英文原文
Grief in Buddhism: What are the teachings about it, and how are we supposed to practice with it? It’s often easy to suppress or bypass our grief. This may leave us stuck in one of the early stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, or depression), or unable to face reality or live with a fully open heart. Unfortunately, some Buddhist teachings may seem to suggest it’s better if we don’t feel grief. I explore the question of grief and how we can practice with it in Buddhism in a fruitful and beneficial way. First, though, a little about grief in general. If ask you whether you’re feeling grief right now, you may say yes because you’ve recently lost a loved one, or something important in your life. You may say no, because you haven’t recently suffered any dramatic losses. However, one of the points I want to make today is that I think we’re all feeling grief right now, whether we realize it or not. Grief is love in the face of loss, and because of the Covid-19 pandemic we have recently lost many things. Those of us fortunate enough to enjoy relatively comfortable lives have lost some of our faith that our lives are going to continue more or less unchanged. If we had it previously, we’ve lost a sense of security that we and our loved ones will be safe from sudden and possibly fatal illness, and that we will have access to the health care we need if we do get sick. Many of us have lost opportunities to be with loved ones as they face health challenges, or even die. Precious time we could have spent with aging friends and family who live in long-term care facilities, which are in complete lockdown, is gone, never to return. Celebrations and culturally regenerative activities have been cancelled. Acknowledging and experiencing our grief is very important, but there are many reasons we try to avoid facing it. Grief hurts. At times, grief can feel overwhelming, as if we’re dipping our toe into an ocean of pain, and if we lean in too far we may fall in and drown. If we do let ourselves experience grief, we usually do so only briefly, in a restrained and cautious way, and then try to “get over it” as quickly as possible. At other times, the suggestion that we should work with and “process” our grief suggests that we’re aiming to get to a place where we don’t feel it anymore. If what we have lost is someone or something we really loved, this can seem like betrayal, or denying something essential to our humanity. The thing is, if we try to control our grief – by ignoring, denying, suppressing, restraining, or holding on to it – we get emotionally stuck. To some extent we’re refusing to face reality, because grief is a part of our reality. And refusing to face reality is pretty much exactly counter to Buddhist practice. In addition, we’ll probably get stuck in one of the earlier stages of grief as defined by Elisabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler, which are denial, anger, bargaining, and depression (the fifth is acceptance, and in a new book Kessler suggests a sixth, finding meaning). The results of an inability or unwillingness to face our grief can be quite damaging to ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and our planet. For example, it’s becoming obvious to climate activists that we need to encourage and help people face their grief about the state of our natural world, and the impact that climate and ecological breakdown is having on their lives. It’s kind of a surprising thing to find yourself doing if your original intention is just to get people to take action. However, this is serious business; there’s actually a term, Solastalgia, for the “emotional and existential distress caused by climate and ecological change.” Solastalgia is experienced by many people in the world right now who see their whole communities, livelihoods, and ways of life disintegrating due to environmental changes. Unfortunately, it’s not at all uncommon for people on the frontlines of the negative impacts of climate breakdown to be in denial about the emergency of human-caused of global heating. This might seem strange, but you could also look at this as natural, considering that the first stage of grief is often denial. Others of us find ourselves unable to respond to the breakdown of earth’s natural life-support systems in a way we feel is appropriate or effective, because we’re stuck in the other early stages of grief: Anger (at the people who are to blame, perhaps including ourselves), bargaining (maybe if we recycle and conserve electricity the problem will go away), or depression (the situation is so bleak and hopeless we lose all motivation). If we don’t help people face their feelings, they may never get to the final stage of grief, acceptance, where they’ll be better able to respond to our planetary emergency. How fascinating, and strangely appropriate, that climate activism has led me to a more careful and respectful exploration of grief. Teachings on Grief in Early Buddhism If we want to face our grief and let the grief process unfold without getting stuck, how are we supposed to go about it, particularly in the context of Buddhist practice? Let’s start with a couple specific references to grief in early Buddhism (there are only a few), as conveyed in the Pali Canon. The classic Buddhist view of grief can be found in the story of Kisagotami and the mustard seed. Kisagotami was a young woman who was apparently not very physically attractive; “kisa” meant “haggard,” so she was called “haggard Gotami.” In any case, she