Mindfulness In Plain English

佛教禅修直解

by Mahathera Henepola Gunaratana

德宝法师著作
梁国雄居士译

Chapter 9: Set Up Exercises

第九章 禅修前的唸诵

In Theravada Buddhist countries, it is traditional to begin each meditation session with the recitation of a certain set of formulas. An American audience is likely to take one glance at these invocations and to dismiss them as harmless rituals and nothing more. The so-called rituals, however, have been devised and refined by a set of pragmatic and dedicated men and women, and they have a thoroughly practical purpose. They are therefore worthy of deeper inspection.

在南传佛教国家的传统里，每次禅修前都要唸诵一些预定的诵文，外国人看了并不在意，以为这些祈祷只不过是些无伤大雅的仪式，此外别无其他意义。其实，这些所谓仪式，是由一些注重实效和虔诚的人士所设定和改良出来的，它们具有深远的实用价值，因此，对它们作深入一点考察是值得的。

The Buddha was considered contrary in his own day. He was born into an intensely over-ritualized society, and his ideas appeared thoroughly iconoclastic to the established hierarchy of his own era. On numerous occasions, he disavowed the use of rituals for their own sake, and he was quite adamant about it. This does not mean that ritual has no use. It means that ritual by itself, performed strictly for it's own sake, will not get you out of the trap. If you believe that mere recitation of words will save you, then you only increase your own dependence on words and concepts. This moves you away from the wordless perception of reality rather than toward it. Therefore, the formulae which follow must be practiced with a clear understanding of what they are and why they work. They are not magical incantations. They are psychological cleansing devices which require active mental participation in order to be effective. Mumbled words without intention are useless. Vipassana meditation is a delicate psychological activity, and the mental set of the practitioner is crucial to its success. The technique works best in an atmosphere of calm, benevolent confidence. And these recitations have been designed to foster those attitudes. Correctly used, they can act as a helpful tool on the path to liberation.

佛陀在他的年代被认为是叛逆的。他出生于一个高度仪式化的社会，他的见解与当时已建立起来的宗教制度截然不同，在许多场合里，他都反对为了仪式而使用仪式，并且对此立场毫不动摇。但这不是说仪式毫无用处，而是说完全为了仪式本身而做仪式，并不能使你脱离困境。如果你相信仅靠唸唸有词就能得救，那只会增强你对语言、概念的依赖性，令你远离而非接近对实相之无言觉知。因此，唸诵下述的诵文时，应先清楚了解它们的内容和所以生效的原故，它们不是有神奇效用的咒语，它们是心理清洁工具，需要你精神上的积极参与才能有效，没有意愿的唸诵是不会有效的。内观禅是细致、精巧的心理活动，行者的心理定向或心理取态(Mental Set)对它的成就是至关重要的，它在宁静、慈爱、信任的气氛下进行会最佳，禅修前的唸诵就是为了促进这些心理定向而设计的；若使用正确，可成为解脱道上的有用工具。

The Threefold Guidance

三重引导(佛法僧三宝)

Meditation is a tough job. It is an inherently solitary activity. One person battles against enormously powerful forces, part of the very structure of the mind doing the meditating. When you really get into it, you will eventually find yourself confronted with a shocking realization. One day you will look inside and realize the full enormity of what you are actually up against. What you are struggling to pierce looks like a solid wall so tightly knit that not a single ray of light shines through. You find yourself sitting there, staring at this edifice and you say to yourself, "That? I am supposed to get past that? But it's impossible! That is all there is. That is the whole world. That is what everything means, and that is what I use to define myself and to understand everything around me, and if I take that away the whole world will fall apart and I will die. I cannot get through that. I just can't."

