The Lesser , The Greater,
The Diamond and The Way

A talk given on a retreat held at
The City Of Ten-Thousand Buddhas,
Ukiah, California, July 1991

小乘、大乘、
金剛乘和大道

比丘阿摩羅講於1991年7月萬佛城禪修期

王青楠博士 中譯

Ajahn Amaro

Historically there have been differences of opinion about the relative merits of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism and, if you read much of the literature, they would seem to be quite divergent in their approaches toward Buddhist practice – yet there also seem to be some tremendous affinities.

When I arrived at the International Forest Monastery in Thailand, I had never read any Buddhist books and I wasn’t actually in search of becoming a Buddhist monk. I was a wanderer, a free-lance spiritual seeker, and I just happened to turn up at this forest monastery that Ajahn Sumedho had established a couple of years before, basically as a place for a free meal and a roof over my head for a few nights. Little did I expect, some twelve or thirteen years later, that I would be doing what I am doing now. But when I went there and asked the monks about Buddhism, to explain things a little bit for me so that I could get a feel for what their life was about, the first thing one of them did was to give me a copy of a book of talks by a Zen Master, and he said, ‘Don’t bother trying to read the Theravada literature; it’s terribly boring, very dry. Read this, it is pretty much the same thing that we’re doing, and it will give you a sense of what our practice is about.’ And I thought, ‘Well, obviously these guys are not too hung up on their tradition.’ The book was Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.

So, one could see right from the beginning that, even though there is a strength to the particular form within any Buddhist country, one is not necessarily constricted or limited by that. I was there for months before I even heard of ‘Theravada’ and ‘Mahayana,’ let alone the differences of opinion between them. It seemed that when you actually lived the life there really wasn’t any great disparity, but if you thought about it a lot, and if you were the kind of person who wrote histories and books and had got into the political side of religious life, then that was where the divergences occurred.

I have heard Ajahn Sumedho recount a few times over the years that, for the first year of his monastic life, he had been practising using the instructions from a Ch’an meditation retreat given by the Ven. Master Hsü Yün, and that he had used the Dharma talks from that retreat given in China as his basic meditation instruction. When he went to Wat Pah Pong, Ajahn Chah asked him what kind of meditation he had been doing, at first he thought, ‘Oh no, he’s going to get me to give this up and do his method.’ But, when Ajahn Sumedho described what he had been doing and mentioned that it had had excellent results, Ajahn Chah said, ‘Oh, very good, just carry on doing that.’

So, one sees that there is a very strong unity of purpose; even though there might be historical differences between the two traditions, they are very much in accordance with each other. And one begins to see what the different Buddhist traditions are talking about. They get sectioned out into Hinayana or Mahayana or Vajrayana, as different types of Buddhist practice, but they are basically just different labels which are talking about attitudes of mind and, when the traditions are used wisely, then they will address all aspects of our mind, from the most selfish and mundane to the most exalted. They address all the different levels of our life, and it’s only when they are not understood, when people take them as fixed positions, that there is any conflict amongst them.

Theravada Buddhism, for instance, is often taken to represent the Hinayana position, the self-concern of ‘Quick, let me out of here, I’ve had enough of this mess; I want this to be over as quickly as possible.’ One can see that that represents a very definite stage in one’s own spiritual development. For example, we start out with just a worldly attitude; basically we’re not interested in spiritual development at all. We just want happiness, however and wherever we can find it. We have a worldly outlook and no real spiritual direction at all. So then our first kind of awakening to spiritual life is when we start to acknowledge suffering. We recognize the need to rescue ourselves, to help ourselves.

So, the Hinayana refers to this initial stepping onto the spiritual path and seeing that there’s something that needs to be done to sort out our own life. It’s a natural self-concern; you don’t set about helping other people or being too concerned about the welfare of others if you yourself are drowning. You have to get yourself to some firm shore to begin with. But then basing your spiritual practice around self-concern, and just trying to make your own life peaceful and happy is obviously of limited worth. We can see that if we do get stuck at that level, there is a certain aridity and barrenness that will set in.

I had an interesting experience concerning this recently. Normally my personality is of a friendly, generous, outgoing type, and I’ve always had quite a fondness for the Mahayana Buddhist teachings. However, I found toward the end of last year that a certain nihilism was creeping in. The abiding tendency was one of ‘I’ve had enough of this; I want out.’ This was really quite unusual for me and it started to come on very strongly. The idea of living into old age and having to cope with human existence and the trivialities of life and the tedium of a boring monastic routine was NO FUN. It all started to look incredibly uninviting. It was like being stuck out in the middle of a salt flat with no horizon visible. It was a strong, grinding negativity. I didn’t feel friendly toward anyone; I felt no inspiration toward monastic life. The whole thing was a tedious rigmarole.

Every two weeks we have a recitation of our monastic rules and it takes about 45 minutes to chant. This is the regular refreshment of the spirit of monastic community – renewing our aspiration and our dedication to our discipline and our life-style. And I’m sitting there reciting these rules and my mind is saying, ‘What a total farce, what a waste of time this is’ – and trying to remember the words I’m supposed to be chanting at the same time. Also, this was at the beginning of the monastic winter retreat that I was supposed to be helping to teach; I thought, ‘This is really going to be difficult.’ I was supposed to be inspiring these young monks and nuns and my mind was going through this very negative state. I was watching this, but there seemed to be a lot of justification for thinking in this negative way. I thought, ‘Well, maybe I had it wrong all these years, maybe I was just being an empty-headed, overly optimistic fool and maybe being a bored cynic was actually the right path all along.’

Then one night I had a very vivid dream, in full colour. In this dream I ate my hands, finger by finger. I pulled off my thumb and then each finger and ate them. It was so vivid I could taste them and it was even a bland taste. I ate the whole of my left hand then started on my right hand, and I ate the first three fingers until there was only my index finger and thumb left. Then something in me said, ‘Wake up!’ I woke up and there was a very, very clear memory of this dream. Instantly I realized what I had been doing. Out of heedlessness I had been destroying those very faculties that were my most helpful friends and assistants. The negative and self-destructive attitudes were covering up and burning away all of the good qualities. The spiritual qualities that were there were being destroyed. It was really a shock to the system, and I realized I had been taking the wrong track. Then something else happened spontaneously. I had not really been thinking about Mahayana Buddhism or the Bodhisattva ideal, but what happened was that I started to say to myself, ‘Well, I don’t care whether I feel even one moment of happiness for myself in this life; I don’t care if I have to be reborn ten thousand million times. If I can just do one kind act for one other being in a thousand million lifetimes, then all that time will not have been wasted.’ Thoughts like this began to come up spontaneously in my mind, and I suddenly felt an incredible joy and happiness, and a feeling of relief; which is strange if you think about it rationally: ten thousand million lifetimes of ineffective activity and complete pain and boredom. But the result was a vibrant joy and delight. It was the breaking out of the prison of self-concern.

