Monday, May 6, 2019

禅修不是什么

摘自《观呼吸:平静的第一堂课》: 第二章:禅修不是什么
http://fo.sina.com.cn/o/2014-01-08/174115591.shtml

  禅修这个名词,你以前一定听过,否则你不可能拿起这本书。思维的过程就是一个一个扣接的概念,而所有的概念都与“禅修”这个字有关。其中有些概念是正确的,有些则毫无价值。有些比较适用于其他禅修系统,而与内观禅修毫不相干。在我们继续往下谈之前,有必要先扫荡神经网络内的渣滓,好让新的资讯能畅行无阻。然我们先从一些最明显的事物开始。这里不会教导你注视自己的肚脐或持诵神秘字母,你也不必去降妖伏魔。你不会因为表现良好而获赠彩带,也无须剃头或包头巾。此外,你更不用抛弃财产,住到寺庙里去。事实上,除非你的生活堕落而腐败,否则你可以马上开始学习禅修,并且获得进步。听起来很令人鼓舞,不是吗?有许多关于禅修主题的书籍。其中多数都是出自特定的宗教或哲学系统,然而许多作者并未明确指出来。他们将一切说得好像是普遍的法则,不过实际上却是只限于特定修行系统的特殊程序。更糟的是,这些装饰华丽的复杂理论和诠释之间,经常出现不一致的情况,结果真的是一团糟:一对矛盾意见组成的大杂烩,其间还混杂着许多不相干的资料。这本书则是相当明确,只讨论内观系统的禅修。我们将教导你,以平静与离染的态度,观察内心的运作,如此你将可以从自己的行为中获得洞见。目标是觉知,一种深刻、集中与和谐的觉知,让你能洞察事物的本质。一般人对于禅修存在着许多常见的误解,我们常见新手一再提出相同的问题。你最好马上加以处理,因为它们是某种成见,会从一开始就阻碍你的进步。我们将逐条提出这些误解,并加以解决。

  误解一:禅修只是一种放松的技巧。这里的症结在于“只是”这个字眼。放松是禅修的要素,不过内观禅修的目标要更高远一些。这个陈述对于其他许多禅修系统来说,或许非常贴切。所有的禅修方法都强调心的专注,把心停留在单一细节或单一思维范畴。在高度与深度上不断提升,你就能达到一种深刻而喜悦的放松,名为“禅那”(jhana)。那是一种最平静的境界,能带来心的狂喜——一种超越正常意识形态经验的喜悦形式。多数禅修系统都停在这里,以禅那为目标,当你达到之后,在接下来的时间里,也只是不断重复这个经验而已。内观禅修则不然,内观禅修追求另一个目标——觉知。专注与放松是伴随觉知必须的前提和便利的工具,也是有益的副产品。但是它们不是目标,目标应该是洞见。内观禅修是一种深奥的宗教修行,目的在于净化与转化你的日常生活。我们将在第十四章中进一步探讨“止”(禅定)与“观”(洞见)的差异。

  误解二:禅修意指进入出神状态。再一次地,这个标题的陈述只适用于某些禅修系统,而非内观。内观禅修不是一种催眠形式,你并非试图蒙蔽自己的内心而让它变成无意识状态,或者试图让你自己变成没有感情的植物。反之,内观是要让你愈来愈了解自己的感情变化,你将学会如何更清楚、更准确地了解自己。在学习这个技巧的过程中,某些像出神之类的状态确实会发生在观察者身上。不过,禅定与出神,二者其实正好相反。在催眠的出神状态中,主体很容易受到外界的控制;但是在深沉的禅定中,禅修者却大都在自己意识的控制之下。相似之处仅止于表象,不管怎么说,这些发生的现象都不是内观的要点。如同我们先前所说,禅那的深定只是一种工具。或是迈向更高觉知的垫脚石。内观的定义就是“培养正念(念念分明)或觉照”。如果你发现你的禅定变成无意识状态,那就表示你并非依据内观系统的定义在修行。

