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宣化上人開示錄(四)
Venerable Master Hua's Talks on Dharma Volume Four　

上宣下化老和尚開示 Lectures by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua

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要修無相的功德

Cultivate Merit and Virtue without Marks
把妄心停下來，現出真心來修道，就有無量功德。
If you can stop your idle thoughts and cultivate the Way with your true mind,
then your merit and virtue will be measureless and boundless.

在禪堂裏是選佛的地方，是種功德福田的地方，所謂：

若人靜坐一須臾，
勝造恆沙七寶塔。

 

The Chan Hall is a place where Buddhas are selected; it's a field where we plant blessings, merit, and virtue. As the saying goes,

If a person can sit in stillness for even an instant,
His merit surpasses that of someone who builds as many stupas of the seven treasures as there are sand grains in the Ganges.

為什麼要這樣說呢？因為在外邊所造的塔寺，是有形有相的功德。

　

Why is this so? Because temples and stupas that are built outside are visible forms of merit and virtue.

在《金剛經》上說：

凡所有相。皆是虛妄。
若見諸相非相。即見如來。

　

The Vajra Sutra has a line that goes,

All appearances are false and unreal.
If one sees all appearances as no appearances, then one sees the Tathagata.

　 　

若能靜坐片刻的時間，就有永不磨滅的功德。有人說：「那外邊的功德我不做了，我來修內邊的功德。」這種思想也是不對的。我們兩種都要做，既要修功，又要修德，到功德圓滿的時候，福慧具足，就是兩足尊了。

　

If a person can sit in stillness for the briefest time, he creates merit and virtue which will never disappear. At this, someone may say, "I won't create any more external merit and virtue; I'm going to have only inner merit and virtue from now on." It's also wrong to think that way. In fact, you must cultivate both kinds of merit and virtue. When your merit and virtue are perfected and your blessings and wisdom are complete, you will be known as the Doubly-Perfected Honored One.

　 　

當知外邊所造的寺廟，經過長時間，都會變壞；所建的塔，經過劫火，也會被燒空的。唯獨靜坐能把自性中的佛法僧三寶修行成功，這是無漏的功德，不怕風雨，不怕劫火，永遠存在，所以無相功德勝於有相功德千萬倍。

　

Know, too, that any temple you can build outside will surely decay over time. Any stupa that you can erect will be burned to ashes when the fires blaze at the end of the eon. Only through Chan meditation can you successfully cultivate the Triple Jewel－the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha－of your own nature. The merit and virtue of this cultivation is "merit and virtue free of outflows." It is not endangered by the wind, the floods or fires at the eon's end, or by anything else. This is merit and virtue that lasts forever. So this kind of invisible merit and virtue surpasses visible merit and virtue by a million times over.

　 　

在禪堂裏，把妄心停下來，現出真心來修道，就有無量功德，否則就無功德。所以才說：「你能靜坐片刻的時間，就勝過造恆河沙數那樣多的七寶塔，比那功德還要大。」

　

Here in the Chan Hall, if you can stop your idle thoughts and cultivate the Way with your true mind, then your merit and virtue will be measureless and boundless. But if you cannot do this, you'll have no merit and virtue to speak of. And so the saying goes, "If a person can sit in stillness for even an instant, his merit surpasses that of someone who builds as many stupas of the seven treasures as there are sand grains in the Ganges."

　 　

各位來參加打禪七，都是有善根，才遇到這種因緣，共同來參禪。現在要把心清淨下來，不可心猿意馬，時刻不安靜，總想向外跑。那就與道不相應，浪費了七天的光陰，一無所得，辜負當初的發心。要設法控制妄念，令心靜下來，所謂：

心清水現月，
意定天無雲。

　

All of us who have come to take part in this Chan Session have good roots. That's why we have the chance to come together to investigate Chan. Now we must make our minds clear and calm, and not let our thoughts run outside like mad monkeys or wild horses, or else we won't get even a moment of stillness. Then we won't have any response in the Way, and we'll have wasted seven days of time. We won't gain anything, and we will have failed to achieve what we initially resolved to do. So we must come up with a method to control our idle thoughts and settle our minds. It is said,

When the heart is pure, the moon appears in the water.
When the mind is in samadhi, then there are no clouds in the sky.

　 　

因為這種原因，我們明年（一九八二年）準備舉行十個禪七，靜坐七十天。今時今日，在全世界可以說找不到連續打十個禪七的道場了。

　

For this reason we've already decided that next year (1982) we'll convene a ten-week Chan Session and sit in meditation for seventy days. In this day and age, I believe you won't find another Way-place anywhere in the world that holds ten consecutive weeks of Chan meditation.

　 　

萬佛聖城要將末法改變為正法，所以我們拼命修行，用功辦道。如果有人想實實在在修行，只有到萬佛聖城來，才有機會真正修行。在外邊修行，不過在皮毛上打轉，敷衍了事。名義上說是打禪七，實際上時間有所不同。萬佛聖城打禪七，從早上二點半鐘開始行香，到夜裏十二點才休息，中間只有一小時的養息香，這是我們打禪七的規矩。

　

Our goal at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is to turn the Dharma-ending Age into the Proper Dharma Age. That's why we cultivate as if our lives depended on it; that's why we work hard at cultivating the Way. If you truly want to cultivate the Way, you'll have the opportunity to do so only at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. At most other places, the cultivation is pretty superficial; they just go through the motions. Perhaps they say they're holding a Chan Session, but their schedules are quite different. At the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, the daily schedule of meditation during the Chan Sessions begins with walking meditation at 2:30 in the morning and continues without pause until midnight. In between, there's only one hour when we are not meditating. This is the rule at our Chan Sessions.

　 　
     

一九八○年禪七 十二月開示

　

A talk given during a Chan Session
in December, 1980

　

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