When the mind goes into that kind of death-wish mentality, just waiting for it all to be over, then all you’re concerned about is yourself. You become blind and immune to other people. Even if you don’t want to be, you find that you’re building all sorts of walls around yourself. And I could see that this was very much the cause of the spirit of the Mahayana tradition and teaching: to arouse that unselfishness, that readiness, even if it is a pointlessly vast task, to take it on anyway. It then releases the natural altruism and affinities we have for other beings. We recognize our interconnectedness with all other beings, all other lives, and out of respect for that, one feels a sense of joy in being able to give, to help and to serve.

It is interesting that, at about that same time, someone gave me a book which showed me that this principle was found not only in the Buddhist tradition. The author was talking about this principle and gave examples from both the Hindu and the Judaic traditions. He told the story of Sri Ramakrishna and how, before he and Swami Vivekananda were born, he had tracked down Vivekananda (who was his chief disciple) up in one of the high Brahma heavens – he was absorbed in meditation, utterly disinterested in the world, ‘Close to the mountain of the Absolute.’ What a great phrase! Anyway, Vivekananda was seated there, totally enraptured in bliss. Then Ramakrishna took on the form of a little child; he wove the body of a golden child out of the atmosphere of this high realm and he started to sing and play in front of this sage. Eventually, after some time, the sage’s attention gets caught and he opens his eyes and sees this incredibly charming little child, playing and cavorting in front of him. And finally, with his eyes completely opened, he is looking at the child, and the child says to him, ‘I’m going down; you come with me.’ So, Vivekananda went down and joined him.

The other example was of a Rabbi named Rabbi Leib. He was telling some of his disciples, ‘Before this life I did not want to be born; I did not want to come here. This human world is so full of foolishness and crazy, idiotic people. I had had enough of the whole thing and just couldn’t be bothered with it. And then one day this fellow comes along, he looked like a peasant, with a shovel over his shoulder, and he says to me, “Haven’t you got anything better to do than to lie around here all day just enjoying the bliss of eternity. I work non-stop just trying to bring a little happiness, a little more joy, into the lives of other people, and what are you doing? You’re just hanging around!”’ He said that he was so touched by this person that he agreed to go along. This fellow with the shovel was the Baal Shem Tov, one of the founders of the Hassidim. It is said that he roams around the upper realms of the cosmos looking for likely characters whom he can dispatch down to earth to take care of the likes of us. So, it is interesting to see that this same principle exists in human experience in different traditions.

Self-concern takes us into a desert experience – even when we notice that the more coarse defilements of mind have abated or have worn themselves out, when we’re not possessed by too much anxiety or lust, greed, aversion, jealousy, or whatever, and the mind is quite peaceful. As you may be aware, now that you’ve been a week into the meditation retreat, you can be sitting there with your mind quite concentrated, quite still and, rather than feeling rapture or a sense of wholeness and totality, the feeling is one of, ‘So what? Is this really what the Buddha built his teaching around, this blank mental state, with nothing much happening?’ With nothing much in the way of thoughts and feelings, no great passions to wrestle with, it’s like being in some little grey room. It’s not disturbing in any way, but it seems a pretty tame experience to build a world religion around.

You think, ‘This is a rip-off! I’ve been struggling away for five or six years with fear and lust and so on, and now I get to the free space – here we are out in the open – and it’s a desert. This is not right!’ But then, what you realize is that this is not what the Buddha was pointing to as the goal of the holy life, because even though one can’t see any outstanding objects causing obstruction or defilement, what is there is you , or in this case, me. There is the sense of I – someone here experiencing – there’s a person. This sense of identity, even though it is not outstanding, leaping out making itself vivid, is a constant presence. The ego is a psychological structure that is there like a wall around us, like a prison. And because we are so caught up with life in the prison, we don’t notice that we are actually hemmed in. It is only when everything has cooled down and one has a chance to look around and take in the surroundings that one has a chance to feel the sense of limitation, barrenness; there’s a boredom, it’s just BLEAAGGHH!

Even in Mahayana Buddhism – which is outgoing, geared toward altruism, generosity, compassion, developing a spiritual life for the sake of all beings – if our practice stops at the state of ‘me giving my life to help all others,’ even if this is highly developed, at the end of it there’s still ME and YOU – me who is helping all sentient beings. Even in that respect, even though there can be a lot of joy, you still find this barrier, a sense of isolation or meaninglessness. There’s a separation there. So, it is important to use the meditation practice to not just absorb into altruistic thoughts and feelings, because, if you notice, a lot of the Buddha’s teachings revolve around selflessness, around emptiness, like the teachings on anatta. If there is no self, who is it who’s going to be radiating kindness over the entire world? If there’s no self, then who is sending metta and who is there to send it to?

One then sees that there is a level of understanding, of being, which is beyond that which is tied up with self and other. No matter how high, refined and pure our aspiration might be, unless we go beyond that sense of self-identity and division in that respect, then there will always be that feeling of incompleteness; the desert experience will creep in.

So, if we pass through that grand-hearted attitude of mind, then we realize that which pertains to the wisdom of ultimate understanding, of Ultimate Reality; that which is called the Vajra teachings. Vajra means diamond or thunderbolt, indestructible, supremely powerful, the adamantine Truth. This is the understanding of selflessness. When the attention is put onto the feeling of ‘I,’ one uses the practice to illuminate the assumptions we make about our identity. We have to turn the mind around from external objects, to shine it back upon the assumptions that we make about the ‘subject.’ When the mind is calm and settled, it’s very helpful to start inquiring, ‘Who is the person that is the centre of all of this?’ ‘Who is it that is meditating?’ ‘Who is it that’s knowing this?’ ‘Who is the one who knows?’ ‘What knows thought and feeling?’ It’s when we look and challenge the assumptions about there being a discreet entity here, then suddenly the prison walls collapse.

