Meditation and Immortality —— Nan Huai Jin

Immortality is indeed possible.

In my life, many people have asked these questions countless times. A person who has been a doctor for decades, without the benevolent embrace of religious scholars, sometimes really hates himself for "why didn't he learn spring ploughing at that time" and is too lazy to talk about pathology; At the same time, people who hate medical treatment are stubborn and refuse to cooperate. Although I am not a doctor, I really lack patience to answer these puzzling mental diseases in detail. Sometimes people ask these questions, and I will say, "When will you really see the immortal people in the world?" ? Not to mention others: some people have lived for hundreds of years, and Guang and Xu Shu are still living on Mount Emei and Mount Qingcheng. Absolutely no one dares to invite immortals to meet people in person. Secondly, I want to ask: do you think meditation is monasticism? What is Tao? How to fix it? Why do you still sit still while practicing monasticism? Almost five of the ten answers are for "eliminating diseases and prolonging life" and "eliminating disasters and prolonging life". When it comes to meditation and monasticism, most people want to know the methods of meditation and how to get through the second pulse of Ren Du and the eighth pulse of Qi Jing, or the three classics and seven rounds of Tantric Buddhism. But they all forgot the foundation of the highest philosophical theory, that is, cultivating immortals and sitting on the ground to get through the second pulse of Ren Du. Because a person practices monasticism for his own immortality, this is an extreme manifestation of human selfishness. If it is Guo Tao who opens the physical pulse, then this Tao is the crystallization of materialism after all. Tao, is it a heart or a thing? Most people refuse to go here for further study. ?

So, is it impossible for human beings to live forever? Otherwise! Otherwise! To solve this problem, we must first understand two different contents:

(1) The so-called longevity is an extension of "eliminating diseases and prolonging life". A person knows a lot of knowledge necessary for health preservation, so that he can live happily and painlessly when he is alive. In case he dies, he will die happily, without disturbing himself or dragging others down. This is the hardest happiness in life.

(2) The so-called immortality refers not to the eternity of physical life, but to the eternity of spiritual life. But what is the so-called spiritual life here? Its ontology is a primitive life that exists independently outside the mind and things; Its function and phenomenon are the existing state of life consciousness and psychology. As for mental state, what is it? That's another very troublesome and complicated problem, which will be discussed later. In fact, the so-called cultivation since ancient times, even the highest requirement of any religion, is to find this thing and return to this realm. It is only because of the differences in cultural systems and regional languages that its meaning is expressed in various ways.

So, can Tao be completely repaired? Is it really possible to "get rid of illness and prolong life" and "live forever"? As far as I know, I can boldly say that there is a way to fix it, and it is possible to live forever. But it must be understood that this is, after all, a personal achievement, not a cause that will benefit people after China's entry into WTO. If we want to satisfy all kinds of real life and become immortal at the same time, it is useless to ask questions. There is a story in "Talking about Orchid": A famous public official and high official heard that there was a monk who lived for more than 200 years and was still very young, so he asked him for the tips of monasticism. The Taoist said, "I have never been close to a woman in my life." Hearing this, the giant said, "What's the point? Why should I practice Buddhism? " In fact, in addition to the relationship between men and women, some desires in real life are better than those between men and women, and there are more and more. At the same time, we should understand that "longevity" is the greatest desire in life, and of course it is also the biggest reason to hinder monasticism. In this world, if a person wants to learn a certain specialty, he must give up other aspects of development, not to mention reaching a realm beyond ordinary people. The Yin Fu Jing of Taoism says, "Never benefit from one source, but ten times as much as the teacher." If you have no desire for beauty, it is absolutely impossible to achieve a beautiful and carefree way. At least, that's what I know, but beyond that, I don't know.

The method of sitting still?

As for the question of how many ways to sit still, as far as I know, there is only one way to sit still. If you want to say how many sitting postures are there? Then, there are about 96 kinds. However, the general purpose of all methods is to seek "quietness". So "silence" is the Tao? Otherwise, why do you have to ask for "silence"? These are two issues and two different concepts, including three main points, which cannot be confused.

(1) Static and dynamic are two opposite nouns. Generally speaking, the concepts of these two opposing nouns represent two opposing states in natural physical phenomena. In short, they refer to two activities in life: stillness, action and rest? State. Tao is not static, dynamic and static, which are all functions of Tao. Tao is moving and static, which can also be said to be moving. Therefore, it is very problematic to think that "quietness" is Tao.

