Use awareness to treat idle emptiness and drowsiness

Chapter four: Some more clever tricks

Use awareness to treat idle emptiness and drowsiness

    At this time, the mind is as broad as a pure sky and as crystal as a mountain steam. You have no thoughts, but are awake. All the creatures manifest in your mind, but nothing can disturb or fetter you. You always recognize what you are doing in the moment. Nothing can distract you from your path. This emptiness, is vivid emptiness; on the contrary, idle emptiness is as still as dead water.

When the inherent wisdom begins to shine, you need to watch your true heart calmly. At this point, someone may have problems, such as idle emptiness, drowsiness and drifting.

We all know drowsiness and drifting. As for idle emptiness, I have explained it in the previous chapters, but maybe some people don’t know about it yet, for it looks quite similar to true heart. And some practitioner confuse the two states, so that their life-long practice turns out totally waste of time. So I feel it compelling to stress the difference again.

For some practitioner, their mind goes blank and has nothing in particular. But actually they sink into idle emptiness. The reason is that they lack of awareness or brightness. Simply, they are in a maze and forget what they are doing. This state equals to hibernation of animal or ignorance of the pig. Can we say that they have achieved, simply because they don’t have conciseness or distracting thoughts in sleep? Definitely no.

Some people think that they enter deep meditation of Mahamudra. But actually they are just lost in a maze. Maybe they have no thoughts indeed, unaware to whatever is going on around them, as a stone. Can we say that a rock is very focus? Of course, no. A rock stands there for probably thousand years, but does it has any awareness? The same case, an idiot may turn the pages for a whole day; however, he can’t answer any question about the book; because he only appears reading, but doesn’t have clear awareness. He can’t make any progress in this state, no matter how many books he reads.

Maybe these practitioners always think they are practicing. But this kind of practice won’t work out no matter how long it is. If we want to change our hearts, we need to be perfectly clear and mindful about what we are doing in the moment. During the meditation or anything else, we need to raise awareness, or be mindful.

We need to know, the emptiness of idle emptiness is deadness. In this state, heart is dead, not responding or thinking at all. It is a kind of emptiness, but dead, and it is wrong. The real emptiness isn’t dead and it embraces the numberless possibilities. Although it is also empty, no-mind, but it stands clear and bright, as a crystal reflects enchanting lights.

The real emptiness is have ego broken, and true self, the suchness recognized. Enlightenment opens the door to the truth, where everything looks pure, clear and free, no obstruct, no limitation, no omission, no extra, no disaffection, and no invasion, no being invaded. Everything is vigorous, fresh, free, self-content and perfect.

Facing the endless time and space, the enlightener goes with causes and enjoys what he may come across. He is himself, but beyond himself. He is Buddha, but not Buddha. He is a molecule of water that dissolves the solid ice of attachment, and he is the spray of the running tide surging to the east. He is a great king who watches over his kingdom and, he is also a loyal servant to all the beings. He embraces the enormous beauty of the nature, and he warms his heart with sunshine of his own enlightenment.

    That is to say, the real emptiness is emptiness with clarity. At this time, the mind is as broad as a pure sky and as crystal as a mountain steam. You have no thoughts, but are awake. All the creatures manifest in your mind, but nothing can disturb or fetter you. You always recognize what you are doing in the moment. Nothing can distract you from your path. This emptiness is vivid emptiness; on the contrary, idle emptiness is as still as dead water.

Therefore we have to be mindful. There shouldn’t be idle emptiness, nor laziness. When a man falls into laziness, he probably doesn’t think or do anything, however he thinks he is quite at ease. But this kind of easiness doesn’t take effect for his life-time, for he sank into the laziness and deadliness. This is the most horrible thing in the religious practice, for he can hardly achieve when he falls into this state.             

It was said in some sutra: a practitioner would easily fall into path of animals when he enters into the state of deadness or idle emptiness. For example, a turtle lies at a place for hundreds or ten hundreds of years, but it can’t achieve the Buddhood, for the emptiness state he experiences is dead.