禅修是一项艰巨任务，它本质上是一种孤军作战的个人活动，一个人要与相当强大的力量搏斗，那力量不是别的，就是那正在进行禅修的心理结构本身的一部分。当你真正投入之后，你终究会面对一惊人体验：一天，你向内观察时，突然了解到要面对的力量规模，竟是如此巨大；你正奋力穿越的东西，有如一堵铜墙铁壁，全不透光。你发觉自己坐在那里，长时间盯着那巨大建筑，自言自语道：「那个东西？就是那个我要超越的东西？那是不可能的！那是整个存在，那是整个世界，那是所谓的一切事事物物，而那正是我定义自己、了解世界周围事物的根据，如我把它拿开，整个世界将会崩解，而我亦会死亡，我是无法超越它的，我实在不能。」

It is a very scary feeling, a very lonely feeling. You feel like, "Here I am, all alone, trying to punch away something so huge it is beyond conception." To counteract this feeling, it is useful to know that you are not alone. Others have passed this way before. They have confronted that same barrier, and they have pushed their way through to the light. They have laid out the rules by which the job can be done, and they have banded together into a brotherhood for mutual encouragement and support. The Buddha found his way through this very same wall, and after him came many others. He left clear instructions in the form of the Dhamma to guide us along the same path. And he founded the Sangha, the brotherhood of monks to preserve that path and to keep each other on it. You are not alone, and the situation is not hopeless.

这是一种非常骇人、孤独的感觉，你好像觉得：「这儿只有我孤单一个人，在试图击退那超乎想像的庞然巨物。」要抵消这种感受，知道你并不孤单是很有用的。往昔已有人走过，他们也面对过同样的障碍，成功地开辟出通往光明的道路，他们设下完成此工程的规则，且组织了一群志同道合的伙伴在一起，互相支持与鼓励。佛陀为自己找到穿越那壁垒的方法，跟随他的教导，很多人也能做到。他留下清晰的称为「法(Dhamma)」的教导，用来引导我们走同样的道路。他也成立了僧团(Sangha)[1]，一个由比丘与比丘尼构成的团体，俾能维护「法」，以及团结志同道合的人。你并不孤单，那状况亦不是无法解决的。

Meditation takes energy. You need courage to confront some pretty difficult mental phenomena and the determination to sit through various unpleasant mental states. Laziness just will not serve. In order to pump up your energy for the job, repeat the following statements to yourself. Feel the intention you put into them. Mean what you say.

禅修需要精进力，你需要勇气来面对一些相当棘手的心理现象，以及决心在难忍的心态中完成禅坐。懒惰是不行的，为了激发起用功的精进力，试对自己重复下面语句，同时感受着自己的热切期望，要说到做到：

"I am about to tread the very path that has been walked by the Buddha and by his great and holy disciples. An indolent person cannot follow that path. May my energy prevail. May I succeed."

「我已准备好走佛陀及他的圣弟子走过的路，懒惰的人是走不下去的，因此，愿我能精力充沛，愿我能成功！」

Universal Loving-Kindness

普及的慈爱

Vipassana meditation is an exercise in mindfulness, egoless awareness. It is a procedure in which the ego will be eradicated by the penetrating gaze of mindfulness. The practitioner begins this process with the ego in full command of mind and body. Then, as mindfulness watches the ego function, it penetrates to the roots of the mechanics of ego and extinguishes ego piece by piece. There is a full blown Catch-22 in all this, however. Mindfulness is egoless awareness. If we start with ego in full control, how do we put enough mindfulness there at the beginning to get the job started? There is always some mindfulness present in any moment. The real problem is to gather enough of it to be effective. To do this we can use a clever tactic. We can weaken those aspects of ego which do the most harm, so that mindfulness will have less resistance to overcome.

内观禅是一种静观(留意觉察)或无我的觉知(Egoless Awareness)练习。它是一种藉着静观的深入洞察与凝视来消除「自我(Ego)」的过程。于修习开始时，行者先以「自我」来完全操控身心，之后，随着静观注视「自我」的功能生效，静观直透「自我」结构的根源，把「自我」逐步地消除。然而，这里有一个两难的局面：静观是无我的觉知，如果我们一开始就以「自我」作全盘操控，我们怎么能在开始时就有足够的静观力来启动禅修的工作呢？其实在任何时刻皆有一定程度的静观力的，问题是如何累积到足够有效的静观力而已；幸运地，有一妙法可达此目的，我们可削弱「自我」有大杀伤力那方面，从而减轻静观要克服的阻碍。

