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《菩提田》

 

BODHI FIELD

淺談「服務」
On Service

A Talk by Nipun Mehta on April 19, 2004 in the Buddha Hall at The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas
尼朋‧梅塔2004年4月19日講於萬佛聖城大殿
仁德 中譯 Chinese translation by Ren De

方丈律法師介紹:尼朋從1999年開始發心,免費為大眾服務,創立「集中慈善」這個組織,只有四年的工夫,目前就有三千六百個會員了。胎裡素直到現在,他很感激父母給他這種環境,他說自己不能不修行,因為他是生來就要修行的,就要幫助大家的。
Introduction by the Abbot, DM Lyu: Nipun started his service and established Charity Focus in 1999. In four years, the membership reached 3,600. He has been a vegetarian since he was in his mother's womb.He said that he cannot help but cultivate the Way, because he was born to cultivate and serve people.

 

首先我要說的是:在萬佛聖城與各位未來佛之間,令我有賓至如歸之感。我懷抱著跟各位學習的態度來此,雖然是我在各位面前說法。謝謝你們給了我這個機會!

在印度和人打招呼時,我們會先說:「那瑪思恬!」我聽過它最佳的解釋,是然姆‧達斯說的:「我禮敬你那可容宇宙乾坤的內心!我禮敬你那有愛、有光、有安詳、有真理的內心!我禮敬你那如果你在我也在, 你我純然合一的內心!」那瑪思恬!

有個中國故事總使我感動:有個小孩想出外改造世界,他說:「世界有太多苦痛,我想去幫忙這世界!」他出外嘗試過,發現行不通,慘敗而歸。他自念:「不改變世界了,我就改造國家吧!這比較簡單!」他試了若干年,又失敗了。回來後,他想:「我改變本州吧!」又沒有成功,他回家後,又想:「也許試試本市,試試我自己的家鄉!」他又失敗了,最後他說:「我看,至少我可以改變自己家吧?」誰知他又失敗了,因為家人說:「你說此做彼,言行不一致!」 所以盡其一生想改變世界的他,歸來後,以花甲之年,他這麼想:「唉!不管別人了!我雖然失敗,但是我可以改變自己,現在就開始吧!」他就這麼做了!奇怪的是,當他自己改變了,他周圍的家人也改變了;當他的家人改變了,這種改變,便擴展到城中、到本州、到全國,乃至全世界。所以一旦內在改變,你就把世界由內而外的轉變了。

這也有點像我的故事。小時,我看到世上很多苦難,我說:「我想改變它,我要試著做點什麼!」我嘗試過,但是有時有用,有時也沒用。我說:「好吧!試試別的辦法,讓我先試著改善自己!」我發現:改變自己後,外在的改變也自然產生了。我領悟到「行善」與「服務」有所不同:行善雖是好事,但是存善心、具慈悲、守無為,才是服務之始。

我讀高中時,只想得高分、上好大學。等我上了好大學(我真是夠幸運地),就讀於柏克萊,我又覺得不夠好,還想上研究所。我想討好教授、想拿到夠力的推薦信、想有好工作、想令人人刮目相看而獲利、想要有權力、想要多金;總之,人人夢寐以求的,我都想要。可是這一切,終究是空的,沒有實質。不論何時,你想滿足內心的貪念(我以前很多,至今還有),它是渴欲難除、深洞無底,又是場自始就注定的敗仗。漸漸地,我自問:「那麼我不要這些了!如果我不求取,而開始給予,會怎麼樣?」接著,我自答:「你有什麼可給的?看!你既無智慧,又一文不名,因為你大學剛畢業;你又少不更事,毫無經驗,你有什麼好給的?」

聽到一個有關猴子和魚的精彩故事:一隻猴子坐在河邊的樹上,河裡有條魚在悠游。猴子說:「我要去幫牠忙!看!這可憐的魚兒每天要辛苦工作,游到上流才有食物,生活這麼困難,我得想想辦法幫助牠!」猴子走到水邊說:「讓我把魚捉出來,放在陸上。」猴子以為這樣子牠可幫了忙,沒想到魚卻因猴子沒腦筋而死了;基於此,這是我如何省悟到「為善」和「服務」的區別。

