August 1
One of the most important revelations of the near-death experience is how it transforms the lives of those who have been through it. 濒死经验最重要的启示是，它彻底转变了这些人的生命。
One man said: 有一个人说：
“I was transformed from a man who was lost and wandering aimlessly, with no goal in life other than a desire for material wealth, to someone who had a deep motivation, a purpose in life, a definite direction, and an overpowering conviction that there would be a reward at the end of life. 我原是个迷失的人，终日行尸走肉，只想享受，没有目标。现在我彻底转变了，变成有强烈的企图心，有明确的目标和方向，坚信生命必有报应。My interest in material wealth and greed for possessions were replaced by a thirst for spiritual understanding and a passionate desire to see world conditions improve.” 我对追求物质财富的渴望也消失了，反而渴求了解精神层面的东西，并且希望这个世界能够越来越好。
August 2
How sad it is that most of us only begin to appreciate our lives when we are on the point of dying. I often think of the words of the great Buddhist master Padmasambhava: 大部分人要等到临死那一刻才开始珍惜生命，这多么令人伤悲啊！我常想起伟大的佛教大师莲花生大士的话：
“Those who believe they have plenty of time get ready only at the time of death. Then they are ravaged by regret. But isn’t it far too late?” 那些相信他们拥有充裕时间的人，等到临终才开始准备死亡。然后，就满心懊悔，这样不是已经太晚了吗？
August 3
When the sun of fierce devotion shines on the snow mountain of the master, 当炽烈的阳光照射在上师的雪山头时，
the stream of his blessing will pour down.
他的加持之流将会倾写而下。
The Tibetan Saint, DRIKUNG KYOBPA
——西藏圣哲俊库康巴
August 4
For all its dangers, today’s world is also a very exciting one. 今天的世界虽然危机重重，却也令人鼓舞。The modern mind is slowly opening to different visions of reality. 现代的心灵慢慢地接触到各种不同的实相。Great teachers like the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa can be seen on television; 在电视上可以看到达赖喇嘛和德蕾莎修女等伟大的导师；many masters from the East now visit and teach in the West; 许多东方的大师也到西方传法；and books from all the mystical traditions are winning an increasingly large audience. 介绍神秘传统的书籍也得到越来越广泛的注意。The desperate situation of the planet is slowly waking people up to the necessity for transformation on a global scale. 地球所面临的绝境，唤醒更多的人进行全球的改造运动。
Enlightenment is real, and there are enlightened masters still on the earth. 开悟是绝对真实的事，而且世上也还有开悟的大师活着。When you actually meet one, you will be shaken and moved in the depths of your heart and you will realize that all the words, such as illumination and wisdom, that you thought were only ideas are in fact true. 当你真正遇到了他，你会打从内心深处受到震撼和感动，你会明了过去你以为是观念性的字词，如“光明”和“智慧”等，其实是真的。
August 5
Considering others to be just the same as yourself helps you to open up your relationships and give them a new and richer meaning. 把别人想象成和你一模一样的人，可以促进你的人际关系，带给它崭新而丰富的意义。
Imagine If societies and nations began to view one another in the same way; at last we would have the beginnings of a solid basis for peace on earth, and the happy coexistence of all peoples. 如果每个国家社会也同样这样看待其他国家社会，则世界和平及人类快乐融洽的日子就不远了。
August 6
“In meditation practice, you might experience a muddy, semiconscious, drifting state, like having a hood over your head: a dreamy dullness. 禅坐时，你可能会经验到一个混浊的、半意识、飘浮的境界，就像有一条头巾盖在你头上；梦纪般的迟钝。This is really nothing more than a kind of blurred and mindless stagnation. 这只是个混沌未明、无神的沉滞而已。
How do you get out of this state? 要如何脱离这种境界？Alert yourself, straighten your back, breathe the stale air out of your lungs, and direct your awareness into clear space to freshen your mind. 要保持清醒，背部挺直，呼出肺部污浊的空气，把你的觉醒力导向清明的虚空，清醒你的心。
If you remain in this stagnant state you will not evolve, so whenever this setback arises, clear it again and again. It is important to be as watchful as possible, and to stay as vigilant as you can.” 如果你继续停留在这沉滞的境界，你就无法进入禅定。所以当此阻碍发生时，你必须一一清除，尽量保持警醒，这是很重要的。
DUDJOM RINPOCHE
——敦珠仁波切
August 7