I had an experience of this some six or seven years ago – when I first started using this kind of meditation on a long retreat, asking ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I?’ and using that to create a hesitation in the mind, to put the sense of self into perspective; it felt like stepping out of a grey prison cell into sunshine and a field of flowers. It was a tremendous feeling of refreshment and relief, like coming across an oasis in the desert.

The Buddha said that the greatest happiness of all is to be free from the sense of ‘I am.’ Now, this might seem to some people to be a bit farcical or pointless, because our ‘self’ seems to be the most real thing in the whole universe – ‘If anything is real, I am.’ But it’s only because we have never really looked, or inquired into the feeling of I, of me, of mine. It’s only because we have never really studied that and seen it clearly that that illusion is maintained. Once you look at it closely, then the illusion falls apart. You can’t be taken in by that.

So, one uses enquiry to challenge the assumptions that we are making and the walls that we create within the mind. That challenging of those assumptions is what dissolves the illusion. The instinct of the ego, however, is to immediately start creating things which produce activity elsewhere so that our attention will be distracted, so that we will stop doing this. The ego is like any creature that is frightened of dying, and as soon as we start to challenge the supremacy and the centrality of it, then a panic reaction gets going. You will find that the mind can throw up all kinds of interesting and compelling thoughts to persuade you to engage in something else quickly. So, one requires a great deal of resolution just to say ‘NO!’ and to bring the mind back to asking, ‘Who is this?’ ‘What is knowing this panic?’ ‘What is knowing this feeling?’

In the Vajra Prajña Paramita Sutra you find statements like ‘No mark of self, no mark of other, no mark of living beings, no mark of a life,’ or ‘All conditioned dharmas are dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows, like dew drops and a lightning flash, contemplate them thus,’ or ‘Everything is made from mind alone.’ And in the Heart Sutra as well, which they recite here at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas every day, there are sections of it which go, ‘There is no form, no feeling, no perception, no mental formations, no consciousness, no ignorance, no birth, no aging, no death, no suffering, no attainment and no Way.’ What this is doing is stepping out of the whole conditioned realm, putting the whole conditioned realm into perspective – do not seek for liberation, for certainty, for security in that which is inherently insecure, inherently bound and tied up with time, self, birth and death. As long as we are seeking for happiness in the conditioned sensory world, then we are bound to be disappointed. We cannot possibly find it there. And things like birth, death, self, other, suffering – these are relative truths and ultimately there is no suffering, no one is ever born, no one ever dies. All there is is ‘Suchness’ or ‘The Wonderful’ or ‘Universal Mind’ or any one of a number of terms that are used.

The interesting thing is you don’t find this just in the Mahayana or Vajrayana texts. It is fully explained and spelled out by the Buddha also in the Theravadan scriptures, although it may not get emphasized enough. You even get teachers who say that anatta should not be taught, that it is a dangerous teaching. After a talk that Ajahn Sumedho gave once, a well-known Buddhist teacher who was there was incredibly upset and disturbed that Ajahn Sumedho was teaching anatta to lay people. He thought this was most irresponsible (although he himself was a lay person!). Also I’ve been told of an eminent monk in Thailand who feels the same way; he thinks that anatta is too potent a teaching to pass on to all of you people, but I don’t think so (laughter). This is the supremely liberating teaching, and you find a lot within the Theravada that is glossed over, that does continually push the mind to this point of ultimate wisdom.

For example, there is an inquiry made to a monk called Anuradha where he’s questioned by some Brahmin scholars on ‘What is the nature of an enlightened being after death?’ ‘What happens to a Tathagata, an enlightened one, after the death of the body?’ ‘Do they exist?’

The monk replies, ‘This is not spoken of by the Enlightened One.’

He is asked, ‘Well, do they not exist?’

‘This is not spoken of by the Enlightened One.’

‘Well, do they both exist and not exist?’

‘This is not spoken of by the Enlightened One either,’ he replies.

‘Then, do they neither exist nor not exist?’

‘This, too,’ he says, ‘is not spoken of by the Enlightened One.’

So they say to him, ‘You must be a fool or one who is newly gone forth. You obviously do not understand the Buddha’s teaching or you would be able to give us a decent answer.’

Then he goes to the Buddha and tells the Buddha of the conversation he had with these people, and he asks, ‘Did I answer in the right way?’ And the Buddha said, ‘Yes, Anuradha you answered well.’

‘Do you see the Tathagata as being the five khandhas?’

‘No Lord.’

‘Do you see the Tathagata, as having the five khandhas?’

And he says, ‘No, Lord.’

‘Do you see the Tathagata as not having the five khandhas?’

And he says, ‘No, that’s not true either.’

‘Do you see the Tathagata as being within the five khandhas?’

‘No Lord.’

‘Do you then see the Tathagata as being separated from, outside of, the five khandhas?’

He says, ‘No, not that either.’

‘Correct!’ said the Buddha, ‘Just so – what I teach, both now and formerly, is suffering and the end of suffering.’

The Buddha advises us not to try to define the enlightened in conceptual terms because any conceptual definition can only fall short, can only be relatively true. The Buddha made very clear in the Theravada teaching just as much as in the scriptures of the Northern school that the ultimate perspective on things is the perspective of no fixed position, of actual realization of Truth, abiding in that position of Awareness, rather than taking any kind of conceptual or idealistic position. That is our Refuge. Taking Refuge with Buddha is being that Awareness. So that we see that everything to do with our body, our feelings, our personality, our age, our nationality, our problems, our talents, all of these are simply attributes of the conditioned world that arise and pass away and there is awareness of those. The whole point of the practice is to constantly abide in that quality of Awareness.

Life is going to be frustrating and painful if we are looking for certainty and definition in terms of being a person, being some place – a being in time. It’s only when we let go of the sense of I, me and mine, of the sense of there being a person here who has anywhere to go to, or anywhere not to go to, that there is the clear abiding in Awareness.