  误解三:禅修是无法被理解的神秘修行。同样地,这几乎是事实。却又不尽然如此。禅修时的意识层次,比思维概念的层次更深。因此,有些禅修的经验难以言传,不过,那并不表示禅修无法被理解。有比语言更深刻的方式可以理解事物。举个例子,你了解怎么走路,虽然你可能无法描述神经纤维与肌肉的运作程序,但是你知道怎么去做。禅修需要那样透过实践被理解,它不是你可以在抽象领域中学习或是谈论的事物,它是需要被体验的。禅修并不是机械化的公式,它不会自动输出可以预测的结果,你永远无法准确预测每一次禅修可能会发生什么事情。每一回禅修都是一次研究、实验与探险。事实上,我们可以反过来说,当你的修行达到一种可以预期而且每次都相同的感觉时,你就应该警觉,你已经偏离轨道而且迟滞不前了。学习将每一秒钟都看成是宇宙中第一而且是唯一的一秒,这是内观禅修的基本观点。

  误解四:禅修的目的是神通。不,禅修的目的是开发觉性。学习读心术不是它的要点,浮升在空中不是它的目标,它的目标是解脱(liberation)。神通的现象与禅修之间确实有某种关联,不过这种关系是复杂的。在禅修生涯的早期阶段,这现象不一定会出现。有些人可能会体验到一些直觉的了解,或对前世的回忆。无论如何,这些都不能被视为发展健全或可信赖的神通力,不应该被过度重视。事实上,这种现象对新手而言很危险,会使得他们很容易受到诱惑——可能是一些自我的陷阱,引诱你出轨。最好的做法是,根本不要强调这些现象,如果它们出现,那很好;如果没有出现,那也很好。在禅修生涯中,到了某一阶段,修行者可能会修习特别的法门以开发神通力,不过那是很后来的事了。只有在禅修者达到很深的定境后,才有足够的能力可以这么做,否则将有失控或丧命的危险。禅修者获得神通的目的是利益众生,在多数情况中,这种事通常都要有好几十年的工夫才可能办得到。现在不需要担心这点。只要集中心力不断开发觉知即可。如果有声音或影像出现,只要看着它们,让它们自己消失,不要被卷进去。

  误解五:禅修很危险,一个谨慎的人应该避开。每件事都很危险,过马路可能被车撞到,洗个澡也可能会弄断脖子。禅修,则可能会勾起你过去种种不好的回忆。已经在心里压抑许久的东西突然冒出来可能会很吓人,不过,探索它是相当值得的。没有一项活动完全没有风险,但这并不表示我们就应该把自己裹在保护茧中。那不是生活,而是提前死亡。面对危险的方法是先了解大概的情况:有多严重、关键何在,以及如何解决等等,这些才是这本手册的目的。内观是开发觉知,本身并不危险;相反地,增长觉知是对抗危险的保障。如果方法正确,禅修是非常温和而且渐进的过程。放慢脚步并保持轻松,你的修行会很自然地进行。不要太勉强自己,直到你遇见一位合格的老师,在他细心指导和睿智的保护下,你才可以藉由密集的禅修,加快进步的速度。然而在刚开始时,请保持轻松,温和地进行,一切都会很好的。

