外来的和尚，也很会念经呢～可见觉观的能力，真的可以是跟语言文字无关的。

本文原作者为Venerable Henepola Gunaratana法师，他十二岁在锡兰出家，毕业於可伦波
佛教学院，曾长期旅行印度、马来西亚、欧美、澳洲等地，弘法或教禅或任职佛教机构。
在美国拿到博士学位後，曾任教於多所大学。目前在西维吉尼亚担任Bhavana学会的主席。
本译文选自作者《Mindfulness in Plain English》一书（Boston智慧出版社）中的一章
，本书对「正念」的剖析，非常值得有志禅修者参阅。
==============================================================================

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是一种活动，一种很难用几个字就能精准回答的活动。文字被
设计来描述真实（理），但是文字符号只能做到象徵性思考的层次。而正念却先於文字象
徵。我们可以用象徵性的逻辑性概念来诠释正念，但切记！文字只是指月之指而已，真正
的经验超乎文字与符号。以下我们将用多种完全不同，却都是正确的术语来描述正念。


                                                        ～待续～



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