很多人想為善,但是服務還需個人內在的轉變。服務需要你把所知的一切放下,它要能觸到你的內在──該處無思慮、無信念,該處你緣慈悲之清淨而作用。我發覺那才是我真正要的;所以在追求自利中,我說:「我們去外面布施吧!讓我就待在慈悲中!」我們四個朋友到了流浪漢之家,對他們說:「我們來幫忙,做我們能做的事!」他們問:「喔!你們會什麼?」「嗯!我們來自矽谷,可以幫你們建立網站!」他們問:「什麼是網站?」「網站是好東西!」當時網站還鮮為人知。我們勸諫成功,所以他們問:「好吧!你們可否幫我們做?」我們做好了,沒有酬勞,卻是很值得的經驗,獲得另一種的滿意,它既深且久。

我們開始為非營利組織建立網站,這是很有趣的旅程。在這期間,我也因此開始注意到:這世上的其他人在做什麼?看看人心的轉變,能把世界改變多少?這可真是非常有激勵性!如果你帶上綠色眼鏡去看世界,一切都變成綠色──甚至於漂亮的彩虹都變為綠色了!所以我說:「把有色眼鏡拿下來會如何?」那是個挑戰!如你把有色眼鏡除下,就是個全新的世界!

我聽過一個很有啟發性的故事,故事的主人翁曾經是個經手過很多毒品的毒販。以前跟他一起做買賣的一個親戚(我想他的名字是「彼得」)對他說:「看!這是筆大買賣!做過就可收手了。咱們過去盡做小票,現在幹這筆大票吧!」另一個人叫波,說:「你知道嗎?我覺得不對勁,我不幹!」彼得說:「真的嗎?真的嗎?」波說:「千真萬確!」因此二人分道揚鑣了。這真了得!做了這票,彼得後半生就可以吃香喝辣;在那當口,波卻說:「你知道嗎?這不是我能幹的。我要去做個冥想!我要去廟裡!」所以,他們一個被逮捕入獄,一個去了廟上。

這是個真實的故事!一年後,他們聯絡上再相聚時,彼得對波說:「老天,人生真苦!」波則說:「生活對我有大利。」二人開始對照彼此的生活。彼得說:「啊!啊!你不知道!在監獄裡,白天晚上都要工作。」波回答:「嗯!那就像我們在廟裡一樣,我們也工作啊!我們管它叫『服務』。」彼得說:「不!你不明白!我們沒工資的!」「喔!不!我們也不拿錢呀!」彼得說:「啊哈!好!至少你不用天天穿制服吧?在獄裡,他們叫我們都穿同樣的衣服!」但是波說:「喔!在廟裡,我們也都是穿同樣的袍!」彼得說:「哈!好!我是不知道!在獄裡,我們甚至於不能有性行為!」「嗯!那是獨身。在廟裡,我們也要離欲!」他們就這樣繼續著。他們比較監獄和寺院二處的生活,發現它們竟然雷同得要命!彼得說:「我們整天孤坐在牢籠裡,身邊沒人…。」「嗯!那就跟我們坐禪一樣!」二人互視,波說:「怎麼回事?有什麼不同?」他發現這完全是綠色眼鏡作怪;所不同的,就只是觀點和角度。其中一位是心態不對,另一位心態不同的,因為布施而比較快樂;所做雖然完全相同,卻有截然不同的感受。

波接著做的事很有意思。他說:「你知道嗎?我要把牢籠變成禪堂!」你想想:這是否真可笑?怎麼可能把監獄變成禪堂呢?但他去外面說:「嗯!我要在獄堂裡找工作。」因此他有了一份工作,他去跟獄友談話,開始做那些工作。所有的獄監看看他說:「呃…這個人在幹什麼?他在那兒有工作,卻來跟獄友講法──而他們都聽他的!」最後他開始了禪堂打坐計畫。大約他去過數千所監獄,他使得獄中爭鬥的牢犯彼此顧視、打坐,一起工作,並發起他們內在的慈悲。這就是說:不論你在何處,真的就只是看法的轉換。