  误解六:禅修是圣贤所为,不适合一般人。这种态度在亚洲很普遍。在那里,比丘与圣者们理所当然受到高度尊崇。这种情形就像是美国人崇拜电影明星与棒球英雄一样。这些样板式的人物,被过度夸大,并被赋予一般人难以企及的各种特质。即使在西方,禅修也受到一些类似这样的对待。我们想象中的禅修者,都是超凡入圣的人物。他们嘴里的奶油好像永远不会融化一样。只要稍微接触过这些人,这种幻想就会不攻自破。他们通常只是精力充沛与品位高尚的人,对生命充满惊人的活力。当然,那是真的,多数圣者都有修禅,但是他们并非因为他们是圣者而修禅,那是本末倒置的说法。他们之所以成为圣者乃因为他们修禅,禅修是他们到达彼岸的方法。在成为圣者之前,他们得先修禅,否则无法有所成就。许多学生似乎觉得开始修禅之前,在道德上必须没有瑕疵才行。这套说法根本行不通。戒律必须以一定程度的修心为前提,你不可能在没有丝毫自制的前提下持戒。如果你的心一直都像自动贩卖机里的水果罐头一样转个不停,就根本谈不上自制或持戒,因此修心是首要的工作。在佛教的禅修中有三个不可或缺的元素:戒、定、慧。修行的提升一定得靠这三者的成长,它们彼此相互影响,因此你是同时修这三个,而非分开来修。当你具备如实了解情况的智慧时,对众生的悲心便会油然而生。悲心的升起,意味着你会自动自发地节制可能会伤害他人的想法、言语或行为。如此一来,你的行为便会自动符合戒法。只有在无法深入了解事物时,你才会制造问题。如果没有看清自己行为的后果,你就会犯错。那些期待道德圆满之后才准备开始修禅的人,简直是痴人说梦,永远不可能实现的。古老的圣哲说,这种人就想要等待海水平静之后才要开始洗澡一样。为了更清楚地了解这个关系,让我们将道德分成几个层次。最低一层是遵守一组由某人订定的规则,那个人可能是你喜爱的先知,也可能是政府与部族的首领,或者是你的双亲。无论是谁制定这些规则,在这个层次,你需要的只是循规蹈矩,一个机器人就可以这么做。如果规则够简单,而且在每一次犯错时就受到惩罚,那么即使一只受过训练的黑猩猩也可以做得不错。这个层次完全不需要任何禅修,你只需要规则,以及有人在一旁挥舞棍子。另一个层次的戒律,是在没有任何人督促的情况下,遵守相同的规则。你遵守,是因为你已经将这些规则加以消化,然后放在心里,每一次犯错时,你就会拿出来惩罚自己。这个层次需要一点心的自制,如果你的思维型态是混乱的,那么你的行为也一样会是混乱的,修心将能减少心的混乱。第三个层次的戒律,更有资格被称为“道德”。这个层次对前两个层而言是一大进步。在这个道德层面,一个人无需遵循权威人士所制定的那些困难而武断的规则。他选择遵守一条由正念、智慧与悲心构成的道路。这个层次需要真正的智慧,以及临机应变的能力,以便每一次都能做出独特、创新与适当的反应。做这些决定之前,这个人必须先跳脱自己狭隘的个人观点,他必须能客观地观察,平等看待自己与他人的需要。换言之,他必须让自己跳脱贪欲、憎恨、嫉妒与其他自私的心结,因为凡此种种会让我们看不清楚别人的情况。唯有如此,他才能表现出最合宜的行为。除非你生来就是个圣人,否则这个层次的道德绝对需要禅修,除了禅修之外,没有其他方法可以达成目标。这个层次需要厘清的事情极为复杂,你可能无法照顾到每一个繁琐的细节。有限的智力会应接不暇,不过,还好有深层意识可以轻松地处理这些复杂的事。禅修可以帮助你完成厘清的过程,那是一种奇特的感觉。假设有一天你碰到了问题,譬如说,处理赫曼叔叔近来的离婚事宜。这事看起来很棘手,一大堆“可能”状况令聪明的所罗门王也头痛不已。隔天,当你边洗盘子边想着其他事情时,突然间,答案出现了。它就这样从心底冒出来,然后你“啊哈”一声,整件事就这样解决了。这种直觉只有在你将逻辑思考抛开,让深层意识有机会自己去理出头绪时才会发生。表层意识只会造成阻碍,禅修教导你如何解开思维过程的束缚。这是跳脱成见的心灵艺术,它在日常生活中是很有用的技巧。禅修当然不是只适用于苦行者或隐士身上而与你毫不相干,它是你平常就用得到的实用技巧,可以马上应用在每个人的生活中。禅修不是“离尘绝俗”的。不幸地,这个事实却成了某些学生的缺点。他们着手修行,期待立刻天使欢唱,获得天启,不过,他们通常得到的,是更有效处理垃圾以及解决赫曼叔叔问题的方法。他们不用失望,垃圾解决方案先来,天使长的声音稍待一会儿就会到。