The tendency of the mind is often to conceptualize that. You say, ‘OK, I’m just going to be aware,’ and you take that as an ideal and try to fill the mind with that thought. What will happen then is that the thought turns into an object, so rather than just resting in being the knowing, we try to see what it is that is knowing. As Ajahn Chah would sometimes say – you’re riding a horse and looking for the horse. We wonder, ‘Who is it that knows the knower?’ ‘Who is it that knows the thing that’s knowing the knowing?’

One can get the impression that there’s some sort of infinite regression happening here, and that it’s like falling off a cliff backwards. But it’s not – because what happens is that when we let go of our sense of identity, then there is just the clear knowing. The mind rests in the bright, selfless, knowing, timeless state. And then the idea arises, ‘Oh, there is knowing.’ So rather than just resting in that pure knowing, we attach to the thought that there is something that is knowing. We’re just fixing on that thought and then stepping out into the conditioned world. As we attach to any thought we’re stepping away from that sense of pure knowing. If there is just pure knowing it’s like being up against the back wall. As soon as we hold onto any thought we walk away from the wall. We’re going out into experience, going out into attachment to some condition.

If we just allow the mind to relax and rest in that sense of knowing, in that purity of being, then there is liberation, there is freedom right at that point. At that point, the mind is aware of the sense of unity, of Suchness, there is the unifying vision which in Christian terms they call beatitude. The beatific vision is the vision of totality, of wholeness, the disappearance of any separateness. In this realization there is no self – it’s not you being with Ultimate Truth – there’s just THIS, the mind in its pure awakened state, Dhamma aware of its own nature.

With the early presence of Buddhism in America in the 1950s and early ’60s, there was a tremendous amount of use of this kind of understanding; people were saying, ‘Everyone is a Buddha,’ ‘We’re all Buddhas,’ ‘Everyone is perfect.’ And, instead of this giving rise to people having the conduct of Buddhas, which is modest, gentle, and restrained, what this was sometimes taken as was a justification of license. Whatever you do, it’s perfect – sober is perfect, drunk is perfect, to do whatever you feel like doing, whatever you’re inspired to do – it’s all empty. It’s all Suchness. For people who took that highest principle as a fixed position or identity to hold onto… you can see that just the idea of it was not enough, and it caused some of the brightest Buddhist lights of the Beat generation to die as alcoholics. There was a great sense of freedom of spirit that was inspiring it, but the idea of us all being Buddhas and everything being perfect is not exactly the same as the direct realization of that. When the mind truly rests with that realization, then what flows forth from it is a purity of conduct, a purity of speech and action, a gentleness, a harmlessness and simplicity. The Buddha’s response to his enlightenment, being totally free and beyond any suffering, was not to pursue physical pleasures or seek intoxication. His response was to live incredibly carefully and modestly, using the things of the earth with frugality. He could have conjured up anything he wanted, but he chose to live as a barefoot renunciant, a peaceful, harmless being.

One can see that some Buddhist traditions over the centuries have become caught up in this problem, whereby the principle is attached to and then taken as an identity – ‘I am a Mahayana Buddhist,’ or ‘I am a Theravadan Buddhist,’ or ‘I am a Vajrayana Buddhist.’ That’s like wearing a badge that gives one a certain credential, rather than seeing that the terms referred to are attitudes of being. For instance in England, at the Buddhist Society Summer School every year, one group would go and have their evening meetings down at the pub, ostensibly because they ‘had got beyond form.’ So, they would have their evening Dharma discussions down at the pub, which is all right; they are free to do what they want. The Theravadans just sit around, chatter and drink tea. But you could see that the attitude was, ‘Well, we’re of the Supreme Vehicle. We don’t need to be bothered with the petty concerns of sila; we respect the ultimate Buddha nature of all beings.’ And one could see that a lot of their inspiration and noble energy was getting side-tracked into justifying the simple quality of preference: that they found it enjoyable to have a drink or two, fool around and have an unrestrained time. Again, they are free to do as they choose, but it’s a sad mistake to label this as the practice of Buddha-Dhamma.

The result of this – trying to realize emptiness within a free-wheeling life – means that we then have the challenge of realizing the emptiness of the despair and depression that comes from following those desires. People are free to take on the challenge!!! But it’s a related thing; we can’t just absorb into pleasure without getting the other side of it as well. It’s as if we’re holding onto the wheel as it goes up the pleasure side, but we’re still holding onto it as it goes down the other side. I’m not saying these things as a put-down but, having done this quite a bit myself, I realize that we just don’t have the presence of mind to let go at the top! It’s the way we’d like it to be but it doesn’t operate like that.

At the beginning of the retreat everyone took the Refuges and Precepts. This symbolic act is to refresh our aspiration toward being a Buddhist, toward being Buddha. It’s not a ceremony that one goes through to … become a Buddhist, like a baptism. It’s much more that it’s up to us to refresh our aspiration within ourselves. Externally, we can adhere to a form, to a tradition, to a pattern but if we don’t eventually internalize that, if we don’t bring that within ourselves and make being Buddha, being The-One-Who-Knows the aim, then any amount of external dedication to a particular form or tradition will not avail us very much in the long run.

One final point that we tend to not understand is that – if there is no self, if one is aiming to come from this position of ultimate wisdom, then why do we bother with things like spreading metta? If there is nobody here and nobody there, then why go through all the trouble of sending metta across the universe? Or the sharing of merit: you know there’s no one here and there’s no one there, so what’s the point? Wouldn’t we be better off saving our energy and doing something else? This is important to understand – how the different levels of our life interplay with each other – because even though at some moment we might be seeing life from the level of pure wisdom, from that place of timeless-spaceless-selfless awareness, the rest of the world is not necessarily seeing things from that point of view. What you have within Buddhist practice is a way of tying together all the different levels

of our being.

The Buddha used conventional forms, he used personal pronouns. When people asked him questions such as, ‘If there’s no self, why do you refer to yourself as an individual? Why do you talk to other people, why do you name people?’ And the Buddha said, ‘Even though fundamentally there is no self, I use common speech in order to communicate things to people on a level that they can understand.’ So, when we are thinking about things like spreading metta, creating good karma, sharing the blessings of our life, one puts forth the effort to do that. You put your heart into spreading loving-kindness. You do it.