Greed and hatred are the prime manifestations of the ego process. To the extent that grasping and rejecting are present in the mind, mindfulness will have a very rough time. The results of this are easy to see. If you sit down to meditate while you are in the grip of some strong obsessive attachment, you will find that you will get nowhere. If you are all hung up in your latest scheme to make more money, you probably will spend most of your meditation period doing nothing but thinking about it. If you are in a black fury over some recent insult, that will occupy your mind just as fully. There is only so much time in one day, and your meditation minutes are precious. It is best not to waste them. The Theravada tradition has developed a useful tool which will allow you to remove these barriers from your mind at least temporarily, so that you can get on with the job of removing their roots permanently.

贪与瞋是「自我」运作的实质表现，心中的执取与抗拒越重，静观的修习亦会越加困难。这种结果是不难看到的，例如，你一面禅坐、一面念念不忘心中强迫性的依恋执着，你是无法进展的。此外，如你满脑子想着近来的赚钱大计，你的坐禅时间可能大部分都花在这些赚钱念头之中。再者，如果你因最近受到的屈辱而盛怒，它也会占据你的心的。每天就只这么多时间，因此，禅修的每一分钟都是宝贵的，最好不要浪费。南传佛教的传统发展了一种有用方法，可帮助你暂时移开那些障碍，好让你继续用功，把它们永远消除。

You can use one idea to cancel another. You can balance a negative emotion by instilling a positive one. Giving is the opposite of greed. Benevolence is the opposite of hatred. Understand clearly now: This is not an attempt to liberate yourself by autohypnosis. You cannot condition Enlightenment. Nibbana is an unconditioned state. A liberated person will indeed be generous and benevolent, but not because he has been conditioned to be so. He will be so purely as a manifestation of his own basic nature, which is no longer inhibited by ego. So this is not conditioning. This is rather psychological medicine. If you take this medicine according to directions, it will bring temporary relief from the symptoms of the malady from which you are currently suffering. Then you can get to work in earnest on the illness itself.

你可用一个意念来抵消另一个，有负面情绪时，你可注入一个正面的情绪来平衡它。例如，慷慨(布施)可抗衡贪欲，仁慈可对治瞋恨。请现在就要弄清楚：这不是采用自我催眠来达成解脱的尝试，你是不能用此制约方式来达致开悟的，因为涅槃[2]是无为法(Unconditioned State)。一个已解脱的圣者肯定会慷慨和仁慈，可是，他这么做并非因为上述的制约方式，而是因为他已不受制于「自我」，故能依其纯洁的本性行事。因此，这不是一种条件制约(Conditioning)而是一种心药(Psychological Medicine)，你若能按指示服用这些心药，现在的痛苦就可得到暂时的缓解，之后，你就可着手认真对付那疾病本身了。你可先从排除「自我憎恶」与「自我责备」入手。

You start out by banishing thoughts of self-hatred and self- condemnation. You allow good feelings and good wishes first to flow to yourself, which is relatively easy. Then you do the same for those people closest to you. Gradually, you work outward from your own circle of intimates until you can direct a flow of those same emotions to your enemies and to all living beings everywhere. Correctly done, this can be a powerful and transformative exercise in itself.

首先，你让好的情感、愿望流向自身，这是比较易做的；然后，你对最亲近的人做同样的事，逐步地，你可由亲密的小圈子向外扩展，直至你能将同样的情感倾注向你的敌人及十方众生为止。做得正确的话，此法本身就是一种强劲和使人转化的练习。

At the beginning of each meditation session, say the following sentences to yourself. Really feel the intention:

在每次禅修前，请虔诚地向自己唸诵下述愿文，真正地去感受那些意愿：

1. May I be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to me. May no difficulties come to me. May no problems come to me. May I always meet with success. May I also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

1) 愿我健康、快乐与安宁，愿我远离灾害，愿我远离困难，愿我没有问题困扰，愿我永远成功。也愿我有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

2. May my parents be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

2) 愿我的父母健康、快乐与安宁，愿我的父母远离灾害，愿我的父母远离困难，愿我的父母没有问题困扰，愿我的父母永远成功。也愿我的父母有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