  误解七:禅修是逃避现实。不对,禅修是紧扣现实的。它不会把你与生命中的痛苦隔开来,反而是帮助你更深入生命中的一切层面,好让你能突破痛苦的障碍,超越苦厄。修行内观是以面对现实为出发点,完全体验生命的实相,并且如法而行。它让你能看穿假象,跳脱过去你一直告诉自己的优雅谎言。事实就是事实,你就是你,在缺点与动机上欺骗自己,只会让你俞陷俞深。内观禅修不是试图让你忘却自己,或掩饰你的烦恼。它的目的是让你能如实观察,并且完全接受事实。这有这样,你才有可能改变它。

  误解八:禅修是狂喜至乐的好法子。嗯!也对,也不对。禅修有时候确实会创造出令人愉悦的喜乐,但是那并非禅修的目的,而且不一定会发生。况且,如果你心中抱着那个目的修禅,效果可能反而不如只是为了禅修而禅修。真正的禅修乃是为了开发觉知而修禅。喜乐带来放松,而放松则来自压力的释放。在禅修中追求喜乐会造成压力,反而毁了整个禅修过程的喜乐链结。这是矛盾的:唯有当你不追求它时,才有可能放松,体验到幸福感。愉悦不是禅修的目的,这感觉经常产生,但是它只应该被视为副产品。尽管如此,它仍然是一种令人愉快的副作用,并且会随着禅修时间的加长而更常出现。去问问资深的禅修者,没有人会反对这个说法的。

  误解九:禅修是自私的。表面上看起来确实如此,禅修者就静静地坐在一个小坐垫上。她有去捐血吗?没有。她有去救助急难吗?没有。但是让我们看看她的动机,她为什么要这么做?禅修者的动机是清除她自己的嗔心、自私与恶意,并且在这个过程中积极去除贪欲、紧张与昏沉。那些都是障碍慈悲的因素,除非它们消失,否则她所做的任何好事,都只不过是自我的延伸罢了,就长远的眼光来看,并没有真正的助益。古老的把戏之一即是以助人为名而行伤害之实:西班牙宗教法庭的大判官即高举最崇高的动机残害异己。而塞勒姆(Salem)的巫士审判则标榜是为了“公众利益”。检视禅修先进们的个人生活,你将会发现他们经常投身于人道关怀的服务,他们不会为了狂热的宗教信念而发起圣战,牺牲无辜的民众。事实上,我们比自己所知道的更为自私。如果情况许可,“自我”有办法将最崇高的行为变成毫无价值的垃圾。透过禅修,我们能如实地觉知自己,觉察到许多自私行为的微细形式。如此一来,我们才有可能达到真正的无私。去除你的自私,绝对不是一种自私的行为。

  误解十:禅修,是坐下来思考高深的思想。又错了,有些冥想学派确实是这样做,不过内观却不然。内观是观察的练习:如实地观察,无论是究竟实相,或者事物的细节。事实是怎样,就是怎样。当然,在你的修行中,无可避免的,可能会出现高深的思想。不过,它们不是你追寻的目标,它们只是令人愉悦的副作用而已。内观是一种单纯的修行,它的内涵是不带偏袒与成见,直接去体验自身的生活事件。内观是随时保持无私的观察,出现什么,就是什么,非常单纯。

  误解十一:禅修几周之后,就可以解决所有的问题。抱歉,禅修不是速成的万灵丹。你现在开始观察无常,但是真正深远的效果可能要在几年之后才会显现出来。构成宇宙的法则就是如此,不要期待一夕完成。禅修从某些观点来看颇为棘手,需要长期自律以及艰苦的修行过程。每一次的禅坐都会有一些收获,不过它们通常都很微细,先是在内心深处酝酿,之后才会显现出来。如果你一直期待巨大而立即的改变,那么你将会错失整个微细的变化,且更将因此而感到沮丧,想要放弃,甚至怀疑根本没有这样的改变会发生。忍耐是关键。忍耐,如果你从禅修当中没有学到任何东西,至少你学会忍耐。忍耐是任何深远改变所不可或缺的重要因素。

