Appendix: Listen To The Wise Voice
You must make sure that your soul still belongs to yourself when communicating with others. When you are going through any hardships in the world, your heart will belong to yourself and you will become the owner of your soul absolutely if you still can possess your own heart. Therefore, Soul Yoga acknowledges that the whole world can be used to tune up your heart. Everything becomes nutrition for your soul.
There were three breakthrough points in my life. In the first time, I broke my illusionary phantasy of life. Long time ago, I thought my life belonged to me. I took good care of my belongings, I used to eat a lot and I had interests in many things until I lost my younger brother who died in his twenty seven. I witnessed a very healthy and robust young man to be forced toward death little by little until sent to graveyards by myself. At that time, I sunk into contemplation that I was lucky to be his elder brother. If the god transferred only a little disease from him to me, I might have perished from the world. And out of a sudden, I realized that life is so week and fragile. I’ve no idea about when death will come to me. I keep a skull in my house which is presented by my friend who made a specimen of it. I think I would join the skull at any time. So this has helped me be able to let go many things in life. I’ve determined to complete those things to which I feel obliged as soon as possible before my head becomes a skull. Thus, my reading habit is quite different from others. I would firstly choose the books I want to read most in my life. For example, if I knew that I would die tomorrow, I would choose to read the book that I would feel regretful if I failed to read through it. It is the same when I deal with secular affairs. If I would be hauled off by death tomorrow, I would do the thing which I would feel regretful if I don’t do it by today. So does my writing. I try to complete writing what is most important to me every day before I could fall asleep in restful peace. So if I don’t wish to dream——although I’m capable of dream practicing——I will not have dreams usually.
As a result, the awareness of death has axed my shackled phantasy of life. Death has taught me to be subjective in many ways. Whatever I do, I will follow the benchmark of death. When you fall foul of others, you must tell yourself that it doesn’t matter because soon or later both of us will become a dead skeleton. So there is no point of argument. When you see someone in pursuit of political status with high fever, you should also tell yourself that the flaunty position will soon be meaningless upon dawn of death. Death has presented me the capability of determination to choose.
In the second time, I cut off my obsession with the literary world. During the years before I got enlightened, I kept dreaming of becoming one of the “Sacred” China’s literary world. One day, I finally made it, but I found that it is not as sacred and sublime as I imagined. There were two years during which I could not come up with a mere word. After my graduation from Luxun Literature Institute, I took a deep breath on the train leaving Beijing. I felt like escaping from something. Just imagine a fallow deer which is shot by the arrow from a hunter. The only idea in mind is just to flee to a desolate place as soon as possible and lick the wound without disturbance. Hardly when I came back home, I rushed into my familiar meditation room and picked up meditation practice immediately. The practice continued for a long time and I didn’t want to come out. I could write nothing during the two years. My wife was very worried and ranted at me: Without the creation of Tripitaka, could Sakyamuni be regarded as Buddha ? She insisted that I should go on writing.
It was not long before I came to realize that the literary world was not totally bad. There were also good people. I won a lot of prizes and awards but I could hardly tell the name of the judges. By this token, I got to know that there is a baseline in China’s literary world. That is: Everyone will admire you sincerely when your works have surpassed a certain level. Later a master told me that the main benchmark to the judges is the core of the works anyway. If you dream to bribe a judge’s morality with little remuneration, he will not give you the award. Many judges only rely on their own judgment and morality. I still keep hope in China’s literary world until today. It was not until I conquered my obstacles that I began to have relatively objective view about the literary world.
In the third time, I overthrew my reliance on Buddhism practice. During about five years, I got up at three o’clock in the morning. I sat at the desk, but the word got stuck in my hand. It was because I could no longer be satisfied with my previous pencraft, nor the distained pencraft of the contemporary world. I was thinking of creating a new writing style because I wanted to let the words “flow” rather than “written”. I could not make any word flow for five years, so I decided to sit in meditation in a bid to dismantle and destroy myself to build up and cultivate a new one. I hoped to brighten my soul and use my pen to flow the wisdom brightness. It cost me five years to achieve this.
