Generosity First 布施先行

Several years ago, when Ajaan Suwat was teaching a retreat at IMS, I was his interpreter. After the second or third day of the retreat he turned to me and said, “I notice that when these people meditate they’re awfully grim.” You’d look out across the room and all the people were sitting there very seriously, their faces tense, their eyes closed tight. It was almost as if they had Nirvana or Bust written across their fore heads. 
几年前，阿姜苏瓦特在内观禅定协会指导密集禅修，我为他翻译。两三天过后，他转过来对我说:“我注意到这些人坐禅时及其生硬。”放眼望过去，满屋人坐着，无比严肃，板着脸，双目紧闭，好似前额写着“不涅盘勿宁死。”

Heat tributed their grimness to the fact that most people here in the West come to Buddhist meditation without any preparation in other Buddhist teachings. They haven’t had any experience in being generous in line with the Buddha’s teaching on giving. They haven’t had any experience in developing virtue in line with the Buddhist precepts. They come to the Buddha’s teachings without having tested the min daily life, so they don’t have the sense of confidence they need to get them through the hard parts of the meditation.They feel they have to rely on sheer determination instead.
他把这些人的生硬感，归结为多数西方人来到佛教禅修班时，对佛陀的其它教导无任何先行准备。他们没有按照佛陀的布施教导行过布施。他们没有按照佛陀的戒德教导守过戒。来到禅修班之前，并未在日常生活中检验过佛陀教导[的果报]，于是他们面对坐禅的困难，无必要的自信，觉得只能完全仰赖意志。

If you look at the way meditation, virtue, and generosity are taught here, it’s the exact opposite of the order in which they’re taught in Asia. Here,people sign up for a retreat to learn some meditation, and only when they show up at the retreat center do they learn they’re going to have to observe some precepts during the retreat. And then at the very end of the retreat they learn that before they’ll be allowed to go home they’re going to have to be generous. It’s all backwards.
假若你观察此地禅定、戒德、布施的教法，它相对于亚洲的教法，次序完全相反。在这里，人们报名参加一次禅修班，学一点禅定，只有人到禅修中心后，才得知自己必须在禅修期间遵守若干戒律。禅修结束时他们才得知，在回家之前，应该布施。这个次序完全颠倒了。

Over in Thailand, children’s first exposure to Buddhism, after they’ve learned the gesture of respect, is in giving. You see parents taking their children by the hand as a monk comes past on his alms round, lifting them up,and helping them put a spoonful of rice into the monk’s bowl. Overtime,as the children start doing it themselves, the process becomes less and less mechanical,and after a while they begin to take pleasure in giving.
在泰国，孩子们除了学会合什礼敬的姿势之外，对佛教的初次接触即为布施。你看见父母们手把手教他们，在一位比丘托钵经过时，把孩子抱起来，帮着把一勺米饭放进比丘的僧钵内。慢慢地，孩子们开始独自布施，这个过程的生硬度越来越小，过了一阵，他们开始从布施中获得喜乐。

At first this pleasure may seem counter intuitive. The idea that you gain happiness by giving things away doesn’t come automatically to a young child’s mind. But with practice you find that it’s true. After all,when you give,you put yourself in a position of wealth.The gift is proof that you have more than enough. At the same time it gives you a sense of your worth as a person.You’re able to help other people. The act of giving also creates a sense of spaciousness in the mind,because the world we live in is created by our actions, and the act of giving creates a spacious world:a world where generosity is an operating principle,a world where people have more than enough, enough to share. And it creates a good feeling in the mind.
这种喜乐初看起来也许违背常理。对孩童来说，藉把东西送人得到喜乐的概念并非自发而生。不过随着修习，会发现它真是如此。毕竟，布施时，你把自己置于富者的地位; 布施之礼是你富足有余的凭证。同时它赋予你以人的价值感: 你能够帮助他人。布施的动作也造就了心灵的开放感，因为我们生活的世界由自己的行为[业力]造作而生，布施之业造作起一个开扩的世界: 在这个世界中，舍离是运作的原则，在这个世界中，人们有富足有余，可以分享。如此在内心引生出一股良好的感受。

From there, the children are exposed to virtue: the practice of the precepts. And again, from a child’s point of view it’s counter intuitive that you’re going to be happy by not doing certain things you want to do—as when you want to take something, or when you want to lie to cover up your embarrassment or to protect yourself from criticism and punishment. But overtime you begin to discover that,yes,there is a sense of happiness, there is a sense of well being that comes from being principled,from not having to cover up for any lies, from avoiding unskillful actions, from having a sense that unskillful actions are beneath you.
接下来，孩子们接触到持戒: 即戒德的修持。再一次，从孩童的视点看，不做某些想做之事——比如想拿走某物、想说谎掩饰尴尬或者保护自己不受批评与惩罚——竟能得到喜乐，仍然是违背常理的。不过日久之后的确发现，是的，从行为遵守原则、从无须掩盖谎言、从避免不善巧行为、从对不良行为的不屑造作之感中，的确能升起一种喜乐感与安宁感。

