When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting instant
of pure awareness just before you conceptualize the thing, before you
identify it. That is a stage of Mindfulness. Ordinarily, this stage is
very short. It is that flashing split second just as you focus your eyes
on the thing, just as you focus your mind on the thing, just before you
objectify it, clamp down on it mentally and segregate it from the rest
of existence. It takes place just before you start thinking about it--
before your mind says, "Oh, it's a dog." That flowing, soft-focused
moment of pure awareness is Mindfulness. In that brief flashing mind-
moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You experience a softly
flowing moment of pure experience that is interlocked with the rest of
reality, not separate from it. Mindfulness is very much like what you
see with your peripheral vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal
or central vision. Yet this moment of soft, unfocused, awareness contains
a very deep sort of knowing that is lost as soon as you focus your mind
and objectify the object into a thing. In the process of ordinary perception,
the Mindfulness step is so fleeting as to be unobservable. We have developed
the habit of squandering our attention on all the remaining steps, focusing
on the perception, recognizing the perception, labeling it, and most of all,
getting involved in a long string of symbolic thought about it. That original
moment of Mindfulness is rapidly passed over. It is the purpose of the above
mentioned Vipassana (or insight) meditation to train us to prolong that moment
of awareness.

當意識最初有所「覺知」的那一瞬間，還沒有「概念化」、仍來不及辨識的「覺」，
就是正念。通常「覺」只是短暫存在，來不及看、想，或客體化。正念發生在你心裏
想－－－「啊！那邊那個是一條狗」之前，那個流動輕輕「聚焦」、純然「覺知」者
就是正念。在那一瞬間，你經驗到一個「並不是東西的東西」。在那輕輕流動的片刻
，你有了物物相關連的純然經驗。正念像用眼角的餘光看、而不是用正眼瞧。在那一
瞬間，輕柔、「將聚焦的覺知」具有一種「深知」，這種深知是集中心神、將事物客
體化時所無法顯現的。通常在認知的過程中，正念快得無法觀察。我們已經變成將注
意力浪費在認知、加標籤的步驟中，陷在一長串的象徵思惟中；那最初瞬間的正念因
而被溜了過去。正觀禪的目的就是為了延長那瞬間的覺知。

                                                    ～待續～

◆ 修改: 02/12/19  0:49:14 <202.145.67.54>