One day, I determined to put literature aside and forget about it to make some space for spiritual freedom. I sat in meditation to calm down. Just in the next second when I had no consciousness about literature, oops, I got enlightened all of a sudden. Since then, the door of my spirit was opened. A brand new world unfurled under my pen, followed by the creation of "A Cult of Vast Desert", "Hunting Ground" and "White Tiger’s Gate". And then it was as if the works poured out spontaneously rather than vamped up by me. Many masters who have read my works credit my writing as impressive. But actually, I didn’t “write” anything. The words came out from inside of me naturally. After that, I kept training on concentration power and perception capability until I could crash the shackles of Buddhism practice, including the name, appearance and concept of it. I realized that whatever is institutionalized might give rise to guilt, including Buddhism practice. Let me take a bottle as an example: when it faces the brightness, its back must be followed by shadow. Therefore, I will not believe something blindly any more. I’ve learned how to make choice with my wisdom.
Through the three breakpoints, I realized transcendence of myself. In most cases, to crash your obsession is to surmount yourself. If you continue to crash your fettered past, you can achieve transcendence on and on. A person without great ambition will just hold a bottle of water in his arms and treat it as the whole sea. This is a big world and only if you can open your arms, can you embrace the world. When you crash yourself to pieces, you will find that everything in the world becomes your nutrition, including tribulation. And when you beat your sufferings and dump any grievance, you will find that there is no tribulation at all. Why? Because everything has become nutrition to nurture your soul. When confronting the changing world, the strength of your soul matters much. If your soul is strong enough, your mind will stick to yourself. If so, you should walk around this world to experience countless meaningful things and have a look whether your soul is strong enough. Is it still strong enough in front of overwhelming temptations? If you think your are dauntless and afraid of nothing, can you still feel calm upon threats from fatal diseases and death? You might say that you look down upon woman. Can you still contain yourself if you meet with an extraordinary belle? The whole mind’s course is called entry of secular life. After you have realized transcendence, you must be engaged into this world with a sublimated soul to go through pains, experience hardships, accumulate experience and consummate yourself.