After fully understood the danger, we need to raise mindfulness and awareness.

I used to take observation training in deep meditation. First of all, I observed the no-self and broke self-attachment. By observing my own life, I realized I couldn’t find a solid self anywhere. It turned out that the ‘self’ is the biggest fraud.

Why do I say so? I was born after my parents united with cause. My cells evolve continuously, old cells die and new ones are born, my physical body keeps changing, got taller, got winkles and ages every day. My sense and hobby keeps changing. I don’t like the thing any more which I adored as a child. I don’t recognize the people who I admired when I was young. Since my body and heart is constantly changing, which one is the real “I”? Actually, I am just like anything else in the world, which is the work of non-stopping effect and causes. “I” is a delusion and a dream. The so called “my life” is a dream in dreams.

Then you can observe this world, from this object to that object. Gradually, it becomes a habit and a state of nature like your breath. When you keep observing, you will find that everything in this world (humans, things and objects) is changeable and delusionary. It is nothing more than a dream. You will break the self-attachment. When self-attachment vanishes, arises non-discrimination wisdom, which is the emptiness.

I learned a method: visualizing the self-nature as vast sea, a small fish swims in it. This adds awareness to the normal tranquility and insight. The practitioner stays with self-nature, with awareness. You can visualize that a tiny fish swims in the sea of self-nature. You need to observe and feel the fish swimming. It is the awareness we have mentioned. We need to keep a relaxing awareness in the bright emptiness.

There’s also similar description in the Stories of Eighty-four Great Achievers. One achiever was asked by his guru to visualize his central chakra as sea with a duckling of self-nature swimming on the surface. He constantly visualized this small duckling and finally he achieved.

The main purpose of awareness is to achieve non-discrimination wisdom. So, why the fish and duckling is necessary in the visualization? Because it can raise awareness and clearance in the practitioner’s mind and keep away idle emptiness and ignorance.

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第四辑:再送几条锦囊妙计

以警觉对治无记与昏沉

    这时候心灵要像无云晴空般宽广，又如山中溪涧一样清澈。虽然无念，但是清醒。万物都在你的心灵里面显现，但一切又无法束缚和诱惑你。你始终知道自己当下正在做的是什么事，而不会因为被其他景象诱惑而偏离自己的轨道。这种空，是一种灵动的空；无记和顽空的空，则是一种死水般的空。

当本有智慧光明朗照的时候，要静观你的真心。但是有些人到这一步时，就可能会出问题，比如出现顽空无记，出现昏沉或者散乱。

对于散乱和昏沉，大家都明白，无记我也在前面也解释过，可是也许有人还是不知道，因为它与真心看起来非常相似，有些人就是因为混淆了它们二者，结果修了一辈子都等于没有修。所以，在这里我必须再次强调二者之间的区别。

有些人看起来脑子里空空荡荡，什么都没有想，但那实质上是陷入了一种无记和顽空。导致这种后果的原因，在于他缺少一份觉性或明，也就是说他始终忘了自己在做什么，始终陷入糊涂状态。这种状态就等于动物的冬眠或者猪的愚痴。因为它们在睡觉的时候，也没有思维和杂念，难道它们成就了吗？没有！

有人觉得自己进入了大手印定境，但其实他只是在发呆。他也许的确没有任何念头，但是对于周遭的一切他都不知不顾，像石头一样。石头算得上专注吗？非也。石头经历了千年的事，但它有觉知吗？同样，白痴翻了一整天的书，但是你问他那书里讲了什么，他还是回答不上来。因为他只有读的外相，而没有清醒明了的觉知。不管他以这样的状态读多少书，也跟没读一样，他不会有任何进步。

也许这部分修行人始终认为自己在修，但这种修，一万年都不起作用。想要真正地改变自己的心灵，心中就一定要明明朗朗，明明白白，知道自己在做什么，同时在修炼与做事的时候，提起一种警觉，也就是提起一种正念。