We set up monasteries, we put effort into creating opportunities and environments for people to learn from. We teach, offer guidance and support and instruction. But, having brought those forms into existence, then one dissolves any attachment to them. We bring forth wholesome principles and energies into people’s lives, but we do not give them a sense of ultimate substantiality. We see that they are merely shapes, forms, patterns of consciousness. The sounds that I say, these are ear-consciousness, sounds that you all are aware of. There is the expression that the Buddha was the supreme weaver of dreams in order to wake up the dreamers. His teachings, his words and actions, are a system of dreams. Dreamstuff. But the mastery of the Buddha was that he created dreams which enabled the dreamers to awaken; to lead us out of the dream world into real life, into the true world.

As an example, for many years I had no feeling at all for devotional practice. ‘Anatta, that’s what it’s all about!’ Every morning and evening, as we did our traditional chanting I would go along with it, try to stay in tune and so on, but basically I felt it was all pointless. Then I began to realize that I was missing the spirit of the whole thing – if we have right understanding, then we can bring forth those energies into words, bring forth kindness and benevolence, bring forth things which are useful and helpful into the world – but then not to own them, to leave them as they are, that is the great art and it is also the greatest blessing. You can see why the Buddha taught in the way that he did. It wasn’t for him. It was to provide things for those of us who would come after: forms, patterns, traditions, ways of living that help to spur us on; ways to encourage us, to inspire us to wake up, to break through the illusions that bind us so that all can experience the true joy of liberation.

小乘、大乘、金剛乘和大道

比丘阿摩羅講於1991年7月萬佛城禪修期

王青楠博士 中譯

歷史上對於大乘，南傳佛法的功德有著不同的觀點。如果你多讀文獻，就會發現，雖然佛教修持的方式多采多姿，可彼此間的緣卻極為密切。

我剛到泰國國際森林寺時，不僅沒讀過任何佛書，甚至也沒有真要當和尚的意思。我是個自由自在地追求心靈生活的流浪者，碰巧到了蘇美度法師幾年前所建立的森林寺院。在我看來，這不過是個讓我免費吃住幾宿的地方，根本沒想到，十二、三年之後我會做現在所做的事。當我請一位和尚介紹一點佛教，讓我知道一點他們生活的感受時，其中一位很快就遞給我一本禪師的開示，接著說「不用去讀上座部的文獻了，非常枯燥。讀這本書罷，其內容和我們做的差不多，讀了就會知道一些我們的修行情形了。」我心想，這些人顯然並不太執著自己的傳統。那本書名是《禪心；初學者之心》。

所以從一開始我們就可以看出，雖然某一國家可能強調某一種佛教，可人不一定要受其約束。在那裡幾個月之後，我才聽到「上座部」和「大乘」的名詞，更不用說其觀念上的差異了。在現實生活中，兩者的差異不大。可當你做了許多思考，你寫歷史、寫書、涉獵許多宗教生活的政治層面時，兩者的差異就出現了。

我聽蘇美度法師回憶過好幾次，說在他出家的第一年，他用虛雲老和尚禪七開示的方法修行，做為他修禪的基本方法。到 Wat Pah Pong, 後，阿姜查尊者（Ajahn Chah）問他用過甚麼方法修禪。最初他想，「尊者一定會讓我放棄原有的，而按他的方式修行。」可當蘇美度法師講述了自己的修行，並且說效果相當好之後，尊者說，「很好，繼續修下去。」

因此我們可以從中看到修行目的強烈共同性。雖然在歷史上的傳統或許有所不同，但兩者之間卻是非常一致的。我們開始看到不同的佛教傳統都在講些甚麼，雖然被劃分成小乘、大乘和金剛乘的不同修行方式，但基本上都只是關於心態的不同標籤。如果有智慧地使用傳統，它們就會談到我們內心的一切方面，從最自私世俗的，到最高尚的，談到我們生活的一切層次，只是當被誤解時，當人以固定觀念看待問題時，衝突就發生了。

比如南傳佛教，常被認為代表小乘，要讓自己「趕緊離開，我受夠了！我要儘快完成。」可以看出這是代表某個心靈的修行階段。比如我們從一種世間的態度出發，根本對心靈的發展沒有興趣。我們只想要快樂，只要能得到就好。我們持著世俗的見解，根本沒有真正的精神追求。當我們開始認識到苦時，精神生活的第一種覺醒就開始了。我們認識到要解救幫助自己。

所以小乘是指心靈道路的最初階段，人看到要為自己的生命有所追求。這時關心自己是很自然的，你不會一開始就準備幫助別人，熱心他人的福利，因為你自己還在沉溺著。你必須要從某個堅固的岸邊開始。可只為自己修行，為自己平和快樂，顯然價值有限。如果我們局限於這一層次，終會有某種無聊之感。

我最近有一個有趣的經驗。通常我的個性都是友善、慷慨、外向的。我對大乘佛法相當喜好。可是到去年年底，我不知不覺地感到有種虛無主義的氣息。心中的意願是「我受夠了！我想出離了。」我很少有這種情況發生，而它又變的很強烈。我對許多觀念都變得毫無興趣，比如長壽、面對世間生活、空虛的生命、寺院單調的生活，所有這些都開始變得非常令人討厭。好像身陷一望無際的大鹽灘之中，這是種強烈，具粉碎性的負面情緒。我對任何人都感到不友好，對寺院生活毫無熱忱，所有一切都是冗長貧乏的。

我們每兩個星期都會念誦寺廟的規矩，要念45 分鐘。這樣可以定期重振僧團的勢氣，重新發願，獻身於現在的生活方式，遵守戒律。我坐在那念，心想﹕「真蠢！太浪費時間了。」同時我還在記憶我要念誦的文辭。這是冬季共修的開始，我本應幫著做開示。我心想﹕「這真是……會有困難。」我本應鼓勵這些年輕和尚、尼眾，而我心中卻有這樣負面的境界。我觀察到這點，可心中卻似乎有很多理由認同這種境界。我想，「或許我這些年都錯了，或許我是個頭腦空空如也，過於樂觀的傻瓜，或許做個嫉世憤俗的人反倒是正確的道路。」

