外來的和尚，也很會唸經呢∼可見覺觀的能力，真的可以是跟語言文字無關的。

本文原作者為Venerable Henepola Gunaratana法師，他十二歲在錫蘭出家，畢業於可倫波
佛教學院，曾長期旅行印度、馬來西亞、歐美、澳洲等地，弘法或教禪或任職佛教機構。
在美國拿到博士學位後，曾任教於多所大學。目前在西維吉尼亞擔任Bhavana學會的主席。
本譯文選自作者《Mindfulness in Plain English》一書（Boston智慧出版社）中的一章
，本書對「正念」的剖析，非常值得有志禪修者參閱。
==============================================================================

Mindfulness (Sati)
正念

Mindfulness is the English translation of the Pali word Sati. Sati is an
activity. What exactly is that? There can be no precise answer, at least not in
words. Words are devised by the symbolic levels of the mind and they describe
those realities with which symbolic thinking deals. Mindfulness is pre-
symbolic. It is not shackled to logic. Nevertheless, Mindfulness can be
experienced -- rather easily -- and it can be described, as long as you keep in
mind that the words are only fingers pointing at the moon. They are not the
thing itself. The actual experience lies beyond the words and above the
symbols. Mindfulness could be describes in completely different terms than will
be used here and each description could still be correct.

正念在巴利文叫sati。sati是一種活動，一種很難用幾個字就能精準回答的活動。文字被
設計來描述真實（理），但是文字符號只能做到象徵性思考的層次。而正念卻先於文字象
徵。我們可以用象徵性的邏輯性概念來詮釋正念，但切記！文字只是指月之指而已，真正
的經驗超乎文字與符號。以下我們將用多種完全不同，卻都是正確的術語來描述正念。


                                                        ∼待續∼



◆ 修改: 02/12/19  1:08:09 <202.145.67.54>