All in all, Soul Yoga does not deem transcendence as escape from the world or fleeing to a temple or a little house when feeling disillusioned. Someone attaches importance to such a phrase: “Feel free when isolated from people, but actually an impotent when working with people. “ And he imposed such impression on me as if I could only obtain freedom when isolated from others. I replied:” If you do not meet people, you are not human being, either. “ I want to say that what matters most is to make sure your soul still belongs to yourself when communicating with others. When you are going through any hardships in the world, your heart will belong to yourself and you will become the owner of your soul absolutely if you still can possess your own heart.
And Soul Yoga acknowledges that the whole world can be used to tune up your heart. Everything becomes nutrition for your soul.
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附录:聆听智慧的声音
一定要在见人的时候,心还能属于你自己。你如果在世上历练的时候,心也能属于自己,这才算真正的让心属于你自己,真的成为你心灵的主人。所以,心灵瑜伽认为,整个世界都是你调心的道具,都是你灵魂的营养。
我生命中有三次打碎。第一次,我打碎的是对生命幻觉的执著。以前,我觉得生命属于我。我爱护自己的一切,喜欢吃,也喜欢好多东西。后来,我的弟弟死了,死时他才二十七岁。当我亲眼看到他从一个非常健壮的青年,一步步走向死亡、最后被我亲自埋进坟墓的时候,我就想,我是老大,他是老二,上帝稍微把赐给老二的病转赐一点给我时,我也许就消失了。我忽然发现,生命是如此脆弱。我不知道什么时候会死。我的家中有一个死人头骨,是我的朋友制成了标本后送给我的。我想,我随时会变成这个死人头骨。这样,我就不再执著现实中的许多东西了。我要在我的脑袋变成头骨之前,尽快做完自己该做的事情。所以,我读书的时候,和别人不太一样。我首先读这辈子最该读的一本书。就是说,如果我明天死的话,没读哪本书会非常遗憾,我就读哪本书。我做事情也这样,如果明天死亡来临,今天就做那件不做会令自己非常遗憾的事。我写书也是这样。我每天都赶紧写完自己该写的东西,然后坦然地入睡。所以,要是不祈梦——我是能够梦修的——我一般是不做梦的。
因此,死亡打破了我对生命的执著。死亡让我自己拥有了许许多多的主体性。我做什么都以死亡为参照。当你跟别人恩恩怨怨、纠缠不清的时候,你也要告诉自己不要紧,因为不久之后两个人都会变成骨头,没什么值得计较的。当别人追逐官位时,你也要告诉自己,那个位置会随着死亡的降临而失去意义。死亡让我学会了取舍。
我第二个打碎的,是对文坛的执著。在我“明白”之前的多年里,我一直想进入“神圣的”中国文坛。有一天,我终于进入了中国文坛,却发现文坛不是我想象的那样神圣和崇高。我有两年时间写不出一个字来。当我结束了鲁迅文学院的学业,坐上离开北京的火车时,我喘了一口气。我有一种逃离的感觉。我像被猎人射了一箭的小鹿,想尽快逃到一个没有人的地方,静静地舔舐自己的伤口。一回到家中,我就马上进入我平时用来静修的禅堂,经年累月地禅修,不愿出来。在两年之内,我不写任何东西。妻子急了,大吼:释迦牟尼要是没有《大藏经》,他还算佛吗?她要我继续写下去。
后来我才发现,文坛其实也没有多么不好,也有许多好人。我后来获了好多奖,但我连评委都不认识。可见,中国文坛还有一个底线。当你的作品超过某种底线的时候,大家都会由衷地认可你。后来,一位老师说,评委主要还是看作品。当你用很少的金钱去买评委良心的时候,他是不会给你评奖的。许多评委会相信他自己的眼光和良心。直到今天,我仍然觉得中国文坛非常有希望。正是在打碎之后,我才对文坛有了比较客观的看法。
第三是对修行的打碎。我大概有五年的时间,每天早上三点钟起床,坐在桌前,流不出一个字来。因为,我不满足于过去的笔法,不满意被时代污染的笔法,我想重新练出一套笔法。因为我希望“流”,而不是“写”,有五年时间“流”不出一个字,我就禅修。要把自己打碎,重新训练自己,让自己的灵魂放光,让智慧光明通过我的笔流淌出来。这个过程有五年时间。
有一天,我决定放下文学,再也不想文学,让自己的心灵得到自由的时候,我完全进入了心灵修炼。我用坐禅的方式,让自己的心定下来。就在我放下文学的时候,“哗——”,我明白了。放下文学之后,我的心灵之门被打开了,笔下流淌出一个世界来。《大漠祭》、《猎原》、《白虎关》都是这样流出来的。后来,不是我写作品,而是作品本身在流淌。读过我作品的许多老师,都说雪漠的文字很好。但事实上我没有“写”,是文字自己流淌出来的。之后,我一直通过对定力、慧力的训练,把修行(名相、概念)也打碎了。因为,我发现无论啥被制度化之后都可能产生罪恶,包括修行。它像瓶子一样,当它面对光明的时候,背后必然有阴影。于是我再也不迷信一些东西,而是学会了用智慧去选择。
这三次打碎之后,我实现了自己的超越。许多时候打碎自己就是超越。不断地打碎过去的自己,就能不断地超越。只有一个没有大胸怀的人,才会抱着自己的瓶子,把瓶子揣到怀里,认为那是大海。这个世界非常大,打碎意味着敞开胸怀去拥抱这个世界。当你打碎自己的时候,就会发现世上的一切都是你的营养,包括苦难。当你打碎自己的苦难,不执著自己的恩怨时,就会发现世上没有苦难。为什么?因为,所有的东西都在为你的心灵提供营养。当你面对世上的纷纷扰扰的时候,要看你的心灵是否足够强大。若是心灵足够强大的话,你就属于你自己。这时候,你就要进入这个世界,去经历这世上无数值得你经历的事,看一看你的心灵是不是足够强大。你在面对巨大的诱惑时,是不是仍然强大?你觉得自己什么都不怕,没有恐惧,那么当你面对疾病和死亡威胁时,是否仍没有恐惧?你说你从来看不起女人,当你看到一个非常美的女子时,是否还能把持住自己的心?这个过程叫入世。当你超越之后,就要用这颗超越的心灵去进入这个世界,去历练痛苦,去经历磨难,去积累经验,去完善自己。
所以,心灵瑜伽并不认为超越就是躲避这个世界,或是看破红尘躲到寺院里,躲到小小的房子里。有人信奉一句话:“避人得自在,入世一无能。”说我避开人、不见人就得到了自在。我对那朋友说:你要是不见人的话,你也不是人。所以说,一定要在见人的时候,心还能属于你自己。你如果在世上历练的时候,心也能属于自己,这才算真正的让心属于你自己,真的成为你心灵的主人。
所以,心灵瑜伽认为,整个世界都是你调心的道具,都是你灵魂的营养。
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