A) Mindfulness Meditation (止禪)
Normally in tranquility practice, most meditation methods emphasize concentration or awareness. They bring the mind to focus on one point or object, thereby achieving strength of concentration. Although concentration is the main objective, there must also be mindfulness to bring your mind to a tranquility state. The results are very peaceful tranquility states, and in extreme cases give rise to supernormal powers.
Mindfulness Meditation is a kind of focused awareness on a specific object followed by the awareness of whatever we see, feel and experience with a non-judgmental mind on the emotional level for the purpose of achieving tranquility.
The metaphor of Mindfulness Meditation is as follows :
- Consciousness is the natural state of the mind. Consciousness could be liken to a clear blue sky. The mind exists within that consciousness is liken to the clouds against the blue sky. The sky doesn't judge the clouds or any weather conditions, they are just there forever. Sometimes the clouds obscure the sky but the sky is always there behind the clouds. Sometimes our thoughts cloud our mind but consciousness is always there behind the noise.
- Awareness or Concentration is our ability to see that there are clouds in the sky, it is our attention focused and directed onto a more localized aspect. With awareness we may still be prone to judge the clouds or the thoughts or the feelings.
- In mindfulness Meditation, our focused awareness is with the judgement taken out of it, through a gentle acceptance of allowing everything we see, feel and experience to be just as it is.
- For example we could be aware that we are angry but still get caught up in the emotion and act out that anger. With mindfulness we might see the anger, attempt to not judge it and let it be just exactly as it is.
Paying attention “Non-Judgmentally”
( 面对任何境界,内不动心,外不著相)
Mindfulness is an emotionally non-reactive state or stillness and balance of mind. We don’t judge that this experience is good and that one is bad. Or if we do make those judgments, we simply notice them and let go of them. We don’t get upset because we’re experiencing something we don’t want to be experiencing or because we’re not experiencing what we would rather be experiencing. We simply accept whatever arises. We observe it mindfully. We notice it arising, passing through us, and ceasing to exist. Whether it’s a pleasant experience or a painful experience we treat it the same way. Cognitively, mindfulness is aware that certain experiences are pleasant and some are unpleasant, but on an emotional level we simply don’t react to it.
Paying attention “on purpose”
(止于特定对象)
First of all, mindfulness involves paying attention “on purpose”. Mindfulness involves a conscious direction of our awareness. In order to be mindful I have to be purposefully aware of myself, not just vaguely and habitually aware. Let’s take eating as an example, when we’re eating unmindfully,we may in theory be aware of what we’re doing but we’re probably thinking about a hundred and one other things at the same time, and we may also be watching TV, talking, or reading — or even all three! So a very small part of our awareness is absorbed with eating, and we may be only barely aware of the physical sensations and even less aware of our thoughts and emotions. Because we’re only dimly aware of our thoughts, they wander in an unrestricted way. There’s no conscious attempt to bring our attention back to our eating. In other words, there’s no purposefulness.
When we are purposefully aware of eating, we are consciously being aware of the process of eating. We’re deliberately noticing the sensations and our responses to those sensations. We’re noticing the mind wandering, and when it does wander we purposefully bring our attention back. This purposefulness is a very important part of mindfulness. Having the purpose of staying with our experience, whether that’s the breath, or a particular emotion, or something as simple as eating, means that we are actively shaping the mind to be more peaceful and calm.
Paying attention “in the present moment”
(止于当下)
Left to itself the mind wanders through all kinds of thoughts — including thoughts expressing anger, craving, depression, revenge, self-pity, etc. As we indulge in these kinds of thoughts we reinforce those emotions in our hearts and cause ourselves to suffer. Mostly these thoughts are about the past or future. The past no longer exists. The future is just a fantasy until it happens. The one moment we actually can experience — the present moment — is the one we seem most to avoid. So in mindfulness we’re concerned with noticing what’s going on right now. That doesn’t mean we can no longer think about the past or future, but when we do we do so mindfully, so that we’re aware that right now we’re thinking about the past or future. However in meditation, we are concerned with what’s arising in the present moment. When thoughts about the past or future take us away from our present moment experience and we “space out” , we try to notice this and just come back to now. By purposefully directing our awareness away from such thoughts and towards the “anchor” or our present moment experience, we decrease their effect on our lives and we create instead a space of freedom where calmness and contentment can grow.
B) Insight Meditation (止觀禪)
Most meditation methods emphasise concentration. They bring the mind to focus on one point or object, thereby achieving strength of concentration. The results are very peaceful states, and in extreme cases give rise to supernormal powers. Isn’t this what people are hoping to achieve? No wonder most head towards that direction!
In Mindfulness Meditation or Tranquility Practice, mindfulness is just required to bring our mind to a tranquility state, but that mindfulness is not thorough enough to bring about Insight Wisdom. For Buddhists, that way does not lead completely away from all our sufferings, although it can lighten them considerably for a period of time. The answer to the predicament is to practise Insight Meditation.