待續


First of all, I feel really at home amongst ten thousand Buddhas and all of you future Buddhas. And I speak in the spirit of learning from you although today I’m speaking in front of you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

In India, when we meet and greet each other, we start by saying, “Namaste.” The most beautiful definition of ‘Namaste’ I’ve ever heard was a quote by Ram Dass that says, “I bow to the place in you where the entire universe resides. I bow to the place in you of love, of light, of peace, of truth. I bow to the place in you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.” Namaste!

There is a Chinese story that I’ve always been very inspired by. There’s a young kid who wants to go out and change the world. He says, “There’s a lot of suffering. I want to go out and help the world.” He goes out and tries and realizes he can’t do it. He fails miserably. So he comes back and says, “Instead of changing the world, I’ll change my country. It’s a little easier!” and he tries for many years but fails again. Then he comes back and says, “I think I’ll change my state,” and again he fails. Then he comes back one more time and says, “Maybe I’ll try my city, my local community.” And again, he fails. So finally he says, “You know what, I’ll change my family, at least I can do that.” But he fails again because his family says to him, “You say one thing and you do something else!”

So after a full life of trying to change the world he comes back. He’s contemplating in his old age and says, “Forget everybody else. I failed, but I can change myself, and I can do that right now.” And so he does that, and the funny thing is that when he changes, his family around him changes. When his family around him changes, it goes out to the city, and the city to the state, and the country, and the world. So inner change, when you change yourself, you’re really changing the world from inside out.

And that’s sort of been my story in a way. When I was young, I saw a lot of suffering in the world and I said, “I want to change that. I want to try to do something about that.” And I tried, and it worked a little bit here, and didn’t work a little bit there. Then I said, “Let me try a different strategy. Let me try to change myself.” And I realized that when I changed myself, the external change happened naturally. I realized the difference between ‘doing good’ and ‘service’. Doing good, is good. But being good, being in a state of compassion, being in a state of effortless action is when service starts.

When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was get good grades and go to a good college. When I got to a good college (I was fortunate enough to get into a good college) and was studying at Berkeley, I realized I wasn’t good enough. I wanted to get to a good grad school. I wanted to impress my professors, I wanted to get a good letter of recommendation, I wanted to get a good job, I wanted to impress everybody, to get a lot of self-benefit. I wanted to be powerful, I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be everything that everyone always wants. But it was all…empty. There was no substance.

Whenever you try to satisfy this internal greed—which I had a lot of and still do—it’s a thirst that can’t be quenched. It’s a pit that has no bottom. It’s a losing fight right from the beginning. And I said, bit by bit, I said, “Let’s say I don’t want that. What if, instead of getting everything, what if I start giving? What would that be like?” And then I said, “What do you really have to give? Well, you don’t have any wisdom. You don’t have any money because you just got out of college. You don’t have any experience because you’re still young. What can you really give?”

I ran across a pretty cool story of a monkey and fish. A monkey’s sitting in a tree by a nice river and there’s a fish in the stream. The monkey says, “I want to help. Let me go out and help.” He says, “Look at this poor fish. You know, the fish has to work so hard to get food every day. It has to go upstream against the current. A fish has got a hard life; I need to go and help the fish.” So the monkey goes by the water and says, “Let me pick up the fish and bring the fish onto land” because the monkey thinks he’s helping the fish. But the fish dies because the monkey didn’t have any wisdom. In a way, this was how I realized the difference between ‘doing good’ and ‘service’.

A lot of us want to do good, but service requires an internal transformation. Service requires you to drop everything you know. Service requires you to touch that place in yourself where there are no ideas and beliefs, where you function from that pure space of compassion. I realized that that’s what I really wanted. So in the middle of my selfish pursuits I said, “Let’s go out and give. Let me just be in a space of compassion.”