3. May my teachers be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

3) 愿我的老师健康、快乐与安宁，愿我的老师远离灾害，愿我的老师远离困难，愿我的老师没有问题困扰，愿我的老师永远成功。也愿我的老师有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

4. May my relatives be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

4) 愿我的亲属健康、快乐与安宁，愿我的亲属远离灾害，愿我的亲属远离困难，愿我的亲属没有问题困扰，愿我的亲属永远成功。也愿我的亲属有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

5. May my friends be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

5) 愿我的朋友健康、快乐与安宁，愿我的朋友远离灾害，愿我的朋友远离困难，愿我的朋友没有问题困扰，愿我的朋友永远成功。也愿我的朋友有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

6. May all indifferent persons be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

6) 愿所有(与我素未谋面的)人健康、快乐与安宁，愿所有(与我素未谋面的)人远离灾害，愿所有(与我素未谋面的)人远离困难，愿所有(与我素未谋面的)人没有问题困扰，愿所有(与我素未谋面的)人永远成功。也愿所有(与我素未谋面的)人有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

7. May my enemies be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

7) 愿我的敌人健康、快乐与安宁，愿我的敌人远离灾害，愿我的敌人远离困难，愿我的敌人没有问题困扰，愿我的敌人永远成功。也愿我的敌人有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

8. May all living beings be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them. May no difficulties come to them. May no problems come to them. May they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.

8) 愿一切众生健康、快乐与安宁，愿一切众生远离灾害，愿一切众生远离困难，愿一切众生没有问题困扰，愿一切众生永远成功。也愿一切众生有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。

Once you have completed these recitations, lay aside all your troubles and conflicts for the period of practice. Just drop the whole bundle. If they come back into your meditation later, just treat them as what they are, distractions.

一旦诵毕愿文，就要在禅修期间把你的所有问题与冲突搁置，只管放下整个包袱，如果它们在禅修中又跑回来，就把它们作为分心的干扰来处理吧，它们的本性也的确如是。

The practice of Universal Loving-Kindness is also recommended for bedtime and just after arising. It is said to help you sleep well and to prevent nightmares. It also makes it easier to get up in the morning. And it makes you more friendly and open toward everybody, friend or foe, human or otherwise.

入睡前和一早起床时修习慈心禅也是值得的，据说这样做可令你睡得安宁与防止恶梦，又可令你容易一早起床，以及令你对所有人，不论是你的朋友、敌人、人与非人等更加友善和开放。

The most damaging psychic irritant arising in the mind particularly at the time when the mind is quiet, is resentment. You may experience indignation remembering some incident that caused you psychological and physical pain. This experience can cause you uneasiness, tension, agitation and worry. You might not be able to go on sitting and experiencing this state of mind. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you should start your meditation with generating Universal Loving-Kindness.

You sometimes may wonder how can we wish: "May my enemies be well, happy and peaceful. May no harm come to them; may no difficulty come to them; may no problems come to them; may they always meet with success. May they also have patience, courage, understanding and determination to meet and overcome inevitable difficulties, problems and failures in life"?

You must remember that you practice loving-kindness for the purification of your own mind, just as you practice meditation for your own attainment of peace and liberation from pain and suffering. As you practice loving-kindness within yourself, you can behave in a most friendly manner without biases, prejudices, discrimination or hate. Your noble behavior helps you to help others in a most practical manner to reduce their pain and suffering. It is compassionate people who can help others. Compassion is a manifestation of loving-kindness in action, for one who does not have loving-kindness cannot help others. Noble behavior means behaving in a most friendly and most cordial manner. Behavior includes your thought speech and action. If this triple mode of expression of your behavior is contradictory, your behavior cannot be noble behavior. On the other hand, pragmatically speaking, it is much better to cultivate the noble thought, "May all beings be happy minded" than the thought, "I hate him". Our noble thought will one day express itself in noble behavior and our spiteful thought in evil behavior.