The moment of death is a tremendous opportunity, if we understand clearly what is happening and have prepared well for it in life. 如果我们能清楚了解所发生的事，且生前已做好万全的准备，死亡的那一刻就是个绝佳的开悟时机。
For at the actual moment of death, the thinking ego-mind dies into the essence, and in this truth, enlightenment takes place. 在死亡真正发生时，思考的自我心，会消逝而进入本体之内。在此真相之中，觉悟就发生了。
If we familiarize ourselves with the true nature of mind through practice while we are alive, we become more prepared for when it reveals itself spontaneously at the moment of death. 如果我们生前就藉由修行，熟悉我们的自性，在死亡那一刻，自性自然显现时，我们就有了更充分的准备。Recognition then follows as naturally as a child running into its mother’s lap. Remaining in that state, we are liberated. 就像孩子自然认出母亲，奔向妈****膝下一样，安住在这个境界，我们就能开悟。
August 8
Sentient beings are as limitless as the whole of space: 有情众生遍满整个虚空，无边无际，
May they each effortlessly realize the nature of their mind, 愿他们毫不费力就能证悟自性，
And may every single being of all the six realms, who has each been in one life or another my father or mother,
六道的每一众生，
都曾是我前世的父母，
Attain all together the ground of primordial perfection.
祈愿他们一同达到本初的圆满境地。
August 9
What most of us need, almost more than anything, is the courage and humility really to ask for help, from the depths of our hearts: to ask for the compassion of the enlightened beings, to ask for purification and healing, to ask for the power to understand the meaning of our suffering and transform it; at a relative level to ask for the growth in our lives of clarity, peace, and discernment, and to ask for the realization of the absolute nature of mind that comes from merging with the deathless wisdom mind of the master. 大部分人最需要的，就是打从内心深处真正祈求的勇气和谦逊；祈求开悟的慈悲；祈求净化和治疗；祈求了解痛苦的意义和转化的方法；在相对层面上，祈求生活越来越清明、安详和睿智，并祈求与上师的永恒智慧心相结合，以觉悟绝对的自性。
August 10
This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance.
A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,
Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.
BUDDHA
我们的存在就像秋天的云一样虚幻短暂，
看着众生的生死，就像看着舞步的变换，
生命就如空中的闪电，
就像山涧冲写而下，奔腾不已。
——佛陀
August 11
To work with changes now, in life: That is the real way to prepare for death. 在我们活着的时候，要当下正视改变；这是为死亡作准备的最好方法。
Life may be full of pain, suffering, and difficulty, but all of these are opportunities handed to us to help us move toward an emotional acceptance of death. 生命也许充满痛苦、悲伤和艰难，但这也是帮助我们面对死亡的大好时机。It is only when we believe things to be permanent that we shut off the possibility of learning from change. 当我们相信万物是永恒时，就无法从改变中学习。
August 12
My master had a student called Apa Pant, a distinguished Indian diplomat and author, who served as Indian ambassador in a number of capital cities around the world. He was also a practitioner of meditation and yoga, 我的上师有个学生名叫阿帕·潘特(Apa Pant)，是个杰出的外交官和作家，曾任印度驻许多国家的大使，也是禅修和瑜伽的修行者。and each time he saw my master, he would always ask him “how to meditate.” He was following an Eastern tradition where the student keeps asking the master one simple, basic question over and over again. 他每次遇见我的上师，总会问：“如何禅修？”他遵循东方传统：学生要一再询问上师一个简单而基本的问题。
One day when our master Jamyang Khyentse was watching a Lama Dance in front of the Palace Temple in Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim, he was chuckling at the antics of the atsara, the clown who provides light relief between dances. Apa Pant kept pestering him, asking him again and again how to meditate, 有一天，当我的上师蒋扬钦哲正在锡金的首都刚德的皇宫寺前，观看喇嘛舞的表演时，被剧中丑角的滑稽动作逗得咯咯笑，阿帕·潘特却一直去吵他，问他如何禅修。so this time when my master replied, it was in such a way as to let him know that he was telling him once and for all: “Look, it’s like this: When the past thought has ceased, and the future thought has not yet risen, isn’t there a gap?” 这次上师决定告诉他一个最根本的答案：“瞧，就像这个：当过去的思想消失，未来的思想还没生起，这中间不是有个间隙吗？”
“Yes,” said Apa Pant. “是。”阿帕·潘特回答。
“Well, prolong it: That is meditation.” “这就对了，延长它，这就是禅修。”