其後某一天，我做了一個清清楚楚的夢，完全是彩色的。在夢中，我吃自己的手，一個接著一個，我的拇指扯下來了，接著是其他的指頭，再將它們吃掉。那情形非常生動，我甚至還嘗到一種無刺激的味道。我吃光了左手，再吃右手；吃了前三個手指，只剩下食指和拇指。我內部有個聲音，「醒來！」我就醒了過來，對夢境記憶得非常非常清楚。我立即意識到自己做了些甚麼。出於散漫心，我所吃掉的器官正是我最好的朋友與助手。這種負面，自我摧毀的態度遮蔽燒燬了所有的好品質。我曾具備的心靈品質正在被摧毀。我的整體受到震撼，意識到所走的路做錯了。接著還同時自然地發生了一些事。我並沒有真的去想大乘佛法或菩薩願，可我卻開始告訴自己，「不管這一生自己有沒有得到一刻的快樂，也不管自己是否要受生一百億次，只要我能為另外一位眾生做一種善行，那麼所有那些時間就沒有浪費。」這種念頭開始從心中自發地冒出來，我突然感到難以置信的快樂，感到輕鬆。這從邏輯上想是奇怪的：一百億次生命，無效力的活動，全是痛苦、煩悶，結果卻是快樂。這是突破了自我關懷的牢獄後產生的。

如果有等死的心態，只是在等待一切的終了，那你只是在替自己考慮，你對其他人是麻木不仁的。你即使不願意，你也是在周圍建立起了一堵牆。我可以看到，這大體就是大乘傳統教化的起因：激發起無私的心，雖然任務艱巨，但不管三七二十一地承擔下來。這樣我們就自然對別人流露出利他的情懷和緣份。我們承認和所有其他眾生、生命是相互聯係的，出於尊重之心，我們對能夠幫助他人感到快樂。

有趣的是，同時有人給了我一本書，書上說同樣的理念不限於佛教。作者舉出印度教猶太教的例子。其中講了Sri Ramakrishna 的故事。在 Sri

Ramakrishna 和 Swami Vivekananda 出生之前，Ramakrishna就到最高的梵天跟蹤 Vivekananda (他的主要弟子)。Vivekananda 在入定，對世間毫無興趣。「接近那絕對的巔峰」，多麼偉大的一句話！Vivekananda 坐在那兒，完全沉浸在禪悅之中，然後 Ramakrishna 變成一個小孩，是個從高天道環境中來的金色的小孩，他開始在這位聖者面唱歌、玩耍。不久，聖者終於注意到了這個小孩，他睜開眼睛，看看眼前這位極為可愛的小孩，在跳躍、玩耍。最後，他的眼睛全睜開了，看著小孩，小孩說，「我要下凡，你陪我一起去。」然後Vivekananda 就跟他去了。

另一例子是講猶太教法師 Leib 的。他告訴弟子們說﹕「在此生之前我不願投胎，不願來到這裡。人世間充滿了愚蠢，瘋狂的人。我受夠了，不能再管了。一天一個農民模樣的人走過來，肩上扛著鏟子，對我說，『你整天躺著享受永恆的快樂，難道沒有更好的事可做了嗎？我在忙個不停，為的只是給別人帶來一點點快樂。你在做甚麼？閒著沒事！』」他受了感動，同意下凡。肩上扛著鏟子的人就是 Baal Shem Tov---Hassidim 的創始人之一。據說他在宇宙高級世界遨遊，選擇能下凡來救我們的人。因此，在不同傳統中我們看到同樣的原理，這真是有趣！

為自身著想會使我們感到孤獨，即使當我們的粗煩惱減少去除之後也是如此。當我們的焦慮、貪心、瞋心、嫉妒不強烈，內心平靜時也不例外。你們可能注意到，禪修已經有一個星期了。你們坐在那兒，心念集中寧靜，但是還沒有經驗到整體上的善與禪悅。心裡在想﹕「這沒甚麼，難道佛將他的教化建立在這個基礎之上嗎？這是種空白的精神狀態，沒有甚麼事情發生。」既沒有甚麼念頭、感覺，也沒有甚麼大的熱情，好像處在一個小灰屋裡。這境界一點不煩人，似乎是種挺平和的經驗，可以用來做一種世界性宗教的基礎。你想﹕「這是騙局！我已經奮鬥了五六年了，有時有欲望，有時又恐懼，現在總算到了自由空間。我們到了露天，可卻是一片沙漠。這不對啊！」接著你認識到，這還不是佛所說的聖道生活的目的，因為即使你沒有東西明顯地使你煩惱，當下卻有「你」或「我」存在；有「我」的感覺存在，有「人」在感知，有個「人」，有種「個體」的感覺存在，雖然不強烈，不突顯，可它恆常存在著。「我見」，是種像牆，像監獄一樣圍繞著我們的心理結構，因為我們對監獄中的生活過於執著，所以注意不到自己被包圍的實際情形。只有當一切都冷靜下來以後，人才有機會覺察到自己處境的局限性，既貧乏，又乏味。

大乘佛教外向，強調利他、布施、慈悲，為一切眾生修行。即使如此，如果修行止於「我要將生命獻給一切眾生」的境界，儘管已修至很高的程度， 最終仍然有個「我」和「你」，有這個「在幫助一切眾生的人。」那樣的話，即使你得到了許多快樂，還是會有這個障礙，一種孤立的感覺，這是種隔離態。所以修禪很重要，不要沉醉於「利他」的想法和感受。如果你注意到佛的許多開示都是圍繞著「無私」、「空」，而進行的，比如關於「無我」等等；如果沒有我，那又是誰在向全世界釋放出那慈悲之光呢？如果沒有我，是誰在慈悲，這個人是誰？

我們可以看到有一個理解，存在的層次，它超越了人我見解的束縛。無論我們的信願多麼高尚、細緻、純潔，除非我們超越了個人的感覺、分別，就總會有種不完美感覺，不由地有種孤獨的感受。

我們如果發了大心，就會認識到，它是求無上智慧的實相所必須的因素，這稱為金剛乘。「金剛」意為金剛石、雷電、不可壞，極其有力，鐵一樣的真理。這就是對「無我」的瞭解。將注意力指向「我」的感受，用修行來觀照我們對於自身個體所做的假設。我們一定要將心從外境上移開，觀照我們對於「觀照者」所做的假設。當心寧靜下來後，探詢以下這類的問題是有益的「誰是這一切的中心？」「在修禪的是誰？」「瞭知這些狀況的人是誰？」「瞭知者是誰？」「知道念頭感覺的是甚麼？」。對於自我個體存在的假設，如果我們進行觀察挑戰，獄牆就會突然倒塌了。六、七年前我有一次這種經驗。那時，我在一次長久的禪七中，徵問「我是誰？」 或「我是甚麼？」。用此產生疑情，拿對自我的感覺來觀察。那時就好像走出了灰色的監獄，步入了陽光燦爛，鮮花遍地的原野。我感到極度的清新和解放，好像在沙漠中遇到了綠洲。