despaired of finding a husband but finally did, and he was very loving and able to see her inner beauty. However, her husband’s family was very hard on Kisagotami, as she was from a poor family and not beautiful. When the young woman gave birth to a son, however, her status with her in-laws improved considerably. Kisagotami loved her son deeply and was very happy. Unfortunately, the son died suddenly. His mother suffered not only his loss, but the loss of her whole social status as a woman who had proved her worth through the birth of a son. Kisagotami was utterly devastated, driven mad with grief. She refused to believe her son was dead, and carried his body around with her, knocking on people’s doors and begging them for medicine to cure him. Finally, someone told her to go visit the Buddha, the best of physicians. When Kisagotami asked the Buddha if he would give her medicine to heal her son, he said yes. All she had to do was get a few mustard seeds, which were incredibly easy to come by. However, the Buddha said, they had to come from a household in which no one had died. Kisagotami, excited for a cure, starting knocking on doors again. However, at house after house they were happy to give her mustard seeds, but when she asked about death, they always told her stories about various family members they had lost. Some of them had even lost children. Gradually, Kisagotami comes to her senses, buries her son, and goes to the Buddha and asks to become a nun. Eventually she attains arhatship, or complete liberation, and addresses the following verses to Mara, the “tempter:” “Passed is the time of my child’s death and I have fully done with men; I do not grieve, nor do I weep, and I’m not afraid of you, friend. Sensual delight in every way is dead, for the mass of darkness is destroyed. Defeating the soldiery of death, I live free from every taint.” The message in Kisagotami’s story, pretty clearly, is that we grieve because of our desires and delusions, and once we’re enlightened, we don’t grieve. This same message is conveyed in one of the other stories about grief from the Pali Canon. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta describes the scene of the Buddha’s death, and says that, once the Buddha had finally passed away: “...some of the monks present who were not without passion wept, uplifting their arms. As if their feet were cut out from under them, they fell down and rolled back & forth, crying, ‘All too soon is the Blessed One totally unbound [that is, passed permanently out of the world, having attained Nibbana]!’” Then the Buddha’s foremost disciple and Dharma heir, Maha Kassapa, addressed the monks: “Enough, friends. Don’t grieve. Don’t lament. Hasn’t the Blessed One already taught the state of growing indifferent with regard to all things dear & appealing, the state of becoming separate, the state of becoming otherwise? What else is there to expect? It’s impossible that one could forbid anything born, existent, fabricated, & subject to disintegration from disintegrating.” These early Buddhist teachings seem to suggest that the goal of our practice is a state where we wouldn’t grieve, because we’ve completely accepted the impermanence of things and beings and become indifferent to them. At a certain level, of course, this goal is appealing: Surely, it’s better to feel equanimity than it is to be mad with grief like Kisagotami was after the death of her son? Grief is one of the most painful emotions, perhaps the most painful; I don’t think it’s surprising that some of us cherish the hope that spiritual development and insight might free us from feeling it The Danger of Spiritual Bypassing However, if you don’t take Buddhist teachings with a grain of salt, some of them can really twist you up inside. Or, maybe instead of saying “take them with a grain of salt,” as if they might be untrue or inaccurate, I should say it’s good to remember that each Buddhist teaching has a context and a purpose. Sometimes it is appropriate to accept everything is impermanent, buck up, and get on with things. After all, the admonitions in the Pali Canon about not grieving are being given to people who are carrying around dead bodies, and rolling back and forth on the ground! The Canon doesn’t include what the Buddha might have said to another student who was emotionally repressed. Still, it’s pretty fair to say most of Buddhism, including Zen, can easily give you the impression that emotions are thought of as inherently delusional or invalid. There’s more than a suggestion that if you’re enlightened – if you’ve really woken up to reality and accepted impermanence, if you’re spiritually advanced – you don’t even experience grief. Looking at things this way invites spiritual bypassing, which John Welwood describes as, “a common tendency... among Western spiritual seekers to use spiritual ideas and practices to avoid dealing with their emotional unfinished business.” Unfortunately, unless you’ve experienced a dramatic loss and happen to be someone who is willing and able to feel your grief intensely, it’s usually pretty easy to bypass grief, even without using spiritual methods to do it. Grief often seems willing to linger below the surface of our everyday lives, like a dark, underground cistern. Most of the time we can ignore it completely in favor of spiritual work that’s less daunting, or addresses more obvious issues. We can dismiss suggestions that we ought to pay attention to our grief, because that seems to entail dredging it up unnecessarily, and