August 13
The most compassionate insight of my tradition and its noblest contribution to the spiritual wisdom of humanity has been its understanding and repeated enactment of the ideal of the bodhisattva, 西藏传统中最慈悲的智慧，及其对人类心灵智慧最神圣的贡献，就是对菩萨典范的理解和反复实践。the being who takes on the suffering of all sentient beings, who undertakes the journey to liberation not for his or her own good alone but to help all others, and who eventually, after attaining liberation, does not dissolve into the absolute or flee the agony of samsara, but chooses to return again and again to devote his or her wisdom and compassion to the service of the whole world. 菩萨就是承担众生痛苦的人，他修行解脱，不只是为了自己，也是为了帮助他人。甚至，在他证悟解脱之后，并不就此溶入绝对的境界，也不逃避轮回的痛苦，反而一再回到世间，以他的智慧和慈悲奉献给全世界。
August 14
One of the greatest of Tibet’s many woman masters, Ma Chik Lap Drön, said: 玛姬拉度(Ma Chik Lap Dron)是西藏伟大的女性上师，她说： “Alert, alert; yet relax, relax. This is a crucial point for the View in meditation.” “要警觉，警觉；可是也要放松，放松。这是禅坐时‘见’的重要关健。
Alert your alertness, but at the same time be relaxed, so relaxed in fact that you don’t even hold onto an idea of relaxation. 保持你的警觉心，也要放松，要放松到连放松的念头都要放掉。
August 15
The successive existences in a series of rebirths are not like the pearls in a pearl necklace, held together by a string, the ‘soul,’ which passes through all the pearls; rather they are like dice piled one on top of the other. 轮回过程的相续存在，并不像珍珠项链上的珍珠，被一根灵魂的线串在一起；好像一堆骰子互相堆叠在一起。Each die is separate, but it supports the one above it, with which it is functionally connected. Between the dice there is no identity, but conditionality. 每个骰子都是分开的，却要支撑着上面的骰子，所以在功能上是相互联接的。每个骰子之间并无实体存在，只有因缘条件的和合。
H. W. SCHUMANN
THE HISTORICAL BUDDHA
——H. W. Schumann，历史上的佛陀
August 16
The more often you listen to your discriminating awareness, the more easily you will be able to change your negative moods yourself, see through them, and even laugh at them for the absurd dramas and ridiculous illusions that they are. 你越常听从你的觉察力，就越容易改变你的烦恼，看穿它们，甚至嘲笑它们的荒谬和可笑的虚幻。
Gradually you will find yourself able to free yourself more and more quickly from the dark emotions that have ruled your life, and this ability to do so is the greatest miracle of all. 慢慢地，你会发现自己越能从驾驭你的黑暗情绪中挣脱出来，这种能力的展现就是最大的奇迹。
The Tibetan mystic, Tertön Sogyal, said that he was not really impressed by someone who could turn the floor into the ceiling or fire into water. A real miracle, he said, was if someone could liberate just one negative emotion. 西藏的神秘学家特顿·索甲(Terton Sogyal)曾说，若有人能把地板变成天花板，将火变成水，他并不会感到惊讶。但是如果有人能够解脱，即使只解脱一种烦恼，那才是真正的奇迹。
August 17
Bereavement can force you to look at your life directly, compelling you to find a purpose in it where there may not have been one before. 亲人的死亡会迫使你直接面对生命，强迫你去发掘以前从未发现的人生目的。When suddenly you find yourself alone after the death of someone you love, it can feel as if you are being given a new life and are being asked: “What will you do with this life? And why do you wish to continue living?” 你的亲人过世后，你突然觉得很寂寞，会感觉好像被赐予了新的生命，好像有人问你：“这辈子你打算怎么过？为什么你想继续活下去？”
My heartfelt advice to those in the depths of grief and despair after losing someone they dearly loved is to pray for help and strength and grace. 对这些失去挚爱亲人而陷入悲伤绝望的人，我诚心的忠告是祈示帮助、力量和恩典。Pray that you will survive and discover the richest possible meaning to the new life you now find yourself in. 祈祷你要活下去，并发掘你所面对新生命的丰富意涵。Be vulnerable and receptive, be courageous and patient. Above all, look into your life to find ways of sharing your love more deeply with others now. 要接纳忧伤，要勇敢和有耐心。另外，最重要的是要正视你的生命，学习把你的爱与他人分享。
August 18
Planning for the future is like going fishing in a dry gulch;
计划未来就像在干河中垂钓；
Nothing ever works out as you wanted, so give up all your schemes and ambitions.
