Rites of Passage
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
July, 2003
小鸡炖榛蘑Many ancient tribes marked the line between childhood and adulthood by nding the person off into the wilds to be alone. Some of the tribes called it a vision quest. The person could be alone for days to e what kind of vision would come up from within the mind, from within the heart, independent of the training he or she had received as a child. That was suppod to mark the person’s entry into adulthood, to give a n of what the adulthood would be all about. From that point on, the person would drop whatever childish things didn’t fit in with the vision, and embark on adult life with a clear n of direction.
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Even in modern cultures, that’s what the line between childhood and adulthood is: the point where we step back from the training we’ve received, step back from all the influences received as children, and find a place within where we can decide what our own ideas are, what our own n of our direction in life is. It’s a shame, though, that in modern culture the line is a fuzzy line. A fractured line. We don’t have a formally recognized time of quietude to make the break in a clear and socially recognized way.
But that’s what we do when we meditate: We step back from all the influences inside our mind—ideas that this is good, that’s bad, you should do this, you shouldn’t do that. You have to stop and really take stock of the things, find a place within where you can be really, really quiet, and then look clearly at the voices to e what they are. Instead of identifying with them, you watch them. You watch to e what they’re coming from, where they’re going, eing them as part of a causal process. What kind of mind state do they come from, what kind of mind state do they encourage? Are tho the kind of mind states you want to identify with?
This is esntially how the Buddha’s teaching on not‐lf works: eing the things that have control over our lives, that have power over our minds, and in the cour of the meditation stepping back a bit from them, gaining enough independence from them that we can look at them simply as events and e if we really want to identify with them. As the Buddha pointed out in one of his discours, you can’t really look at the things as long as you’re identifying with them. You‘ve got to step back. This applies not only to ideas in the mind, but also to the body, this form we’re sitting with here. The same principle also applies to
feelings of pleasure and pain as they come and go, to perceptions, to thought‐constructs, even to our consciousness of things. Meditation gives us a place where we can step back from the things
and watch them to e the influence they have over the mind, to decide whether that’s an influence we’d like them to continue having.
So as we practice it’s important to create this space where you can step back. The quietude and clusion are important.
There are actually three kinds of clusion. The first is physical clusion, getting away from people. It’s hard to get the random voices out of your mind when people are constantly feeding them into your ears. It’s hard to focus on your own mind when you’re running up against the contents of other people’s minds all the time. You’ve got to get away. You’ve got to get out—which is what we’re doing as we come here: finding a place of clusion. We’re not totally cut off from other people here, but at least we’re in a place where the values of the practice are honored, where the bottom line is not the profit margin, where the bottom line is how you’re training your mind—a place where we try to give space to one another, to show respect for on another’s need for quietude, for concentration.
But there’s still the problem that when we come out to a place like this, we don’t leave our thoughts behind. Even though we may be surrounded by physical clusion, there’s still a lot of companionship in our minds as we go and sit out under the trees. Thoughts of the past come along; thoughts of the future come along. As long as we’re tied up in the thoughts we’re not really alone.峥嵘岁月意思
This is why we take the body in and of itlf sitting here as our frame of reference. That’s a way of developing mental clusion, dropping unskillful mental states. We drop thoughts of past and future, and try to be right here with the body in the prent moment. We drop thoughts of how much we’d like to e this thing or hear that thing or taste or touch the things we like. We’re willing to let the mind be here cluded from all that.
Our culture is a funny one: It tends to distrust people who try to get away from nsual attachments—partly becau the economy would collap and partly becau of the old Judaic‐Protestant prejudice that people who try to abandon nsual attachments must be weird. The truth of the matter, though, is that there’s a part of the mind that flourishes when it’s not burdened with nsual attachments. When it’s really cluded from nsual attachments, it blossoms. And part of the practice is learning to appreciate that very still center of the mind, the n of wellbeing that comes from dropping all tho attachments. Even though we’re not yet letting go of them for good, we at least drop them for the time being.跨学科研究
Simply be with the n of the breath coming in, going out, allowing it to fill the body. Allow it to find its own right rhythm. You nudge it a little bit here, nudge it a little bit there to make it feel good, and this makes it easier to get pulled into the prent moment rather than into the future or the past. You
develop a greater and greater n of mental clusion by just dropping tho distractions, dropping all tho voices and attitudes that pull you back or pull you forward. You allow yourlf simply to be right here, absorbed in working with the breath, ttled down with a n of wellbeing, ttled down with a n of familiarity.
It takes time, of cour, to get familiar with the prent moment, becau for the most part we’re just running through. We’re like a little kid who runs home—“Hi, Mom!”—grabs a sandwich and runs out again: That’s “dinner.” We have a fragmentary n of the prent moment as we rush through from the past to the future and from the future to the past.