心内生起最有害的烦恼是憎恨，尤其是当心平气和的时候。当你想起令你身心痛苦的事情时，你可能感到愤怒，这感受会使你不适、紧张、激动和担忧，你或许不能一面禅坐一面经历这种心态，因此，我们强烈建议你，每次在禅修前应向十方普遍地散发慈心。你也许会奇怪，我们怎么可以作这样的祝愿：「愿我的敌人健康、快乐与安宁，愿我的敌人远离灾害，愿我的敌人远离困难，愿我的敌人没有问题困扰，愿我的敌人永远成功。也愿我的敌人有耐性、勇气、谅解与决心来面对和克服人生不可避免的困难、问题与失败。」请务必记住，你修习慈心禅(慈心的普及散发)是为了清净自心，就像你的禅修实践是为了达致内心安宁与苦恼解脱一样。当你全心全意地修习慈心禅时，你的行为会十分友善，没有偏爱、成见、歧视或憎恨，你的高贵举止能令你以最切实的方式来帮助别人减低苦困。有怜悯心(悲心)的人才能帮助别人，而怜悯(Compassion)是慈爱心(Loving-kindness)在行为上的一种表现，因为缺乏慈心的人是不会帮助别人的。高贵的行为会表现得十分友善和热情，其中包括身口意的表现，如果身口意三者的表现有矛盾，你的行为举止不会是高贵的。此外，从实际上说，修习高贵的想法是比较善巧的，例如：想着「愿一切众生皆能快乐」，是远远比想着「我憎恨他」为佳。总有一天，我们的高贵想法会高贵地表现出来，而我们的怨恨想法也会在恶行中表现出来的。

Remember that your thoughts are transformed into speech and action in order to bring the expected result. Thought translated into action is capable of producing tangible result. You should always speak and do things with mindfulness of loving-kindness. While speaking of loving-kindness, if you act or speak in a diametrically opposite way you will be reproached by the wise. As mindfulness of loving-kindness develops, your thoughts, words and deeds should be gently, pleasant, meaningful, truthful and beneficial to you as well as to others. If your thoughts, words or deeds cause harm to you, to others or to both, then you must ask yourself whether you are really mindful of loving-kindness.

For all practical purposes, if all of your enemies are well, happy and peaceful, they would not be your enemies. If they are free from problems, pain, suffering, affliction, neurosis, psychosis, paranoia, fear, tension, anxiety, etc., they would not be your enemies. Your practical solution to your enemies is to help them to overcome their problems, so you can live in peace and happiness. In fact, if you can, you should fill the minds of all your enemies with loving-kindness and make all of them realize the true meaning of peace, so you can live in peace and happiness. The more they are in neurosis, psychosis, fear, tension, anxiety, etc., the more trouble, pain and suffering they can bring to the world. If you could convert a vicious and wicked person into a holy and saintly individual, you would perform a miracle. Let us cultivate adequate wisdom and loving- kindness within ourselves to convert evil minds to saintly minds.

请紧记，你的意愿(想法)会转化成语言和行为，从而引致期望之结果的；意愿转化成行为是能产生确实的成果的。因此，无论说话与做事，皆应怀着慈心而行，如果一面口言慈悲，一面又作截然不同的言行，必会被贤明人士所谴责的。随着慈心的不断修习与发展，你的身口意行为皆会变得温和、优雅、宜人、有意义、诚实、有益于自他；如果你的身口意行为皆对自己、他人、或两者皆有伤害，那么，你就要问问自己有没有忘记修习慈心了。从实用的目的来看，如果所有你的敌人皆变得健康、快乐与安宁，他们就不是你的敌人了；如果他们没有问题、痛苦、苦恼、折磨、神经病、精神病、偏执狂、恐惧、紧张、焦虑等，他们就不是你的敌人了。你若想消除怨敌，最切实的方法是帮助他们克服困难，那么，你就可安心快乐地生活了。事实上，如果可能的话，应该让你所有怨敌的内心皆充满慈心，让他们了解心境安宁的真正意义，那么，你亦可活得愉快与安宁。如果你的怨敌越多神经病、精神病、恐惧、紧张、焦虑等情绪，他们为世间带来的问题、苦痛及烦恼也会越多。如果你能把一个堕落与邪恶的人，转化为一个圣洁和品德高尚的人，你已创造了一个奇迹！让我们在心内好好培育足够的智慧与慈悲，把邪恶之心转化为品德高尚的心吧！