再怎么费心还是徒劳无功，
所以，放下企图和野心。
If you have got to think about something—
如果你还要思考什么，
Make it the uncertainty of the hour of your death.
那么想想你不知何时来临的死亡吧！
GYALSÉ RINPOCHE
——杰西仁波切（Gyalse Rinpoche）
August 19
Again and again we need to appreciate the subtle workings of the teachings and the practice, and even when there is no extraordinary, dramatic change, to persevere with calm and patience. 我们应不断觉察教法和修行的微细运作，甚至当已没有明显的、戏剧性的变化，以固持我们的沉静和毅力时，也要如此。
How important it is to be skillful and gentle with ourselves, without becoming disheartened or giving up, but trusting the spiritual path and knowing that it has its own laws and its own dynamics. 要善用技巧且温和地对待自己，永远不要沮丧放弃，只要信守心灵之路，并了解它有他的律则和必经的历程。
August 20
At every moment in our lives we need compassion, but what more urgent moment could there be than when we are dying? 生命中的每个时刻都需要慈悲，但还有什么时候比临终时更迫切需要？What more wonderful and consoling gift could you give to dying people than the knowledge that they are being prayed for, and that you are taking on their suffering and purifying their negative karma through your practice for them? 让临终者知道你在为他祈祷，你正透过修行承担他的痛苦，净化他的罪业，还有什么礼物比这个更美好、更令人感到欣慰的吗？
Even if they don’t know that you are practicing for them, you are helping them and in turn they are helping you. 即使他并不知道你在为他们修行，实际上你也帮助了他，而他同时也帮助了你。 They are actively helping you to develop your compassion, and so to purify and heal yourself. 他们正在积极地帮助你发展慈悲心，而能净化和治疗你自己。
For me, all dying people are teachers, giving to all those who help them a chance to transform themselves through developing their compassion. 对我而言，每个临终者都是老师，因为他给予帮助他的人，一个经由修行慈悲而转化自我的机会。
August 21
When you meditate, keep your mouth slightly open as if about to say a deep, relaxing “Aaah.” 禅坐时，嘴巴要微开，好像发出深沉的、放松的“阿”声。By keeping the mouth slightly open and breathing mainly through the mouth, it is said that the “karmic winds” that create discursive thoughts are normally less likely to arise and create obstacles in your mind and meditation. 嘴巴微张，由口呼吸，这样可使业风(Karmic winds)所生的杂念较不易生起，而障碍了你的心和禅定。
August 22
Do not make the mistake of imagining that the nature of mind is exclusive only to our minds. It is in fact the nature of everything. 不要犯了这个错误，以为只有我们的心才有自性。事实上，它是万物的本质It can never be said too often that to realize the nature of mind is to realize the nature of all things.。我们要不断强调：证悟自性，就是证悟万物的本质。
August 23
If you find that meditation does not come easily in your city room, be inventive and go out into nature. 如果你发现自己在尘世中不易修行，可发挥创意，走入大自然。Nature is always an unfailing fountain of inspiration. 大自然永远是灵感的泉源。To calm your mind, go for a walk at dawn in the park, or watch the dew on a rose in a garden. 要让你的心灵宁静，可以在清晨到公园散步，或欣赏花园里玫瑰花上的露珠。Lie on the ground and gaze up into the sky, and let your mind expand into its spaciousness. Let the sky outside awaken a sky inside your mind. 你可躺卧地上，仰望苍穹，让心延伸到无垠的天际。让外在的天空唤醒你内在的天空。Stand by a stream and mingle your mind with its rushing; become one with its ceaseless sound. 你可以佇立在溪前，让心与奔腾的流水交相融合，与潺潺的水声合而为一。
Sit by a waterfall and let its healing laughter purify your spirit. 你可以站在瀑布旁边，让它具有疗效的笑声净化你的心灵。Walk on a beach and take the sea wind full and sweet against your face. 你可以散步在沙滩上，让海风亲密地吹袭着你的脸庞。Celebrate and use the beauty of moonlight to poise your mind. 你可以高声欢庆，让美丽的月光抚慰你的心。Sit by a lake or in a garden and, breathing quietly, let your mind fall silent as the moon comes up majestically and slowly in the cloudless night. 你可坐在湖边或花园中，静静地呼吸。当月亮自无云的夜空中优雅地缓缓升起时，让你的心灵平静下来。