So by the time you come to meditation through the route of giving and being virtuous, you’ve already had experience in learning that the reare counter intuitive forms of happiness in the world. When you’ve been trained through exposure to the Buddha’s teachings, you’ve learned the deeper happiness that comes from giving, the deeper happiness that comes from restraining yourself from unskillful actions, no matter how much you might want to do them. By the time you come to the meditation you’ve developed a certain sense of confidence that so far the Buddha has been right, so you give him the benefit of the doubt on meditation.
于是，从布施与持戒走到禅定时，你对世界上存在某种违背常理的喜乐形式已有了经验。当你已接触佛陀的教导并遵教修持时，你已体会了来自布施的深度喜乐、来自约束自己在任何情形下远离不善巧行为的深度喜乐。等到来修习禅定时，你已经培养了某种自信，到目前为止佛陀是正确的，因此你对他的禅定教导也愿意一试。

This confidence is what allows you to overcome a lot of the initial difficulties: the distractions, the pain. At the same time, the spaciousness that comes from generosity gives you the right mindset for the concentration practice, gives you the right mindset for insight practice—because when you sit down and focus on the breath,what kind of mind do you have? The mind you’ve been creating through your generous and virtuous actions. A spacious mind, not the narrow mind of a person who doesn’t have enough. It’s the spacious mind of a person who has more than enough to share, the mind of a person who has no regrets or denial over past actions. In short, it’s the mind of a person who realizes that true happiness doesn’t see a sharp dichotomy between your own well being and the well being of others.
正是有这股信心，使你得以克服禅定之初的杂念、痛感等诸多困难。同时，来自布施的开放感，给了你修定的正确心态、修观的正确心态——因为当你坐下来念住呼吸时，是带着何样的心? 是你透过布施与持戒之业一直在造作的那个心，一颗开放之心。它非是自感匮乏者的狭隘之心，而是有余物分享者的扩展之心，这颗心对以往的行为无遗憾、也不否认。简言之，有此心者已意识到，真正的幸福并不视自己与他人的福利为对立二分。

The whole idea that happiness has to consist either in doing things only for your own selfish motives or for other people to the sacrifice of yourself—the dichotomy between the two—is something very Western, but it’s antithetical to the Buddha’s teachings. According to the Buddha’s teachings, true happiness is something that, by its nature,gets spread around. By working for your own true benefit, you’re working for the benefit of others. And by working for the benefit of others, you’re working for your own. In the act of giving to others you gain rewards. In the act of holding fast to the precepts, holding fast to your principles, protect in go thers from your unskillful behavior,you gain as well. You gain in mindfulness;you gain in your own sense of worth as a person,your own self esteem.You protect yourself.
幸福的达成，必须或者只为一己之私行事，或者为他人而牺牲自己——这套概念与二分法——是十分西方化的，它与佛陀的教导背道而驰。根据佛陀的教导，真正的幸福在本质上，是可以相互传播的。藉着为你自己的真正福利而出力，你也是在他人的福利出力。藉着为他人的福利出力，你也是在为自己的福利出力。布施他人的行为使你有善报。在坚守戒律、坚守原则、保护他人不受你不善巧行为伤害的过程中，你也从中获益。你获得念住、获得人的价值感与自尊感。你也保护了自己。

So you come to the meditation ready to apply the same principles to training in tranquility and insight.You realize that the meditation is not a selfish project. You’re sitting here trying to understand your greed, anger, and delusion, trying to bring them under control—which means that you’re not the only person who’s going to benefit from the meditation. Other people will benefit—are benefiting—as well. As you become more mindful, more alert, more skillful in under cutting the hindrances in your mind, other people are less subject to those hindrances as well. Less greed, anger, and delusion come out in your actions, and so the people around you suffer less. Your meditating is a gift to them.
因此，你来禅修时，已准备好以同样的原理修习止与观。你意识到，禅定并非是自私之事。你坐在这里，试着了解你的贪、嗔、痴，试着控制它们——这意味着你并非是唯一的获益者。他人也将获益——他们正在获益。随着你越来越有念住、越来越有警觉、越来越善巧地祛除内心的五盖，其他人也越来越少地受你那些五盖的伤害。你的行为中流出的贪、嗔、痴越少，周围的人受苦越少。你的禅定是对他们的布施。