When you hate somebody you think, "Let him be ugly. Let him lie in pain. Let him have no prosperity. Let him not be right. Let him not be famous. Let him have no friends Let him, after death, reappear in an unhappy state of depravation in a bad destination in perdition." However, what actually happens is that your own body generates such harmful chemistry that you experience pain, increased heart beat, tension, change of facial expression, loss of appetite for food, deprivation of sleep and appear very unpleasant to others. You go through the same things you wish for your enemy. Also you cannot see the truth as it is. Your mind is like boiling water. Or you are like a patient suffering from jaundice to whom any delicious food tastes bland. Similarly, you cannot appreciate somebody's appearance, achievement, success, etc. As long as this condition exists, you cannot meditate well.

当你憎恨某人时就会想：「希望他成为丑八怪、希望他长处痛苦之中，让他不会成功、不会发达，让他不会出名、也没有朋友，让他死堕地狱、或转生恶道。」然而，实际上正在发生的是：你身内产生了有害的化学物质，令你感到疼痛、心跳加快、紧张、面部表情变坏、胃口转差、严重失眠，甚至连外人见到你也会感到不快；对怨敌的诅咒正发生在你自己身上，而且，你看不清楚事情的真相，因为你的心像滚水般沸腾，又或者像一个黄疸病者般，对一切食物均感淡而无味；同样地，你无法欣赏别人的外表、成绩与成功等。如果上述的情境一直维持，你是无法禅修得好的。

Therefore we recommend very strongly that you practice loving- kindness before you start your serious practice of meditation. Repeat the proceeding passages very mindfully and meaningfully. As you recite these passages, feel true loving-kindness within yourself first and then share it with others, for you cannot share with others what you do not have within yourself.

因此，在你开始认真禅修前，我们强烈建议你一定要先修慈心禅，请专心地、有意愿地重复唸诵上述的慈心禅愿文，一面唸诵，一面先在心内生起真诚的慈念，然后把它与别人分享。背后的理念是：你身上什么东西都没有，拿什么与人分享？

Remember, though, these are not magic formulas. They don't work by themselves. If you use them as such, you will simply waste time and energy. But if you truly participate in these statements and invest them with your own energy, they will serve you will. Give them a try. See for yourself.

不过，请记住，这不是神奇的方程式，它们本身是没有效用的，如果你只按章程办事，没有认真投入，没有按字句意思般口诵心行，那只会浪费时间与精神；相反，如果你认真如愿文的意思去做，投下你的时间与精神，它们就会很好地为你服务。试一试吧！去亲身体验一下。

【注释】

[1] 僧团(Sangha)：又称僧伽或僧家，简称僧。佛法僧三宝之一。指信受如来之教法，奉行其道，而入圣得果者。亦即出家剃发，从佛陀学道，具足戒、定、慧、解脱、解脱知见，住于四向四果之圣弟子。或指信受佛法，修行佛道之团体。出家众包括新出家但未受具足戒的男性沙弥及女性沙弥尼，与受具足戒的男性比丘与女性比丘尼等；在家众则有男性「优婆塞」与女性「优婆夷」等。此外，僧原为比丘、比丘尼之通称，我国及日本，则称比丘为僧，比丘尼为尼。然至后世，则不只限于比丘、比丘尼，尚有沙弥、沙弥尼等亦称僧或尼，比丘等称为大僧，沙弥等则称为小僧。

[2] 涅槃：即梵文Nirvana，或巴利文Nibbana。字面意义是吹灭(灯火)，指吹灭贪瞋痴之火，亦指离开生死轮回苦的状态，是佛教实践的终极目标。有「有余涅槃」与「无余涅槃」两种。「有余涅槃」是贪瞋痴等烦恼永断，但五蕴(生命)仍会存活一段日子。就像被砍倒的离根树一样，树根虽断，但仍有余势可存活一段日子。「无余涅槃」则指贪瞋痴等烦恼永断，死后不再会转生三界之中。