Insight Wisdom is the realization of the real nature of the world as it is, freed from concepts. In simple words, all mental and material processes that make up this world are really impermanent, unsatisfactory and non-self and dependent of each another . Without realizing the unsatisfactory state of conditioned existence, one is greatly attached to it and, therefore, emancipation is impossible. Seeing thus, one turns away from them, starts to purify his mind of greed, hatred and ignorance, and finds refuge in the unconditioned state, the everlasting peace of the absolute reality, Nibbana (Nirvana), a complete freedom from the endless cycle of personal reincarnations.
In Insight Meditation, mindfulness can lead our mind completely away from all our sufferings and develop Insight Wisdom. To develop this Insight Wisdom, mindfulness is emphasised as the main feature, and concentration steps down to second place as another necessary factor. In other words, concentration pins the mind to its object, while it is mindfulness that carefully and thoroughly gets a good look at it. When you have found out what that thing really is, then you have developed Insight Wisdom.
- Concentration holds on to and fixes the mind to the object. It is like when you are holding tightly to something and not letting go. It is also like when you are staring at the television screen, unable to tear yourself away from it.
- Mindfulness, however, is like making a careful observation of what is happening on the television screen.
- Insight Meditation is a kind of focused awareness on a specific object followed by the awareness of whatever we see, feel and experience with an evaluating mind in order not just to achieve tranquility but also for the purpose of dissociating our mind from delusion and conquering our self-ego, in other words, to attain the state of equanimity.
- In Insight Meditation, if one’s aim is to really look within, to discover who and what one really is, then mindful observation must be borne in mind as the main factor. Then one is like a scientist, making a close and thorough observation of his subject. Once there is enough, one gets the full picture with all its details. That is when Mindfulness is transformed into Insight Wisdom. For example, one observes with concentrated awareness on the objects, eg. rising/falling of the abdomen, sitting/touching, pain, thinking, right foot/left foot, etc., and will soon discover that all these (including the observing mind) are just processes that arise and pass away so rapidly. The meditator then realises that all these processes are changing (impermanent), beyond individual control, and unsatisfactory. This is followed by an abandoning of clinging to the false self, and there is a return to original nature and the abolishing of the “I am” – that is truly supreme bliss and Insight Wisdom.
- In Insight Meditation, once your mind is firmly established in a state of concentrated awareness, "lift" it from its object, but not so far that the concentration is destroyed, so that you could evaluate and detect the level of perception that is causing the unnecessary stress present in the concentration and dropping it for a more subtle level of perception until there is nothing left to drop. For example,
- Evaluating how you are related to the breath
- Detecting more subtle levels of breath energy in the body
- Once the breath is perfectly still
- The sense of the body starts to detect the perceptions of space、knowing、oneness etc and dissolve into a formless mist
Wrong Concentration
The best state of concentration or awareness in Insight Meditation is one that encompasses a whole-body awareness and that you can analyze and evaluate in terms of stress as opposed to the state of wrong concentration whereby the whole areas of your awareness are blocked off.
Wrong concentration will lead to the consequences of not being able to gain all-around Insight.
- The first is the state that comes when the breath gets so comfortable that your focus drifts from the breath to the sense of comfort itself,your mindfulness begins to blur and your sense of the body and your surroundings gets lost in a pleasant haze. This is called Delusion-Concentration.
- The second is the state that comes when your concentration is extremely one-pointed and dropped into a state in which you lose all sense of the body, of any sounds, of any thoughts, of any perceptions. This is called Non-Perception.
禪,翻譯為三昧,又稱為正念、正定、功德叢林。有世間禪、凡夫禪;有出世間禪、出世間上上禪。這裡所說的是如來自性清淨禪,是指我們這一念心。所謂「禪者,佛之心」,是指頓悟自心的禪,而不是漸修的禪。因此,打坐是禪,走路也是禪,穿衣吃飯、行住坐臥,都是禪。其他的禪,則屬於漸修。
所謂「禪者,佛之心」,這個地方所講的禪,不是漸修的禪,而是講心性。悟到這一念心,就契入了最高的禪心世界。
這念心有體、有用。用,就是心的作用,有善用、惡用,有染用、淨用。起貪、瞋、癡,是心的作用;修一切善,也是心的作用。
這個地方,一方面是講心之用,一方面是講心之體。什麼是體?心還沒有作用的時候,那一念心究竟是在哪裡?那一念心究竟是什麼境界?明白這個道理,就能夠契入禪;如果不明白這個道理,就屬於修。修什麼呢?修定。修定,這個禪只屬於一種定,有定而沒有慧,這樣一來,禪就有了次第,先定而後慧。這個地方所講的禪,是「禪者,佛之心」,定和慧是一個。