The quality of generosity, what they call caga in Pali, is included in many sets of Dhamma teachings. One is the set of practices leading to a fortunate rebirth. This doesn’t apply only to the rebirth that comes after death, but also to the states of being, the states of mind you create for yourself moment to moment, that you move into with each moment.You create the world in which you live through your actions. By being generous—not only with material things but also with your time, your energy, your forgiveness, your willingness to be fair and just with other people—you create a good world in which to live. If your habits tend more toward being stingy, they create a very confining world, because there’s never enough. There’s always a lack of this, or a lack of that, or a fear that something is going to slip away or get taken away from you. So it’s a narrow, fearful world you create when you’re not generous, as opposed to the confident and wide-open world you create through acts of generosity.
舍离 [大方]这个素养，巴利文称“caga”，是不少佛法系列教导中提到的要点。其一是趋向幸福重生的有关修持。这不仅适用于死后的重生，而且也适用于生存状态，指你每时每刻为自己造作、每时每刻进住的心态。你藉由自己的行动[业]，造作起自己生活在其中的世界。藉着布施——不仅以财物，而且以时间、精力、原宥、公平公正待人的愿心——你造作出一个自己生活在其中的良好世界。假若你的习惯更倾向于吝啬，它们会造作一个十分局限的世界，在其中常嫌不足。你总觉得缺这少那，总怕某件东西会从你手中溜走或给夺走。因此，当你不愿布施时，就有一个狭隘、畏惧的世界，而非是你藉着布施之业造作起来的自信、宽广的世界。

Generosity also counts as one of the forms of Noble Wealth, because what is wealth aside from a sense of having more than enough? Many people who are materially poor are, in terms of their attitude, very wealthy. And many people with a lot of material wealth are extremely poor. The ones who never have enough:They’re the ones who always need more security, always need more to stash away. Those are the people who have to build walls around their houses, who have to live in gated communities for fear that other people will take away what they’ve got. That’s a very poor kind of life, a confined kind of life. But as you practice generosity, you realize that you can get by on less, and that there’s a pleasure that comes with giving to people. Right there is a sense of wealth.You have more than enough.
舍离也是圣财之一，因为财富除了一股充足有余感之外，还有什么? 不少物质上贫乏的人，心态上却十分富有。不少物质上大富之人，[内心]却十分贫乏。永感匮乏者，是那些总需要更多的安全感、总需要存积更多财物的人，是那些怕财物给抢去而在房屋四周造起围墙、或者住进门控社区里的人。那种生活十分贫乏、十分局限。不过，随着你修习布施，你意识到，自己可以少欲而活，布施他人自有一种喜乐。那就是一股富有之感。你富足有余。

At the same time you break down barriers. Monetary transactions create barriers. Some body hands you something, you have to hand them money back, so there’s a barrier right there. Otherwise, if you didn’t pay, the object wouldn’t come to you over the barrier. But if some thing is freely given, it breaks down a barrier. You become part of that person’s extended family. In Thailand the terms of address that monks use with their lay supporters are the same they use with relatives.The gift of support creates a sense of relatedness. The monastery where I stayed—and this includes the lay supporters as well as the monks—was like a large extended family. This is true of many of the monasteries in Thailand. There’s a sense of relatedness, a lack of boundary.
同时，你也在消解屏障。金钱的交易制造屏障。某人交给你某件物事，你必须把金钱交付给他，当下就出现一个屏障。你不付钱，那件东西不会越过屏障来到你这边。不过，假若某件东西免费给予，它就破解了屏障。你成为赠者大家族的一员。在泰国，比丘们对他们的护持居士的称呼，与对自家亲戚的称呼是一样的。布施护持，造就起一种亲戚感。我曾经就住的寺院——这指既包括比丘也包括居士护持者们——好似一个大家庭。泰国的不少寺院也是如此。在其中有一股亲戚感，不存在屏障。