茯茶的功效与作用The only time we really take notice of the prent is when pain transfixes us here. Well, during the meditation, get a n of pleasure and allow that to transfix you in here instead. This is what creates true mental clusion. The past and the future drop away and all you’ve got left is the body sitting here breathing—right here, right now. You’ve got mindfulness reminding you to stay right here, alertness keeping watch over what’s going on, and discernment absorbed in trying to understand it.
That‘s a much deeper and more satisfying n of clusion. Ultimately, it forms the basis for the third one, clusion from craving. As the Buddha said, craving is our constant companion even when
the mind is in the prent. To cut through this craving, we have to call into question the things we’ve been identifying with. In his cond rmon, the Buddha pointed out to the monks that if you let go of your attachment to form, feeling, perception, thought‐constructs, and consciousness, what happens? In their ca they attained Awakening. In other words, they became cluded even from their n of who they were in the prent moment—becau our n of who we are is compod of tho five kinds of things, coupled with craving and clinging. Form: the form of the body. Feelings: You may identify with a pain, saying “This is my pain,” or you may identify with a more metaphysical feeling, a larger n of light or wellbeing, a n of bliss. You may think that that’s who your true lf is. Then there’s the label that says, “This is my lf.” That’s a perception. Thought‐constructs: You identify with your thinking, or the Thinker. Or you identify with the moment‐to‐moment consciousness of things.
As long as you identify with the things, you crave them. You’re still not cluded from them. You still have companions. But when you create that still center inside and allow yourlf simply to watch the things, you step back and
搞笑的谜语realize that you don’t have to identify with them. Self‐identification is an act. Our n of who we are is something we create. As you step back from the things and allow that activity of repeatedly
creating your n of who you are to fall away, e what happens. Then learn to drop your n of identification even with the still center inside. See what happens then. The Buddha says that an even greater n of freedom comes. See if he’s right.
When you taste that freedom, you’re no longer a slave to the things. Instead, they become your tools. You can u them for good purpos.
So this process of gaining clusion is a process not only of growing up but also of gaining freedom. We look at all the influences rushing around in our minds and we come to realize that we have the ability to choo which ideas are uful and which ones are not, which of the phenomena we’re aware of are uful and which ones are not. We don’t have to be driven around by them all the time.
For most of us, life is a story of just that: being driven around. And this involves a lot of conflict becau there are so many conflicting voices in our minds. This or that person gets under our skin and all of a sudden we start identifying with their particular way of thinking; another way of thinking gets under our skin and that gets incorporated too. We never really have a chance to sit back and sort things through, to e where they’re harmonious and where they’re not.
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A group of people called the Kalamas once asked the Buddha, “How do we know which of the many
different teachings coming our way are true? One teacher comes and says x is true. Another person comes and says, ‘Any person who says x is true is crazy. Y is true.’ How do we know who’s telling the truth?”
“Well,” the Buddha said,” You can’t go by outside teachers, you can’t go by old texts, you can’t go by received wisdom.” That’s the part of the teaching everybody remembers. But at the same time he also said that you can’t go by your own n of what you like, what ems logical, or what fits in with your preconceived notions. That doesn’t give you any proof of truth, either. You have to look and e: When you do something, what are the results?
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If you act on particular mental qualities, which ones give happy results, harmless results, and which ones give harmful results? In other words you have to look at cau and effect. This principle applies not only to outside teachers but also to the voices we tend to identify with in our minds.
You have to step back and e what happens if you follow a particular way of perceiving things. Say you’ve got a pain in your leg and you perceive or label the pain in a certain way: What happens? Is that a skillful way of labeling the pain? Could you label it some other way? Can you label it simply as “nsation” instead? Can you step back and simply watch the pain and the perception as a
ries of events, part of a causal chain? What kind of freedom comes when you do that? This is how the teaching that the Buddha gave to the Kalamas applies not only outside but inside as well.
Even if we don’t have the clusion of vision quests any more in our culture, we do have a chance to find an even more thorough clusion when we meditate. Meditation trains us in the ability to look and e what’s in our minds, to decide what we really want to identify with and what we don’t. So, it’s through the meditation that we learn to grow up, we learn to gain independence, we learn to stand on our own two feet.
Ajaan Lee once made the comment that people who are still attached—still a slave to their thoughts, their bodies, and their feelings—are still children even if they’re 80 years old. On the other hand, if you’re the wi person who’s no longer a slave to the things, then even if you’re only ven years old, you’re already an adult.
So think of the meditation as giving you a chance to step back and draw the line between childhood and adulthood. Draw the line, make it sharp, and then step over into adulthood by giving yourlf that space, that n of clusion inside where you have time to sit down and watch things for what they really do. When you realize that you have the freedom to choo—and you take advantage of that freedom—that’s when you’ve grown into an adult.