August 24
In death all the components of the body and mind are stripped away and disintegrate. 死亡时，组成身心的一切元素都会败坏崩离。As the body dies, the senses and subtle elements dissolve, and this is followed by the death of the ordinary aspect of the mind, with all its negative emotions of anger, desire, and ignorance. 当身体死亡时，感官和微细的元素都会分解，接着是凡夫心（the ordinary aspect of the mind）的死亡，嗔、痴和无明等一切烦恼也跟着死去。Finally nothing remains to obscure our true nature, as everything that in life has clouded the enlightened mind has fallen away. And what is revealed is the primordial ground of our absolute nature, which is like a pure and cloudless sky. 最后什么都不留下，障蔽自性的东西一一消散。这时所显露出的是绝对本质的本初地，它就像纯净无云的天空。
This is called the dawning of the Ground Luminosity, or Clear Light, where consciousness itself dissolves into the all-encompassing space of truth. 这称为“地光明”(Ground Luminosity)或“明光”（Clear Light）的显现，意识本身溶入无所不在的真理之中。The Tibetan Book of the Dead says of this moment: 《西藏度亡经》(The Tibetan Book of the Dead)描述这个时刻为：
The nature of everything is open, empty and naked like the sky. 万物的本质是开放、空荡、裸露如同虚空，
Luminous emptiness, without center or circumference; 光明的空性，没有中心和边际；
the pure, naked Rigpa dawns. 纯净、裸露的本觉显现出来。
August 25
These teachings on the bardos come from the wisdom mind of the buddhas, who can see life and death like looking in the palms of their hands. 中阴教授来自诸佛的智慧心，他们看透生死，易如反掌。
We too are buddhas. So if we can practice in the bardo of this life, and go deeper and deeper into the nature of our mind, then we can discover this knowledge of the bardos, and the truth of these teachings will unfold in us by itself. 我们也是佛。所以，如果我们能在此生中阴好好修行，更加深入探究我们的自性，就可以领悟中阴的智慧，其真理会在我们身上显现出来。
That is why the natural bardo of this life is of the utmost importance. 这就是此生的自然中阴最为重要的原因。 It is here and now that the whole preparation for all the bardos takes place. “The supreme way of preparing,” it is said, “is now—to become enlightened in this lifetime.”因为所有中阴所做的准备都要在此生完成。中阴救度法认为：“最好的准备就是当下立行——今世就要开悟。”
August 26
Sometimes when I meditate, I don’t use any particular method. 我有时候禅坐并不采取某种特别的方法。I just allow my mind to rest, and I find, especially when I am inspired, that I can bring my mind home and relax very quickly.我只是让心好好安歇，然后就会发觉，尤其是在受到启发的时刻，我可以快速地把心带回家和放松。
I sit quietly and rest in the nature of mind; I don’t question or doubt whether I am in the “correct” state. There is no effort, only a rich understanding, wakefulness, and unshakable certainty. 我静静地坐着，安歇在自性之中；不用去质疑自己是否处在“正确”的境界中。不用费任何力气，只有深深的了解、觉醒和无可撼动的安定。
When I am in the nature of mind, the ordinary mind is no longer there. There is no need to sustain or confirm a sense of being: I simply am. A fundamental trust is present. There is nothing in particular to do. 当我处在自性之中时，凡夫心已消失无踪了。根本不需要去维持和确定自己的存在：我只是我。一种基本的信赖感就产生了，不需要再特别做什么。
August 27
When the View is constant,
The flow of Rigpa unfailing,
And the merging of the two luminosities continuous and spontaneous,
All possible delusion is liberated at its very root,
And your entire perception arises, without a break, as Rigpa.
