Được dạy bởi Sư Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu
Dịch Việt: Việt Hùng
Lời người dịch: Trong các bài Hỏi & Đáp như vậy, tôi sẽ chủ yếu dịch thoát ý, chứ không chặt chữ. Một mặt đây là việc tôi làm để có thể nghiền ngẫm phần trả lời của Sư Yuttadhammo. Một mặt, tôi chia sẻ lại đây, và hy vọng nó hữu ích cho các thiền sinh Vipassana tham khảo.
Bài pháp ngắn này được đăng tải trên Youtube vào ngày 07/03/2012. Phần English transcript ở cuối bài. Link Youtube của bài nói ở đây: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks9Z4WLczIk
Mặc dù đã cố gắng tốt nhất trong khả năng của mình, tôi chắc chắn không thể ghi xuống được một cách chính xác 100% tất cả các từ ngữ, đặc biệt là các từ Pali mà Sư đề cập trong bài pháp. Tôi sẽ tiếp tục cập nhật bản ghi, bất cứ khi nào tôi thấy được những điểm còn thiếu sót.
Con xin thành kính đảnh lễ tạ ơn Sư Yuttadhammo về bài pháp thoại ngắn quí báu này. Con nguyện cho Sư được mọi thuận lợi và sức khoẻ trong hành trình tâm linh của Sư.
Các bạn có thể tìm hiểu thêm thông tin của Sư Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu và các lời dạy của Sư tại trang web: https://www.sirimangalo.org/.
English Transcript (quickly jotting down)
Question: I find it difficult to overcome noise, distraction when trying to meditate. I use earplugs. But I know that it is not the right way. Please advise.
[Bhikkhuni] Yes, it is not the right way. It would be good to just acknowledge the noise and acknowledge the anger or the feelings of disturbance that arise due to that noise. We always have our own things that we don’t like and we have to deal with it. So be mindful on the disliking that is arising. Of course, first you sit there and the noise is there and you say hearing, hearing, then you will note of feeling of of distraction or of anger or whatever arises. So you note that I’m saying anger, anger. And by doing so, you learn to slowly accept that there is noise around you. It sounds weird now when you don’t have the experience that it would be possible just by saying anger, anger or by seeing, hearing, hearing that you would be able to accept it. But this is what actually happens. So just give it a try and take off the earplugs and deal with life as it is, still with reality and noted as it is.
[Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu] Just some anecdotes, I mean. That’s the answer, but, uh, when I first started practicing, I got lots of crazy stories because I had no clue what I was doing. And so I thought when you acknowledge hearing, hearing the sound is supposed to disappear no matter what sound it is. So they were doing construction and they had those cement mixers, outside of my kuti. And I was intent upon making that sound go away. I got such a headache because of that. The real answer is, to put it bluntly, do sound meditation, you know, look at it a different way. Stop looking at it as getting in the way of your practice. You’ve been following, you already know that. Sound meditation is a valid meditation object. Obviously, the problem is that we have preconceived notions of what meditation should be. It should be some spiritual thing that you start floating on cloud nine or whatever cloud it is. Cloud nine, is that it? Yeah. And, you know, see the angels and butterflies and music tinkling in the background. And so you tend to blame people. You say, don’t you understand? I’m trying to meditate. No. Which means you’re trying to get up to cloud nine or at least cloud eight. And you know where the butterfly is, where the tinkling and the waterfalls and so on. The people believe and put on this this nature sounds in the background because I think that’s meditation. That’s not meditation, that delusion. It’s pretending. It’s like putting on a show for yourself.
It’s not reality. Reality is seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and thinking. The noise is as much a valid object of meditation as the stomach or the breath or the Buddha or anything. In fact, it’s at that moment, it’s far more violent. It’s what is there with what is occurring. You have to be clear in your mind and we all have to be clear and we have to make it clear to people what we mean by meditation. This is how I started that booklet and I tried and probably didn’t do the best job, but tried to make it clear when we talk about meditation, we’re not talking about a drug. We’re talking about medicine. So medicine can be bitter, it can be unpleasant, but it cures you. Drugs tend to be pleasant and sweet, but I have generally no purpose besides to avoid the problem and often have harmful side effects as well. It’s amazing how simple that is, right? Because once you take the the sound as a meditation, why would it bother you? You know, like then you’ll be sad when it goes away. You’re like, oh now what do I now do. I acknowledge actually focus on the sound as your main object to do that for a while. Forget about the breath. Don’t say oh I have to get back to the stomach, when this sound is going away. Take the sound as your basic, as your main meditation object and have fun with it. I mean you can become enlightened without… Another anecdote. I was watching my teacher. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say this, but let’s say I was watching some teacher because then I’m not saying something about someone. And he was explaining the six senses as he explains every day, every minute. He’ll explain it ten times a day. You have to explain the same thing, repeat the same thing over and over again. But at this moment they said, OK, so the four postures, you have to be mindful, standing, walking, sitting and lying down, bending, stretching and so on. And also the six senses. So seeing when you see, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking. When you see something, you have to not just stare at it. Say to yourself, seeing, seeing. When you hear something, don’t just listen to it. Say to yourself hearing hearing. And he entered into who knows what… In the middle of an explanation, because he started saying to himself, hearing hearing, it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen, just sitting there watching. It wasn’t a show. He doesn’t have to show us. It wasn’t putting on any airs. And so we just sat there and the guy’s sitting there like this, you know, kind of like this guy and the rest of us are just in a bit of amazement and and admiration, of course.
And then and then came back. Well, go practice. Totally. You’ve forgotten what was going on in the end. I told them, now, go, go, go, practice. So that was that you can become enlightened through through, uh, you can enter into cessation through the sound, through knowledge, into the sound. You can become enlightened through listening to sound. It’s a very it’s a perfectly valid meditation object because once you see it for what it is, your mind changes. Well, it’s all about developing habits. Once you develop the habit of seeing things clearly in your mind, lets go the mind, the clinging disappears. You have this clinging habit and then we have the habit that we develop. Once your mind sees things clearly, let’s go. And there’s religious freedom. Were that were that close to freedom now? Well, we have to do is go from this to this and then we’re free.
[Bhikkhuni] May I add an anecdote as well? I was meditating for some months in a city monastery and there was construction going on any everywhere. Everywhere. And it, um, it happened that it was right next to me. They were breaking down a building and building something new up afterwards. And right behind the wall, right behind me was a restaurant and they played eight hours of tape. And in front of me was the kitchen. So I had really sound from everywhere, noise from everywhere. And I thought, I go crazy. It was just too much in the beginning. I thought of running away. I remember bhante says that just observe the sound, hear the sound and see the reality and see it as it is and see the anger arising. And I work with it for months. And then there was I think one light festival. And I was sitting in meditation, I was not taking part. And I was, I think in determination also. And then the kuti next to me started to catch fire and I heard somebody yelling, fire, fire. But it was so far away that I later noticed that it was actually a kuti next to me catching fire. So but that sound or all the sounds around had become kind of so. And you say that inconsequential, you know, not bothering any more so and then when they started building the new kuti because the other was what has burned up. They had the chainsaw right underneath my window and it didn’t bother me at all anymore. So it’s it’s really doable when you stick with it and work with it. Completely doable. It becomes a wonderful meditation.
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