佛說一切快樂中最快樂的，莫過於從自我的直覺中解脫出來。也許有人會覺得可笑，無意義，因為「我」似乎是全宇宙間最真實的東西。……「如果有甚麼東西是真實的，那就是『我』了」。可這都是因為我們從未好好探究過「我」、「我的」之類的感覺而已，這都是因為我們從未好好研究並看清楚，所以幻覺才一直保留了下來。一旦你仔細觀察，那幻覺就會破滅，不會再被它所欺騙。

用疑情來挑戰我們所做的假設和自己在內心建立的牆壁，對這些假設的挑戰會將幻覺瓦解，「我見」會本能地立刻開始產生一些東西，做一些事以分散我們的注意力，使我們停止下來。「我見」就如同任何怕死的生命一樣，一旦我們挑戰其至高無上的中心地位時，就會產生一種混亂的反應。你會發現，內心會拋出各種有趣，有迫力的想法使你趕快去做別的事。所以人需要很大的決心才能說「不」，並將心拉回來徵問，「這是誰？」「是甚麼在覺察到這種混亂？」「是甚麼在覺察到這種感受？」。

在《金剛般若波羅蜜經》中，你讀到「無我相、人相、眾生相、壽者相」，或「一切有為法，如夢幻泡影，如露亦如電，應做如是觀。」或「一切唯心造」之類的話。同樣，在聖城每天念誦的《心經》中也講「無色、受、想、行、識，無無明，無生老死，無苦集滅道。」這就是讓我們走出全部「有為」界，對全部有為界加以觀察。不要在本性是不安全，被束縛於時間、我、生死的全部有為界中求解脫，求確定，求安全。只要我們還在有為的感官世界中求快樂，就注定會失望，不可能成功。「生」、「死」、「人」、「我」、「苦」之類，都是相對真理，在究竟真理中並沒有「苦」，從來也無「人」生，亦無「人」死，所有的一切都可以用「如」、「妙」或「普遍的心」等術語來形容。

有趣的是，這些內容不僅在大乘、金剛乘的經典中可以找到，在上座部聖典中，儘管它或許不是強調的重點，佛也同樣有詳盡的開示。有的教師甚至於說不應教授「無我」，這很危險。一次在蘇美度法師開示之後，在座一位著名佛學教師感到非常困擾、不安，因為蘇美度法師為在家人開示了「無我」，這位佛學教師認為這是極不負責的。（他自己也是在家人！）據說一位泰國高僧也持同樣看法，他認為對所有人都開示「無我」，太強烈了，可我無法贊同這種看法（笑聲……）。這是極具度解脫力的開示。在上座部的教化中，你會從字裡行間看到這一點，它不斷將你推至絕對真理。

例如，有些婆羅門問Anuradha 比丘﹕

「證果的人死後的性質是甚麼？」

「如來，這位證果的人，死後情形如何？ 」

「他們還存在與否？」

比丘回答說﹕「佛不這樣講。」

對方問﹕「那他們不存在？」

「佛不這樣講。」

「那他們既存在又不存在？」

「佛也不這樣講。」

「那他們既不存在又不是不存在？」

「佛也不這樣講。」

婆羅門說﹕「你一定是剛來的傻瓜，要麼是不懂佛的開示，要麼就是不能夠給我們一個中肯的答覆。」

阿諾樓陀尊者去見佛，報告了他們的對話內容，並問佛﹕

「我回答的正確嗎？」

佛說﹕「你的回答正確。」

「你是否看到如來是五蘊呢？」

「沒看過，世尊。」

「你是否看到如來具有五蘊呢？」

「沒有，世尊。」

「你是否看到如來不具有五蘊呢？」

「不，世尊，這種講法也不對。」

「你是否看到如來在五蘊內呢？」

「不，世尊。」

「那麼你是否看到如來在五蘊之外，與之分離呢？」

「不，世尊，這種講法也不對。」

佛說﹕「的確！就是這樣，我現在和過去所教的都是『苦』和『苦的止息』。」

佛告訴我們不要用概念去給證悟下定義，因為任何概念上的定義都有欠缺，只是相對的真實而已。佛講得很清楚，上座部和北傳宗派所教的一樣，究竟的見解都是沒有固定位置的見解，是真實的證悟，是安住於覺悟立場而非安住於概念或理想的立場，這是我們的歸依處，歸依佛是要覺悟。這樣我們看到，與我們的身體、感受、個性、年齡、國籍、問題、才幹，有關的一切，都只是生生滅滅的有為界的屬性。而我們可以覺悟到所有的這些，修行的全部關鍵就是要持續安住於覺悟之上。

如想要尋求做人，到某處，某時的確定性，生活就會使我們沮喪痛苦。只有當我們放下「我見」、「人見」，要去這兒，去那兒的觀念時，才能清楚地安住於覺悟之上。

我們的心總習於將事物概念化。你說，「好，我會留意。」你視之為一種理想，並將心中塞滿了念頭。接著我們就將這個想法當成一個目標，而不只是在覺知而已，我們想要知道甚麼是覺知，這就同阿姜查尊者有時說的一樣－－你在騎著馬找馬。我們好奇，「誰是那覺知覺知者？」「覺知、覺知，又是誰在覺知著？」

人會覺得有種在無限地退縮的印象，就如同從懸崖上向後落下似的，其實並非如此。因為我們放下我見後，所餘下的只有清楚的覺知，心安住於明亮、無私、覺知、永恆的境界。這時「這就是覺知」的念頭升起了，我們就不再安住於純粹的覺知，而去執著於有個東西叫「覺知」的想法，我們固定在這種想法上，邁步走進了有為界；我們一有任何執著，就離開了純粹的覺知境界。純粹覺知境界就好像面對著牆壁，我們一旦執取任何念頭，就離開了牆壁，進入了一種執著於某些有為法的境界。

