ... , or in this case, me .... There is the sense of I... - someone here experiencing - there's a person. This sense of identity, even though it is not outstanding, leaping out making itself vivid, is a constant presence. The ego is a psychological structure that is there like a wall around us, like a prison. And because we are so caught up with life in the prison, we don't notice that we are actually hemmed in. It is only when everything has cooled down and one has a chance to look around and take in the surroundings that one has a chance to feel the sense of limitation, barrenness; there's a boredom, it's just BLEAAGGHH!
Even in Mahayana Buddhism - which is outgoing, geared toward altruism, generosity, compassion, developing a spiritual life for the sake of all beings - if our practice stops at the state of, 'Me giving my life to help all others', even if this is highly developed, at the end of it there's still ME and YOU - me who is helping all sentient beings. Even in that respect, even though there can be a lot of joy, you still find this barrier, a sense of isolation or meaninglessness. There's a separation there. So,
it is important to use the meditation practice to not just absorb into altruistic thoughts and feelings, because, if you notice, a lot of the Buddha's teachings revolve around selflessness, around emptiness, like the teachings on Anatta .... If there is no self, who is it; who's going to be radiating kindness over the entire world? If there's no self, then who is sending Metta ... and who is there to send it to?
One then sees that there is a level of understanding, of being, which is beyond that which is tied up with self and other. No matter how high, refined and pure our aspiration might be, unless we go beyond that sense of self-identity and division in that respect, then there will always be that feeling of incompleteness; the desert experience will creep in.
So, if we pass through that grand-hearted attitude of mind, then we realize that which pertains to the wisdom of ultimate understanding, of Ultimate Reality; that which is called the Vajra teachings. Vajra ... means diamond or thunderbolt, indestructible, supremely powerful, the ada- mantine Truth. This is the understanding of selflessness.
When the attention is put onto the feeling of "I", one uses the practice to illuminate the assumptions we make about our identity. We have to turn the mind around from external objects, to shine it back upon the assumptions that we make about the 'subject'. When the mind is calm and settled, it's very helpful to start inquiring, "Who is the person that is the centre of all of this?" "Who is it that is meditating?" "Who is it that's knowing this?" "Who is the one who knows?" "What knows thought and feeling ?" It's when we look and challenge the assumptions about there being a discreet entity here, then suddenly the prison walls collapse.
I had an experience of this some six or seven years ago - when I first started using this kind of meditation on a long retreat, asking "Who am I?", or "What am I?" and using that to create a hesitation in the mind, to put the sense of self into perspective; it felt like stepping out of a grey prison cell into sunshine and a field of flowers. It was a tremendous feeling of refreshment and relief, like coming across an oasis in the desert.
The Buddha said that the greatest happiness of all is to be free from the sense of "I am." Now, this might seem to some people to be a bit farcical or pointless, because our 'self' seems to be the most real thing in the whole universe - "If anything is real, I ... am." But it's only because we have never really looked, or inquired into the feeling of I... , of me ... , of mine ... , It's only because we have never really studied that and seen it clearly that that illusion is maintained. Once you look at it closely, then the illusion falls apart. You can't be taken in by that.
So, one uses enquiry to challenge the assumptions that we are making and the walls that we create within the mind. That challenging of those assumptions is what dissolves the illusion. The instinct of the ego, however, is to immediately start creating things which produce activity elsewhere so that our attention will be distracted, so that we will stop doing this. The ego is like any creature that is frightened of dying, and as soon as we start to challenge the supremacy and the centrality of it, then a panic reaction gets going. You will find that the mind can throw up all kinds of interesting and compelling thoughts to persuade you to engage in something else quickly .... So, one requires a great deal of resolution just to say " NO ... !" and to bring the mind back to asking, "Who is this?" "What is knowing this panic?" "What is knowing this feeling?"
To be continued
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