要明白，无记状态的“空”是死寂，那时的心已死了，没任何反应，什么都不想。这也是一种空，但这种空是一种死寂，是错误的。空性的“空”并不是死寂。空性有无穷的可能性。虽然这时候也是空空荡荡，也是一种无念，但他明明朗朗，能够像水晶一样折射出无量的光明。

真正的空性，是对我执的破除，是对真我――也叫真如――的认知。悟打开了真理之门，一切显得晶亮、透彻和自由，无滞碍，无局限，无遗漏，无多余，无省略，无不满，无侵犯，也无被侵犯。一切都自在、自足和圆满，一切都鲜活而常新。

面对无尽的时间和空间，悟者会随顺因缘而快乐无忧，他既是自己又非自己，他既是诸佛又非诸佛；他既是消解了执著坚冰的水分子，又是无尽东流的泄洪的浪花；他既是君临天下的转轮圣王，又是被万物奴役的仆人；他在享受着无边无际的大自然，又在享受着自己的开悟暖阳。

也就是说，正确的空，是明明白白的空，这时候心灵要像无云晴空般宽广，又如山中溪涧一样清澈。虽然无念，但是清醒。万物都在你的心灵里面显现，但一切又无法束缚和诱惑你。你始终知道自己当下正在做的是什么事，而不会因为被其他景象诱惑而偏离自己的轨道。这种空，是一种灵动的空；无记和顽空的空，则是一种死水般的空。

所以说，必须要明明白白，不能出现无记，更不能出现懒散。当一个人变得懒散的时候，整天都无所事事，什么都不做，什么也不想，自以为很自在，但这种“自在”一辈子都不起任何作用，因为他陷入了一种懒散和无记。修行中最怕出现这种状况，因为当这种状况出现之后就很难成就。

有些佛经上说：进入顽空和无记状态之后，会很容易堕入畜生道。我们举个例子，虽然乌龟在某个地方一卧几百年甚至几千年，但它们成不了佛，因为它们的那种“空”已经死了。

知道无记与顽空的可怕之后，你就要提起正念，提起一种警觉。

我以前在净境中进行过一种观察训练。首先我观察无我，破我执。通过观察自己的生命，发现什么地方都找不到“我”。原来，“我”是个巨大的骗局。

为什么这么说？父母在因缘聚合之后生下我，我的所有细胞不断在新陈代谢——新的诞生旧的死亡——我的样子也不断在变化，一天天长高，一天天长出皱纹，一天天开始衰老。我的见识和喜好也不断在改变，小时候喜欢的东西现在不一定喜欢了，小时候认可的人现在也不一定认可了。既然我的身体和我的心都在不断地变化中，到底哪一个才是真正的我？其实，我跟世间万物一样，都是因缘聚合的产物，只是一个幻象，一场梦。那么，所谓的人生，更是梦中之梦。

然后观这个世界，先是逐一地观，观到后来，就会成为一种习惯了，成为一种自然状态，类似于呼吸。当你无时无刻不观的时候，马上就可以看出世上万物（包括人、事、物）其实是一种虚幻无常的东西。就跟做梦一样，你就会破除执著。没有那份执著时，久而久之就会生起一种无分别智。无分别智就是空性。

我学过一种方法：观想在自性的觉海中，有一条小鱼在游动。这就比一般的“止观”多了一份警觉。行者一边安住于自性，一边保持一丝警觉。你可以观想在心性的海洋中，有一条非常小的鱼在游动。你在观察小鱼时要一边体会，一边保持觉性。这也便是我们提到的那份警觉。一定要在明空之中，保持一种放松后的警觉。

提起警觉的主要目的就是为了证得无分别智，那么，观想里面为什么要出现小鸭子和小鱼呢，这是为了不要让他昏沉，不要让他陷入无明和愚痴，帮助他保持一种专注与清醒。

在八十四个大成就师中也有过这样的情况。比如有一个成就师的师父曾让他把中脉观成大海，海面上有一只自性化成的小鸭子在游动。经常观这只小鸭子，观着观着他便成就了。

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