如果我們內心放鬆就安住於覺知之上，在這種純粹的狀況中，就具有解脫，自由就存在於其中。這時，內心覺悟到一體性、如性，在基督教中稱為至福。這種喜樂的境界，是個整體、完整、隔離完全消除了的境界，在這種現實當中，沒有自我。它並不是說我們和絕對真理在一起，而是說只是「這個」，內心處於純粹覺悟的境界，法覺悟到其自身的屬性。

在五十、六十年代，佛法來美國之初，有種理解非常流行；人都說，「人人都是佛」，「我們都是佛」，「人人都是完美的」，可這種情形並未使人們具備佛謙虛、溫和、節制的行為，有時人視之為一個判決的執照。他們所做的任何事都是完美的﹕頭腦清醒是完美，醉酒也是完美的。你想做的任何事，你發心想做的任何事都是空的，都是如如的。如果有人將最高原理視為一種固定立場或個體而加以執著，你就會發現僅有信念是不夠的，這樣會使

Beat 那一代最聰慧的佛學人士死於醉酒。「人人都是佛」和「一切都是完美

的」的觀念，會給人帶來極大的自由感，可這與直接的證悟並不完全一樣。心安住於這種證悟時，其中流露出的的是純淨的言語和行動，是柔和、無害、簡樸。佛證悟後，他完全沒有，也超越了一切苦惱；他不追求肉體快樂，吸毒。他對生命是極為小心謙虛的，使用物品也極為節省。他可以隨心所欲地得到任何東西，可他卻寧可赤腳捨棄一切財產，過寧靜不害他的生活。

有些佛教傳統經過數世紀之後，已經產生了這個問題，人們執著於法的道理，視之為一個個體－－「我是大乘佛教徒」，或「我是上座部佛教徒」，或「我是金剛乘佛教徒」，好像是帶上了表示某種資格的徽章，而沒有看到這些術語僅是在表示某種態度觀念。例如，在英格蘭每年佛教協會的夏季學校中，都有一個團體性的傍晚聚會，脫離大眾而舉行；表面上是因為他們已經「無相」，所以他們就可以傍晚離開大眾去討論佛法，這沒關係，他們有行動的自由。上座部的佛教徒就圍坐著談天、喝茶，可你能從中看出一種心態－－「我們屬於最上乘，不用去管那繁瑣的戒條，我們要尊敬一切眾生最究竟的佛性。」可以看到他們的願望和精力，有許多都用偏了，用分別心來對待一些簡單的特性。他們喜歡去喝一、兩杯，不受約束地幌上一段時間，他們當然有行動的自由，可稱這種行為叫佛法卻是可悲的。

這樣的結果是，試圖從自由的生活中證悟空性，這意味著，我們必須要面對追隨欲望而產生的消沉，並從中證到空性。人有選擇這種挑戰的自由，可我們無法只享受快樂而不觸及事情的另一方面，兩者是關聯在一起的。好像當一個輪子向上旋時，我們抓住了它；可向上旋時，我們還不放手。我並不是說我已放下，其實，我也做過許多次這種事。我意識到，在頂端時我們根本就沒有放下的心！我們想這樣做，可做起來卻不是這樣。

在這次共修開始時，人人都受了三皈五戒，這一象徵性的行動可以讓我們重新振作對佛，對成為佛教徒的信願。人並不是像受洗一樣，因為參加了儀式而成為佛教徒，其中有很大的程度取決於重新振作我們內在的信願。我們外在地可能依附於某一形式、傳統、模式，但如果不能將其內在化，以使自己成為佛，瞭知者為目的，那任何外在形式的信仰都不會有長期效果的。

我們常常弄不清的一點的是，「如果無我，從終極智慧的立場上看，我們為什麼要去管廣布慈悲心之類的事呢？既然無人在這兒，在那兒，我們為何要向全宇宙迴向慈悲？ 既然在這兒，在那兒都沒有人，我們為何要分享功德？為何不省下力氣做些別的事呢？」弄清這點－－「我們生命的不同層面如何相互作用？」－－是很重要的。即使我們可以在某些時候從純淨智慧，不分時空的無我覺照中看待生活，可世間其他的人未必會從這個角度來看。佛教的修行提供了一種將所有一切層次結合起來的方法。佛使用假名，人稱代詞。有人問佛﹕「既然無我，你為何以稱呼一個人的方式稱呼自己？為何同別人講話，叫別人的名字？」佛說﹕「雖然從根本上是無我的，但我用通常的言詞與人在他能懂的層次上交流。」所以我們想要遍佈慈悲心，做善功德，分享福報時，要努力去做，全心全意去遍佈慈悲心，實在地去做。

我們建立寺院，努力為眾人提供學習的機會和環境，我們教授，提供指導和支持，可在將這些事做成後，我們要將任何執著化解掉。我們將這些善的道理和力量投注到人民的生活當中，可卻不視它們為究竟實有的。我們看到它們只是形、色、意識模式而已。我講話的聲音你們都能聽到，這裡有耳識。有句話說佛陀是為了喚醒睡夢者的超級夢境編導師，他的開示、言語、行動，都是個夢幻的系統。但佛善於創造夢境以使睡夢者覺醒，使我們從夢中回到現實生活，真實世界中來。

比如，我許多年來都對信仰法門麻木不仁； 「無我」，這就是佛教的全部？每天早晚我們進行傳統的念誦時，我就隨眾，想跟上那個調子，可我卻又認為這都是毫無意義的，後來我開始認識到我遺漏了整個過程的精神。如果我們有正確的理解，就應可以將這些能量釋放成言語、仁慈，及對世界有益、有幫助的東西，而不是佔有它，使它保持原樣。這是種偉大的藝術，也是最偉大的祝福，你可以理解為什麼佛要像那樣來進行教化。如果不是因為佛陀……。這都使我們這些追逐形象、模式、傳統生活方式的人，受到刺激鼓舞而向覺醒、衝破束縛我們的幻境，以體嘗到解脫的真正快樂。

The Lesser, The Greater,

The Diamond and The Way

ENGLISH – CHINESE EDITION

Ajahn AMARO

Amaravati Publications

Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Great Gaddesden, Hertfordshire, HP1 3BZ

United Kingdom

Email: publications@amaravati.org

2019 © Amaravati Publications

Cover PHOTO and P31 Illustration By Ajahn Amaro

ISBN: 978-1-78432-140-6

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