What Meditation Isn't

Extracted from :
Mindfulness in Plain English by Ven. Henepola Gunaratana
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english_4.php

Meditation is a word. You have heard this word before, or you would never have picked up this book. The thinking process operates by association, and all sorts of ideas are associated with the word 'meditation'. Some of them are probably accurate and others are hogwash. Some of them pertain more properly to other systems of meditation and have nothing to do with Vipassana practice. Before we proceed, it behooves us to blast some of the residue out of our own neuronal circuits so that new information can pass unimpeded. Let us start with some of the most obvious stuff.

We are not going to teach you to contemplate your navel or to chant secret syllables. You are not conquering demons or harnessing invisible energies. There are no colored belts given for your performance and you don't have to shave your head or wear a turban. You don't even have to give away all your belongings and move to a monastery. In fact, unless your life is immoral and chaotic, you can probably get started right away and make some sort of progress. Sounds fairly encouraging, wouldn't you say?

There are many, many books on the subject of meditation. Most of them are written from the point of view which lies squarely within one particular religious or philosophical tradition, and many of the authors have not bothered to point this out. They make statements about meditation which sound like general laws, but are actually highly specific procedures exclusive to that particular system of practice. The result is something of a muddle. Worse yet is the panoply of complex theories and interpretations available, all of them at odds with one another. The result is a real mess and an enormous jumble of conflicting opinions accompanied by a mass of extraneous data. This book is specific. We are dealing exclusively with the Vipassana system of meditation. We are going to teach you to watch the functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner so you can gain insight into your own behavior. The goal is awareness, an awareness so intense, concentrated and finely tuned that you will be able to pierce the inner workings of reality itself.

There are a number of common misconceptions about meditation. We see them crop up again and again from new students, the same questions over and over. It is best to deal with these things at once, because they are the sort of preconceptions which can block your progress right from the outset. We are going to take these misconceptions one at a time and explode them.
Misconception #1
Meditation is just a relaxation technique
The bugaboo here is the word 'just'. Relaxation is a key component of meditation, but Vipassana-style meditation aims at a much loftier goal. Nevertheless, the statement is essentially true for many other systems of meditation. All meditation procedures stress concentration of the mind, bringing the mind to rest on one item or one area of thought. Do it strongly and thoroughly enough, and you achieve a deep and blissful relaxation which is called Jhana. It is a state of such supreme tranquility that it amounts to rapture. It is a form of pleasure which lies above and beyond anything that can be experienced in the normal state of consciousness. Most systems stop right there. That is the goal, and when you attain that, you simply repeat the experience for the rest of your life. Not so with Vipassana meditation. Vipassana seeks another goal--awareness. Concentration and relaxation are considered necessary concomitants to awareness. They are required precursors, handy tools, and beneficial byproducts. But they are not the goal. The goal is insight. Vipassana meditation is a profound religious practice aimed at nothing less that the purification and transformation of your everyday life. We will deal more thoroughly with the differences between concentration and insight in Chapter 14.

Misconception #2
Meditation means going into a trance
Here again the statement could be applied accurately to certain systems of meditation, but not to Vipassana. Insight meditation is not a form of hypnosis. You are not trying to black out your mind so as to become unconscious. You are not trying to turn yourself into an emotionless vegetable. If anything, the reverse is true. You will become more and more attuned to your own emotional changes. You will learn to know yourself with ever- greater clarity and precision. In learning this technique, certain states do occur which may appear trance-like to the observer. But they are really quite the opposite. In hypnotic trance, the subject is susceptible to control by another party, whereas in deep concentration the meditator remains very much under his own control. The similarity is superficial, and in any case the occurrence of these phenomena is not the point of Vipassana. As we have said, the deep concentration of Jhana is a tool or stepping stone on the route of heightened awareness. Vipassana by definition is the cultivation of mindfulness or awareness. If you find that you are becoming unconscious in meditation, then you aren't meditating, according to the definition of the word as used in the Vipassana system. It is that simple.