(2) Seeking "quietness" is an inevitable method of health cultivation, which can also be said to be a basic method. As far as health preservation is concerned (including the requirements of health and longevity), the source of all life functions grows from "quietness", which is a natural function. In nature, the growth of any animal, plant or mineral enriches its life function from "quietness". Especially the seed of a flower, a millet, wheat, etc., all grow statically and wither dynamically. A person's life is often equated with activities, that is, rest. Sleep is an inertial gesture that people need to rest, and the endless kinetic energy of life is also renewed by adequate rest. ?

Therefore, Lao Tzu said, "Everything in the world belongs to the origin. After all, quiet is to restore life. " "Quiet is a manic monarch." As well as the principles of Taoism "Jing" that came out later, and even Ceng Zi wrote "University", the idea is that "Zhi Zhi can decide later, decide later and be quiet, be quiet and secure later, worry later and get later." And so on, are the results of observing nature and imitating the laws of nature. Even the meditation of Buddhism (China's later Buddhism, translated as meditation) is no exception.

(3) In terms of mental state, quietness is a hotbed for cultivating innate "wisdom". Human knowledge comes from the instinct of acquired life, using intelligence and brain. "Wisdom" comes from a flash of light in "stillness". Therefore, Buddhism's "three-no-omissions" study of precepts, precepts and wisdom is also centered on meditation, thus achieving the achievement of "Prajna" wisdom.

So, what methods are used to seek "quietness"? This is a ridiculous question, people ask it so easily. "Quiet" means "quiet". Wouldn't it be more and more turbulent if we tried our best to be "quiet" and tried our best to be "quiet"? If you are in meditation, you can simply answer: "Your heart is in trouble, you should have a rest." From this point of view, "seeking quietness" is simply wrong, or "no need to seek quietness"! This may not be the case. There is no need to be too arrogant, but modestly speaking, the psychological and physiological state of ordinary people is often used to dynamics; In psychological aspects, such as consciousness, thought, perception, emotion, etc. It is like a waterfall with many heads, a surging river. There is really a trend of "the Yangtze River is rolling in"; Physiologically, the passage of blood, the feeling of nerves and the operation of breath will always have a bittersweet feeling, especially when sitting quietly. If the body has hidden the root of the disease, it may feel sour, painful, cold, hot and itchy, which is even stronger than when it is not quiet. "The tree wants to be quiet, but the wind will not stop." If the heart wants to be quiet, the more turmoil it is. Therefore, people who are generally beginners can't sit still, and often find that their thoughts are chaotic, even more agitated than when they don't sit. Therefore, they are even more frightened and think that they should not "sit still and wait for death", or add legends such as martial arts novels and folk myths. I am afraid that "sitting still and waiting for death" will be "possessed". In fact, this is all unknown. I put my head on my head, making mistakes and misunderstanding, which constitutes a psychological shadow.

Psychosomatic state of meditation?

In order to understand the psychological and physical problems in meditation, we should start with psychology. Dude, why are you sitting still? Of course, there are many reasons for this. It is too general to say "my bald head will return to Buddha all my life" or "I want to leave this world" To sum up, as mentioned above, there is always a purpose for "cultivation", "health preservation" and "heart cultivation".

Who produced this purpose? Of course it will say, "it's me." So, what is my motivation? It must be said: "it is the heart." The so-called heart here includes modern concepts such as brain, consciousness and thought. Well, since my "heart" wants to "sit", or "sit" first seeks "Zen", why can't I feel calm when I "sit"? Little did I know that my mind and thoughts, from birth to death, from morning till night, are used to thinking, which is like a never-ending waterfall; It's just a habit to exist with life. I don't think there are so many ideas at ordinary times. Once it's time to "sit still", I will find that my mind is too confused when I calm down.

In fact, this is the first step of "sitting". For example, like a cup of turbid water, there is no dust at all when it is turbid. If you put this glass of water there safely and quietly and add a little clarifier, you will soon find that the dust and dregs in the glass have settled down. It is not because this glass of water is in a quiet state that there is dust. Because it is still being discovered. Another example is a house. Generally, dust is invisible. When the sun suddenly passed through the gap, it was discovered that there was dust flying around in the light gap. You should neither clean it nor remove it in some way. As long as you don't shake, increase or decrease, and slowly stop flying, you will naturally stop flying.

But the most likely problem here is that when a quiet situation comes, you will often want to sleep, or unconsciously, you will enter a state of sleep. What should we do in this situation? At this time, you should carefully examine and understand yourself. If it comes from physical and mental fatigue or mental fatigue, you might as well simply let yourself go to sleep, and then "sit still" when you have enough sleep and your spirit is bright and clear. If you find that your body and mind are not tired, you'd better get up and do some exercise, or especially lift your spirits to keep yourself in a moderately stable state of rest.