So four of us went out to a local homeless shelter and said, “We’re here to help, to do what we can do.”

“Oh, what can you do?” they asked.

“Well, we’re from the Silicon Valley,” we said. “We can help you build a website!” They said, “Website…what’s that?”

“You know, a website’s a good thing,” we said. This was before everyone knew about websites.

We convinced them and they said, “OK, can you do this for us?” and we did it. It was a very rewarding experience. Instead of getting money for our services, we got this different kind of satisfaction. It was very deep and very lasting.

From then on we started building websites for non-profits. It was a pretty interesting journey, but along the way I started noticing what some other people in the world were doing. It was absolutely inspiring to see how much a mind-shift can change the whole world. If you look at the world with green goggles, everything looks green. Even a beautiful rainbow looks green because you have on green goggles. So I said, “What happens if you take those goggles off?” That was the challenge. If you take the goggles off it’s a whole new world.

I ran across this really inspiring story of this individual who was once a drug dealer and used to deal a lot of drugs. At one point, one of his relatives he used to do business with, I think his name was Pete, tells him, “Look, there’s this big drug deal. Once we do this, we can retire. We’ve done all these small jobs but now let’s do this one huge job.”

The other guy, whose name was Bo, says, “You know, this doesn’t seem right to me, I want to stop.”

“Are you sure, are you sure?” Pete asks. Bo says, “Yes, I’m sure.” So they both part ways. This is a big deal. Once Pete gets this he can retire for the rest of his life, but he gets caught and goes to jail. At the same time, Bo says, “You know, this is not for me; I want to go to an ashram. I want to go to a monastery.” So one of them gets caught and goes to prison, and the other one goes to a monastery. A year later they connect with each other.

This is a true story! A year later they connect with each other. Pete tells Bo, “Oh god, life is miserable.”

“Well, life is great for me,” Bo says. And then they started comparing notes.

Pete says, “Yeah, yeah, you don’t understand. At the prisons they make you do work day in and day out.” “Well, that’s kinda what we do at the monastery. We do work, you know. We call it service,” Bo responds. Pete says, “No, but you don’t understand; we don’t get paid for it.” “Oh, no, we don’t get paid for it either!” So Pete says, “Oh, yeah, well, but at least you don’t have to wear the same exact clothes every day. In the prison, they make us wear the same clothes. But Bo goes, “Uh, well, at the monastery, we wear the same clothes. We wear robes!” “Yeah, well, I don’t know,” says Pete. “We can’t even have sex in the prisons.” “Well, that’s celibacy. We don’t do lustful things in the monastery either!”

So they go on and on and on. They compare the two—a prison and a monastery and they realize that they’re pretty much identical! “And, you know,” Pete says, “we just have to sit in one confining cell all day, nobody there with us…” “Well yeah, that’s kinda what we call meditation.”

They look at each other. Bo says, “Well what’s going on? What’s the difference?” And he realize it’s all really about the green goggles. The difference was the point of view; the difference was about the perspective. One of them didn’t have the right mindset, the other one had a different mindset, and so he was happier because he was in this space of giving. He was doing the same exact things, but there were two totally different outcomes. So what Bo does next is something very interesting.

He says, “You know what? I want to turn prisons into meditation halls.” That was a pretty ridiculous idea if you think about it: how the heck can you turn prison halls into meditation halls? But he went out and said, “OK, I just want a job at the prison halls.” So he got a job and he would go out and talk to the prisoners. He started doing all these things.

All the prison guards were looking at him and saying, “Um…what is this guy doing? He’s got a job outside, but he’s talking to all the prisoners—and all the prisoner are listening to him!” He ended up starting the Meditation Ashram Project. I think he’s been to thousands of different prisons, and he gets warring tribes inside the prisons to look at each other, to meditate, to work, and tap a space of compassion within themselves. And all it was about was realizing that it doesn’t matter where you are; it’s really all about the shift of perspective.

To be continued

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