Misconception #3
Meditation is a mysterious practice which cannot be understood
Here again, this is almost true, but not quite. Meditation deals with levels of consciousness which lie deeper than symbolic thought. Therefore, some of the data about meditation just won't fit into words. That does not mean, however, that it cannot be understood. There are deeper ways to understand things than words. You understand how to walk. You probably can't describe the exact order in which your nerve fibers and your muscles contract during that process. But you can do it. Meditation needs to be understood that same way, by doing it. It is not something that you can learn in abstract terms. It is to be experienced. Meditation is not some mindless formula which gives automatic and predictable results. You can never really predict exactly what will come up in any particular session. It is an investigation and experiment and an adventure every time. In fact, this is so true that when you do reach a feeling of predictability and sameness in your practice, you use that as an indicator. It means that you have gotten off the track somewhere and you are headed for stagnation. Learning to look at each second as if it were the first and only second in the universe is most essential in Vipassana meditation.

Misconception #4
The purpose of meditation is to become a psychic superman
No, the purpose of meditation is to develop awareness. Learning to read minds is not the point. Levitation is not the goal. The goal is liberation. There is a link between psychic phenomena and meditation, but the relationship is somewhat complex. During early stages of the meditator's career, such phenomena may or may not arise. Some people may experience some intuitive understanding or memories from past lives; others do not. In any case, these are not regarded as well-developed and reliable psychic abilities. Nor should they be given undue importance. Such phenomena are in fact fairly dangerous to new meditators in that they are too seductive. They can be an ego trap which can lure you right off the track. Your best advice is not to place any emphasis on these phenomena. If they come up, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine, too. It's unlikely that they will. There is a point in the meditator's career where he may practice special exercises to develop psychic powers. But this occurs way down the line. After he has gained a very deep stage of Jhana, the meditator will be far enough advanced to work with such powers without the danger of their running out of control or taking over his life. He will then develop them strictly for the purpose of service to others. This state of affairs only occurs after decades of practice. Don't worry about it. Just concentrate on developing more and more awareness. If voices and visions pop up, just notice them and let them go. Don't get involved.

Misconception #5
Meditation is dangerous and a prudent person should avoid it
Everything is dangerous. Walk across the street and you may get hit by a bus. Take a shower and you could break your neck. Meditate and you will probably dredge up various nasty-matters from your past. The suppressed material that has been buried there for quite some time can be scary. It is also highly profitable. No activity is entirely without risk, but that does not mean that we should wrap ourselves in some protective cocoon. That is not living. That is premature death. The way to deal with danger is to know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found and how to deal with it when it arises. That is the purpose of this manual. Vipassana is development of awareness. That in itself is not dangerous, but just the opposite. Increased awareness is the safeguard against danger. Properly done, meditation is a very gentle and gradual process. Take it slow and easy, and development of your practice will occur very naturally. Nothing should be forced. Later, when you are under the close scrutiny and protective wisdom of a competent teacher, you can accelerate your rate of growth by taking a period of intensive meditation. In the beginning, though, easy does it. Work gently and everything will be fine.

Misconception #6
Meditation is for saints and holy men, not for regular people
You find this attitude very prevalent in Asia, where monks and holy men are accorded an enormous amount of ritualized reverence. This is somewhat akin to the American attitude of idealizing movie stars and baseball heroes. Such people are stereotyped, made larger than life, and saddled with all sort of characteristics that few human beings can ever live up to. Even in the West, we share some of this attitude about meditation. We expect the meditator to be some extraordinarily pious figure in whose mouth butter would never dare to melt. A little personal contact with such people will quickly dispel this illusion. They usually prove to be people of enormous energy and gusto, people who live their lives with amazing vigor. It is true, of course, that most holy men meditate, but they don't meditate because they are holy men. That is backward. They are holy men because they meditate. Meditation is how they got there. And they started meditating before they became holy. This is an important point. A sizable number of students seems to feel that a person should be completely moral before he begins meditation. It is an unworkable strategy. Morality requires a certain degree of mental control. It's a prerequisite. You can't follow any set of moral precepts without at least a little self-control, and if your mind is perpetually spinning like a fruit cylinder in a one- armed bandit, self-control is highly unlikely. So mental culture has to come first.