当“见”接连产生时，
本觉之流持续涌现，
两种光明自然地融合，
一切妄想都彻底解脱，
你不断生起的觉受就是本觉。
A term such as meditation is not really appropriate for Dzogchen practice, 像“禅定”之类的词汇并不十分适合大圆满修法。you can see, as ultimately it implies meditating “on” something, whereas in Dzogchen all is only and forever Rigpa. So there is no question of a meditation separate from simply abiding by the pure presence of Rigpa. 根本上，禅定暗示着“观”某物，而大圆满就只有永恒的本觉而已。所以，除了安住于本觉的纯净显现，没有禅定的问题。
The only word that could possibly describe this is non-meditation. 唯一比较可以描述它的是“非禅定”(non-meditation)。In this state, the masters say, even if you look for delusion there is none left. Even if you looked for ordinary pebbles on an island of gold and jewels, you wouldn’t have a chance of finding any. 上师们说，在此境界，妄念也消失得无影无踪了。就算你想在满地黄金宝石的岛上，寻找普通的石头，也是不可能找到的。
August 28
If this elephant of mind is bound on all sides by the cord of mindfulness,
All fear disappears and complete happiness comes.
All enemies: all the tigers, lions, elephants, bears, serpents (of our emotions);
And all the keepers of hell; the demons and the horrors,
All of these are bound by the mastery of your mind,
And by the taming of that one mind, all are subdued,
Because from the mind are derived all fears and immeasurable sorrows.
SHANTIDEVA
如果这头心的大象，
被正念的绳索牢牢捆住，
所有的恐惧就会消失，
完全的喜悦就会来临。
所有的敌人：我们情绪的老虎、狮子、大象、熊和蛇，
及所有地狱的监护者、恶魔及恐怖，
因为你驾驭了你的心，
它们全都被绑缚和驯服，
因为一切的恐惧和烦恼都来自于心。
——寂天菩萨
August 29
Grant your blessings so that my mind may be one with the Dharma.
Grant your blessings so that Dharma may progress along the path.
Grant your blessings so that the path may clarify confusion.
Grant your blessings so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.
GAMPOPA
授予您的加持，让心灵与法合一；
授予您的加持，让法向正道前进；
授予您的加持，让正道净化困惑；
授予您的加持，让困惑浮现智慧。
——冈波巴大师
August 30
Each time the losses and deceptions of life teach us about impermanence, they bring us closer to the truth. 生命的每次失落和迷惑，都在教导我们无常的道理，让我们更接近真理。
When you fall from a great height, there is only one possible place to land: on the ground—the ground of truth. 当你从极高处掉落时，只会掉在地上——真理之地。And if you have the understanding that comes from spiritual practice, then falling is in no way a disaster, but the discovery of an inner refuge. 如果你的修行有所成就，那么从高处跌下就不是灾难，而是内在皈依的发现处。
August 31
Switch on the television or glance at the newspaper: You will see death everywhere. 打开电视或翻翻报纸，你会发现到处都有死亡发生。Yet, did the victims of those plane crashes and car accidents expect to die? They took life for granted, as we do. 这些空难和车祸的受难者可曾想到他们会死？他们和我们一样，视生命为理所当然。How often do we hear stories of people whom we know, or even friends, who died unexpectedly? 有多少我们认识的人和朋友突然死去？We don’t even have to be ill to die: Our bodies can suddenly break down and go out of order, just like our cars. 我们甚至不生病也会死；我们的身体可能像车子一样突然停摆，无法正常运作； We can be quite well one day, then fall sick and die the next. 也可能今天还好好的，明天就生病或死掉了。
生死无惧 八月
［此帖子已被 索能王莫 在 2007-8-29 10:51:10 编辑过］
