Understanding and Wisdom

Ajahn Chah

1. No one and nothing can free you but your own understanding.
2. A clever person watches others, but he watches with wisdom, not with ignorance. If one watches with wisdom, one can learn much. But if one watches with ignorance, one can only find faults.
3. The real problem with people nowadays is that they know but still don't do. It is another matter if they don't do because they don't know, but if they already know and still don't do, what's the problem?
4. When we know the truth, we become people who don't have to think much, we become people with wisdom. If we don't know, we have more thinking than wisdom or no wisdom at all. A lot of thinking without wisdom is extreme suffering.
5. These days people don't search for the Truth. People study simply in order find the knowledge necessary to make a living, raise their families and look after themselves, that's all. To them being smart is more important than being wise.
6. If you see things with real insight, then there is no stickiness in your relationship to them. They come - pleasant and unpleasant - you see them and there is no attachment. They come and they pass. If the worst kinds of defilement come up, such as greed or anger, there's enough wisdom to see their impermanent nature and allow them to just fade away. If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn't wisdom. You're only creating more suffering for yourself.

... Ajahn Chah

尊者阿姜查：解脫之鑰 － 1

1. 我们学习佛法的根本原因是要找到超越苦、获得宁静的方法。只有使你从苦中解脱的方法，才是修持的正确方法，而不是其它什么方法。这是因为苦和苦因就在当下。

2. 你在观想苦因时应当了解，我们称为心的这个东西，当它静止时，那是正常状态。一旦它动起来，心也升起反感或追逐它们、 受它们影响。一旦心动，就有了世俗之心，当即沦陷于緣起緣滅的世界。佛陀 教导我们观照的就是这些心的动态。

3. 每当心有动态，它都是无常、苦、非我。佛陀要我们观察和观想这一点。他教导我们观想影 响心的動態。你已经在书里学习、阅读了这个主题，尽管那里说得正确，实际发生时你却跟不上。实际上，没有什么记号告诉你现在是无明、现在是緣起、接下来是意识、现在是名色，等等。

4. 一般来说，你经历苦时，看到的都是结果，也就是心里有苦痛、悲 哀、绝望。你实际上并不知道它从哪里来，那个你从书里是找不到的。书里没有哪里会描述你那个苦的细节与因缘。

5. 因此佛陀教导我们要安住于 “知性”(that which knows)，只观察事物的生灭。一旦训练意识留驻于 “觉知”(awareness)，一旦探索了心，对心与它所形成的真相（reality)，而获得了洞见(insight，),你会 把心看成非我。你会发现一切心理状态与物质状态终究是必须放下的，你会清楚地看到，执取或者给予不必要的重视是愚蠢的。

6. 佛陀教我们了解无常、 苦、非我。因此佛教修持的根本目的，是把它们放下、放到一边。你必须对心与升起的心所确立和保持觉知。实际上心在过去已经习惯于思维的不断繁殖，再加上各 种善恶概念的影响。佛陀教导我们把这一切放下，但是你能够放下之前，必须学习与修行。 考虑八圣道，它是以智慧或者说正见为基础的。

7. 如果你经历不喜欢的事，仍然把反感储存在心里，你必须重头开始修。因为你还有错误; 修 持不圆满。修持达到圆满的地步，心会自动把事放下，要这样对待修持。你在修持时要切实 深入地探索心，获得洞见，自证果报。你真要了解这些东西，必须获 得直观洞见，获得透视事物的亲身理解。

8. 我在个人修持中，内心升起反感的念头时，我问: “为什么有反感?” 升起喜爱的念头时，我 问: “为什么有喜爱?” 这就是禅修之道。我不了解那些精细的理论要点，也没有对心与心所作 详细的分析。我只是始终在对付心中那一点，直到整个解决了反感与欲喜的问题，让它们彻 底消失。不管发生什么，如果我能把心带到一个地步，在那里喜欢与不喜欢终止了，那就超 越了苦。心已经达到无论经历什么都保持宁静的地步。没有执取、粘着......它止息了。这是 你的修持该瞄准的目标。其他人要谈理论，那是他们的事。不过到头来，不管谈了多少，还 得回到这一点开始修。

Training This Mind - Ajahn Chah

TRAINING THIS MIND...

Actually there’s nothing much to this mind. It’s simply radiant in and of itself. It’s naturally peaceful. Why the mind doesn’t feel peaceful right now is because it gets lost in its own moods. There’s nothing to mind itself. It simply abides in its natural state, that’s all.

That sometimes the mind feels peaceful and other times not peaceful is because it has been tricked by these moods. The untrained mind lacks wisdom. It’s foolish. Moods come and trick it into feeling pleasure one minute and suffering the next. Happiness then sadness. But the natural state of a person’s mind isn’t one of happiness or sadness. This experience of happiness and sadness is not the actual mind itself, but just these moods which have tricked it.

The mind gets lost, carried away by these moods with no idea what’s happening. And as a result, we experience pleasure and pain accordingly, because the mind has not been trained yet. It still isn’t very clever. And we go on thinking that it’s our mind which is suffering or our mind which is happy, when actually it’s just lost in its various moods.

The point is that really this mind of ours is naturally peaceful. It’s still and calm like a leaf that is not being blown about by the wind. But if the wind blows then it flutters. It does that because of the wind. And so with the mind it’s because of these moods – getting caught up with thoughts. If the mind didn’t get lost in these moods it wouldn’t flutter about. If it understood the nature of thoughts it would just stay still. This is called the natural state of the mind. And why we have come to practice now is to see the mind in this original state.

We think that the mind itself is actually pleasurable or peaceful. But really the mind has not created any real pleasure or pain. These thoughts have come and tricked it and it has got caught up in them. So we really have to come and train our minds in order to grow in wisdom. So that we understand the true nature of thoughts rather than just following them blindly.

The mind is naturally peaceful. It’s in order to understand just this much that we have come together to do this difficult practice of meditation.

This talk was previously printed as a different translation under the title ‘About this Mind’ - Ajahn Chah