We hear so much talk on “inter connectedness.” Many times it’s explained in terms of the teaching on dependent co-arising, which is really an inappropriate use of the teaching. Dependent co-arising teaches the connectedness of ignorance to suffering, the connectedness of craving to suffering. That’s a connectedness within the mind,and it’s a connectedness that we need to cut, because it keeps suffering going on and on and on, over and over again, in many, many cycles. But there’s another kind of connectedness, an intentional connectedness, that comes through our actions. These are kamma connections. Now, we in the West often have problems with the teachings on kamma, which may be why we want the teachings on connectedness without the kamma. So we go looking elsewhere in the Buddha’s teachings to find a rationale or a basis for a teaching on connectedness, but the real basis for a sense of connectedness comes through kamma. When you interact with another person, a connection is made.
我们听过不少“相互连通性”(interconnectedness)的言谈，很多情形之下，是作为对十二因缘的演绎，实际上如此运用这个教说并不合适。缘起法教导的是从无明到苦、从渴求到苦的相关性。那是心智内部活动的相关性、是我们需要切断的相关性，因为它使苦连续不断、周而复始。不过，还有另一种相关性，一种来自于我们的行为的有动机的相关性，这就是业的相关性。我们西方人对业力教导常感困难，也许这是我们何以要一种无业力的相关性之故。于是我们在佛陀的其它教导中为相关性寻找某种逻辑或依据，然而相关感的真正依据来自于业力。当你与另一个人交流时，就建立了某种相关性。

Now, it can be a positive or a negative connection, depending on the intention. With generosity you create a positive connection, a helpful connection, a connection where you’re glad that the boundary is down, a connection where good things can flow back and forth. If it’s unskillful kamma, you’re creating a connection, you’re creating an opening that sooner or later you’re going to regret. There’s a saying in the Dhammapada that a hand without a wound can hold poison and not be harmed. In other words, if you don’t have any bad kamma, the results of bad kamma won’t come to you. But if you have a wound on your hand, then if you hold poison it will seep through the wound and kill you. Unskillful kamma is just that, a wound. It’s an opening for poisonous things to come in.
相关性据其动机，可以是正面的，也可以是负面的。随着布施，你造作起一种正面的相关性、一种有益的相关性、一种你为之乐见的消除屏障的相关性、一种善德在其中可以往返流动的相关性。假若是不善巧之业，那么你也在造作相关性，你在造作一个迟早后悔的裂口。法句经中有一句话，没有伤口的手，可以不受伤害地拿起毒药。换句话说，你若不造恶业，该恶业之果不会临至你。不过，假若你手上有伤口，接着拿起毒药，它会沿着伤口渗入害死你。不善巧之业正是那个伤口。它为有毒物品的进入开启了入口。

The opposite principle also works. If there’s a connection of skillful behavior, a good connectionis formed. This sort of positive connection starts with generosity, and grows with the gift of virtue. As the Buddha said,when you hold to your precepts no matter what, with no exceptions, it’s a gift of security to all beings.You give unlimited security to everyone, and so you have a share in that unlimited security as well. With the gift of meditation, you protect other people from the effects of your greed, anger, and delusion. And you get protected as well.
反之亦然。假若与善巧行为有关，那么就建立了良好的相关性。这类正面的相关性以布施为开端，随着戒德而成长。正如佛陀说，当你在任何情形下严守戒律，决不破例时，那是在对一切有情布施安全感[施无畏]。你把无限的安全赠予每个有情，因此也得以分享那种无限的安全。随着禅定的布施，你护卫他人不受你的贪、嗔、痴之害。你也受到护卫。

So this is what generosity does:It makes your mind more spacious and creates good connections with the people around you. It dissolves the boundaries that otherwise would keep the happiness from spreading around.
因此，布施的功能如下: 它使你的心更宽广; 与周围的构造起良好的关系; 它消解阻碍幸福传播的屏障。

When you come to the meditation with that state of mind, it totally changes the way you approach meditating. So many people come to meditation with the question, “What am I going to get out of this time I spend meditating?”
当你以这种心念修习禅定时，你对禅定的态度会有彻底的改变。如此众多的人带着这个问题来禅定:“我这次花时间习禅，能得到些什么?”。特别在现代世界里，时间是我们极其匮乏的。

Particularly in the modern world, time is something we’re very poor in. So the question of getting, getting, getting out of the mediation is always there in the background. We’re advised to erase this idea of getting, yet you can’t erase it if you’ve been cultivating it as a habitual part of your mind. But if you come to the meditation with experience in being generous, the question becomes “What do I give to the meditation? ”You give it your full attention. You give it the effort, you’re happy to put in the effort, because you’ve learned from experience that good effort put into the practice of the Dhamma brings good results. And so that internal poverty of “What am I getting out of this meditation?” gets erased.You come to the meditation with a sense of wealth:“What can I give to this practice?”
因此，从禅定中得到、得到、得到的问题，总在背景中出现。我们被告诫应该消除“得到”的念头，然而，若非你早已修练，内心养成[施予的]习惯，它是难以消除的。不过，假若你带着布施的体验来禅定，问题就变成了“我拿什么给予禅定?” 你给予你的全副专注、给予你的精进。你乐于精进，因为你已经从经验中了解到，对佛法修持投入良好的努力，将会有良好的果报。因此“我从这次禅修中得到什么?”的内在匮乏感就被消除了。你带着财富来禅定:“我拿什么给予这个修持?”