There are three integral factors in Buddhist meditation-- morality, concentration and wisdom. Those three factors grow together as your practice deepens. Each one influences the other, so you cultivate the three of them together, not one at a time. When you have the wisdom to truly understand a situation, compassion towards all the parties involved is automatic, and compassion means that you automatically restrain yourself from any thought, word or deed that might harm yourself or others. Thus your behavior is automatically moral. It is only when you don't understand things deeply that you create problems. If you fail to see the consequences of your own action, you will blunder. The fellow who waits to become totally moral before he begins to meditate is waiting for a 'but' that will never come. The ancient sages say that he is like a man waiting for the ocean to become calm so that he can go take a bath. To understand this relationship more fully, let us propose that there are levels of morality. The lowest level is adherence to a set of rules and regulations laid down by somebody else. It could be your favorite prophet. It could be the state, the head man of your tribe or your father. No matter who generates the rules, all you've got to do at this level is know the rules and follow them. A robot can do that. Even a trained chimpanzee could do it if the rules were simple enough and he was smacked with a stick every time he broke one. This level requires no meditation at all. All you need are the rules and somebody to swing the stick.

The next level of morality consists of obeying the same rules even in the absence of somebody who will smack you. You obey because you have internalized the rules. You smack yourself every time you break one. This level requires a bit of mind control. If your thought pattern is chaotic, your behavior will be chaotic, too. Mental culture reduces mental chaos.

There is a third level or morality, but it might be better termed ethics. This level is a whole quantum layer up the scale, a real paradigm shift in orientation. At the level of ethics, one does not follow hard and fast rules dictated by authority. One chooses his own behavior according to the needs of the situation. This level requires real intelligence and an ability to juggle all the factors in every situation and arrive at a unique, creative and appropriate response each time. Furthermore, the individual making these decisions needs to have dug himself out of his own limited personal viewpoint. He has to see the entire situation from an objective point of view, giving equal weight to his own needs and those of others. In other words, he has to be free from greed, hatred, envy and all the other selfish junk that ordinarily keeps us from seeing the other guy's side of the issue. Only then can he choose that precise set of actions which will be truly optimal for that situation. This level of morality absolutely demands meditation, unless you were born a saint. There is no other way to acquire the skill. Furthermore, the sorting process required at this level is exhausting. If you tried to juggle all those factors in every situation with your conscious mind, you'd wear yourself out. The intellect just can't keep that many balls in the air at once. It is an overload. Luckily, a deeper level of consciousness can do this sort of processing with ease. Meditation can accomplish the sorting process for you. It is an eerie feeling.

One day you've got a problem - say to handle Uncle Herman's latest divorce. It looks absolutely unsolvable, and an enormous muddle of 'maybes' that would give Solomon himself the willies. The next day you are washing the dishes, thinking about something else entirely, and suddenly the solution is there. It just pops out of the deep mind and you say, 'Ah ha!' and the whole thing is solved. This sort of intuition can only occur when you disengage the logic circuits from the problem and give the deep mind the opportunity to cook up the solution. The conscious mind just gets in the way. Meditation teaches you how to disentangle yourself from the thought process. It is the mental art of stepping out of your own way, and that's a pretty useful skill in everyday life. Meditation is certainly not some irrelevant practice strictly for ascetics and hermits. It is a practical skill that focuses on everyday events and has immediate application in everybody's life. Meditation is not otherworldly.

Unfortunately, this very fact constitutes the drawback for certain students. They enter the practice expecting instantaneous cosmic revelation, complete with angelic choirs. What they usually get is a more efficient way to take out the trash and better ways to deal with Uncle Herman. They are needlessly disappointed. The trash solution comes first. The voices of archangels take a bit longer.

Misconception #7
Meditation is running away from reality
Incorrect. Meditation is running into reality. It does not insulate you from the pain of life. It allows you to delve so deeply into life and all its aspects that you pierce the pain barrier and you go beyond suffering. Vipassana is a practice done with the specific intention of facing reality, to fully experience life just as it is and to cope with exactly what you find. It allows you to blow aside the illusions and to free yourself from all those polite little lies you tell yourself all the time. What is there is there. You are who you are, and lying to yourself about your own weaknesses and motivations only binds you tighter to the wheel of illusion. Vipassana meditation is not an attempt to forget yourself or to cover up your troubles. It is learning to look at yourself exactly as you are. See what is there, accept it fully. Only then can you change it.

Misconception #8
Meditation is a great way to get high
Well, yes and no. Meditation does produce lovely blissful feelings sometimes. But they are not the purpose, and they don't always occur. Furthermore, if you do meditation with that purpose in mind, they are less likely to occur than if you just meditate for the actual purpose of meditation, which is increased awareness. Bliss results from relaxation, and relaxation results from release of tension. Seeking bliss from meditation introduces tension into the process, which blows the whole chain of events. It is a Catch-22. You can only have bliss if you don't chase it. Besides, if euphoria and good feelings are what you are after, there are easier ways to get them. They are available in taverns and from shady characters on the street corners all across the nation. Euphoria is not the purpose of meditation. It will often arise, but is to be regarded as a by-product. Still, it is a very pleasant side-effect, and it becomes more and more frequent the longer you meditate. You won't hear any disagreement about this from advanced practitioners.

Misconception #9
Meditation is selfish
It certainly looks that way. There sits the meditator parked on his little cushion. Is he out giving blood? No. Is he busy working with disaster victims? No. But let us examine his motivation. Why is he doing this? His intention is to purge his own mind of anger, prejudice and ill-will. He is actively engaged in the process of getting rid of greed, tension and insensitivity. Those are the very items which obstruct his compassion for others. Until they are gone, any good works that he does are likely to be just an extension of his own ego and of no real help in the long run. Harm in the name of help is one of the oldest games. The grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition spouts the loftiest of motives. The Salem witchcraft trials were conducted for the public good. Examine the personal lives of advanced meditators and you will often find them engaged in humanitarian service. You will seldom find them as crusading missionaries who are willing to sacrifice certain individuals for the sake of some pious idea. The fact is we are more selfish than we know. The ego has a way of turning the loftiest activities into trash if it is allowed free range. Through meditation we become aware of ourselves exactly as we are, by waking up to the numerous subtle ways that we manifest our own selfishness. Then we truly begin to be genuinely selfless. Cleansing yourself of selfishness is not a selfish activity.

Misconception #10
When you meditate, you sit around thinking lofty thoughts
Wrong again. There are certain systems of contemplation in which this sort of thing is done. But that is not Vipassana. Vipassana is the practice of awareness. Awareness of whatever is there, be it supreme truth or crummy trash. What is there is there. Of course, lofty aesthetic thoughts may arise during your practice. They are certainly not to be avoided. Neither are they to be sought. They are just pleasant side-effects. Vipassana is a simple practice. It consists of experiencing your own life events directly, without preference and without mental images pasted to them. Vipassana is seeing your life unfold from moment to moment without biases. What comes up comes up. It is very simple.

Misconception #11
A couple of weeks of meditation and all my problems will go away
Sorry, meditation is not a quick cure-all. You will start seeing changes right away, but really profound effects are years down the line. That is just the way the universe is constructed. Nothing worthwhile is achieved overnight. Meditation is tough in some respects. It requires a long discipline and sometimes a painful process of practice. At each sitting you gain some results, but those results are often very subtle. They occur deep within the mind, only to manifest much later. And if you are sitting there constantly looking for some huge instantaneous changes, you will miss the subtle shifts altogether. You will get discouraged, give up and swear that no such changes will ever occur. Patience is the key. Patience. If you learn nothing else from meditation, you will learn patience. And that is the most valuable lesson available.