You find, of course, that you end up getting a lot more if you start with the attitude of giving. The mind is more up for challenges:“How about if I give it more time? How about meditating later in to the night than I usually do? How about getting up earlier in the morning? How about giving more constant attention to what I’m doing? How about sitting longer through pain?”The meditation then becomes a process of giving, and of course you still get the results. When you’re not so grudging of your efforts or time, you place fewer and fewer limitations on the process of meditation. That way the results are sure to be less grudging, more unlimited,as well. So it’s important that we develop the Noble Wealth of generosity to bring to our meditation.
当然，你会发现，假若以布施作为开端，结果会得到更多。心更能够接受挑战。“我多给些时间修习如何? 比过去入夜更迟如何? 早晨起更早如何? 对当下修行给予更持恒的专注如何? 忍痛坐禅更久一点如何?” 禅定于是成了一个施予的过程，你当然仍有果报。当你对自己的精力与时间的付出不那么不情愿时，对禅定的过程便加以越来越少的限制。如此，果报也会越来越少有不情愿感、越来越多的无局限感。因此，我们培养布施的圣财带入禅定，是十分重要的。

The texts mention that when you get discouraged in your meditation, when the meditation gets dry,you should look back on past generosity. This gives you a sense of self-esteem, a sense of encouragement. Of course,what generosity are you going to look back on if there is none? This is why it’s important that you approach the meditation having practiced generosity very consciously.
经文中提到，当你对禅修气馁、当禅修枯燥时，你应回想过去曾作的布施。这给你一种自尊感与鼓励感。当然，假若从未布施，回想起来何其有之? 这就是为什么，你在有意识地修习布施之后再修习禅定，是十分重要的。

Many times we ask, “How do I take the meditation back into the world? ”But it’s also important that you bring good qualities of the world into your meditation, good qualities of your day-to-day life, and that you develop them regularly.Thinking back on past acts of generosity gets dry after a while if there’s only been one act of generosity that happened a long time ago.You need fresh generosity to give you encouragement.
我们时常问:“如何把禅修带回世界?”但是，把世间的良好素质带入你的禅定之中也同样重要——那些日常生活中的良好素质、那些你不断长养起来的素质。假如你的布施之业只有那么一次，还发生在很久以前，那么回想一阵就显得枯燥了。你需要新鲜的布施来鼓励自己。

So this is why,when the Buddha talked about the forms of merit, he said, “Don’t be afraid of merit, for merit is another word for happiness.” The first of the three main forms of merit is dana, giving, which is the expression of generosity.The gift of being virtuous builds on the simple act of giving, and the gift of meditation builds on both.
这就是为什么，佛陀在谈到福德的类型时，他说:“不要怕福德，因为福德是喜乐的另一个词汇。”三种主要福德中，布施第一，它是舍离的体现。持戒的施予，建立在简单的布施行为基础上，而禅定的施予，则建立在两者之上。

Of course, a large part of the meditation is letting go:letting go of distractions,letting go of unskillful thoughts.If you’re used to letting go of material things,it comes a lot easier to begin experimenting with letting go of unskillful mental attitudes—things that you’ve held onto for so long that you think you need them,but when you really look at them you find you don’t. In fact,you see that they’re an unnecessary burden that causes suffering. When you see the suffering, and the fact that it’s needless,you can let go. In this way,the momentum of giving carries all the way through the practice,and you realize that it’s not depriving you of anything. It’s more like a trade.You give away a material object and you gain in generous qualities of mind.You give away your defilements, and you gain freedom.
当然，禅定的一大部分是放下: 放下杂念、放下非善巧的想法。假若你已习惯于放下物质上的东西，那么尝试放下不善巧的心理习惯就容易多了; 这是你那些长久以来紧抓不放，以之为必须，但真的审视起来，发现并不需要的东西。你看见，它们实际上是致苦的不必要负担。当你看见苦、看见它的无谓时，就能够把它放下。以这种方式，布施的力量把你一路推向禅修，你意识到，布施并未使你因此少了什么。它更类似于一项交换: 你放下物质财物，得到心的大方素质; 你放下杂染，得到自由。

Source:
(根据2003年3月某日开示录音整理，本文为坦尼沙罗尊者开示集《禅定》中首篇)
Ven. Thanissaro Bhikkhu
作者坦尼沙罗尊者
中译良稹
March,2003