enlightened people don’t feel it anyway. Aren’t we at least slightly more enlightened when we’re able to go about our lives with joy or equanimity, despite that fact that we could get all sad if we really tried? Then there’s the fact that mindfulness and meditation are excellent tools for settling you down in the middle of an emotional storm. If you should start feeling a lot of grief for some reason, all you have to do is become aware of your body and follow your breath, and often the intensity of the emotion will subside. With practice, we become adept at redirecting our minds. This is awesome when we’re redirecting our mind from dwelling on ill-will, or getting ourselves unstuck from endless thought loops of anxiety. It’s also possible, however, to redirect our mind from something like grief, because it’s painful and we don’t know how to deal with it. This is spiritual bypassing. Evolution in Buddhist Thoughts on Grief Fortunately, Buddhism is a living tradition. It keeps changing over time as human beings learn and our societies evolve. One of the great additions to human life in the 19th and 20th centuries was the science of psychology, which explored our emotional lives in a new way. Over time, psychologists came to appreciate how easy it is to suppress emotions in a way that’s profoundly unhelpful. In other words, the ability to stop feeling an emotion is not at all the same thing as having reached your peace with what is behind that emotion. You could look like a really spiritually advanced Buddhist, delivering wise words about detachment while other people writhe in grief, but in fact you might have simple compartmentalized or cut off part of your own reality. If grief is love in the face of loss, you might have overcome the pain and embarrassment of your grief by shutting down your love. An 18th century story about Satsujo, a student of the famous Rinzai master Hakuin, offers us a very different Buddhist message about grief (this is from the book The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women): “When Satsujo, a great disciple of Hakuin, was old, she lost her granddaughter, which grieved her very much. An old man from the neighborhood came and admonished her: ‘Why are you wailing so much? If people hear this, they’ll all say, “the old lady once studied with Hakuin and was enlightened, so now why is she mourning her granddaughter so much?” You ought to lighten up a bit.’ “Satsujo glared at her neighbor and scolded him: ‘You baldheaded fool, what do you know? My tears and weeping are better for my granddaughter than incense, flower, and lamps!’ “The old man left without a word.” I’m picturing Satsujo weeping openly, throwing herself across her granddaughter’s casket at the funeral. I’m picturing people coming to visit her, but she refuses their visits, saying she’s still too sad to interact with people. I’m imagining Satsujo making daily trips to her granddaughter’s grave, bringing flowers and lingering there, tears streaming down her face. Is there a difference between Satsujo’s grief, and the grief that troubles us so much – the grief that we want to deny, or get over as soon as possible – the grief that tears and twists us up inside? Yes and no. No, there’s no difference in the essence of the emotion, or in the pain. And yet, in a subtle way, I think there is a difference between Satsujo’s grief and what many of us struggle with. I think Satsujo understands herself, and experiences her grief wholeheartedly. She’s not worried about what it says about her spiritual practice, or what other people think. I also think Satsujo has a larger sense of reality, the fruit of her practice, which gives her the courage and strength to face her grief without fear of drowning. What’s Next In the next episode I’ll discuss what it means to “practice with” or “process” or “deal with” our grief. Are we hoping for it to go away? I’ll also talk about Buddhist practices that can help us integrate grief into a healthy, open-hearted, and sustainable life, including deliberate mindfulness of our grief, letting go of attachment, ritual, and appreciation for the absolute aspect of reality. I’ll also propose the radical idea that grief could be considered a Sublime Social Attitude, or Brahmavihara, along with love, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Compassion is how love manifests when we see the beings we love suffer, and sympathetic joy is how love manifests when we see the beings we love happy. Might grief be how love manifests when we lose the beings (or things) we love? We’re encouraged to cultivate the Brahmaviharas as a firm basis for our relationships and practice, not just because they feel good. Compassion, for example, requires empathy, and means “suffering with.” So just because grief hurts doesn’t mean it’s not a Brahmavihara. Maybe it’s not actually unreasonable to talk about cultivating grief – building up our capacity for it. This doesn’t mean manufacturing grief, but neither to we have to manufacture compassion. There will always be suffering to arouse our compassion, and there will always be loss to arouse our grief. Our ability to feel grief is a measure of our open-heartedness and freedom from self-concern, just like feeling the other Brahmaviharas.
中文翻译
佛教中的哀伤：关于哀伤的教义是什么？我们该如何修持？我们常常容易压抑或绕过哀伤。这可能会让我们卡在哀伤的早期阶段（否认、愤怒、讨价还价或抑郁），或者无法面对现实，无法以完全开放的心生活。不幸的是，一些佛教教义似乎暗示我们不感到哀伤更好。我探讨了哀伤的问题，以及我们如何在佛教中以富有成效和有益的方式修持哀伤。 首先，简单谈谈哀伤。如果问你此刻是否感到哀伤，你可能会说是，因为你最近失去了亲人或生活中重要的东西。你可能会说没有，因为你最近没有遭受任何重大损失。然而，我今天想提出的一个观点是，我认为我们此刻都在感受哀伤，无论我们是否意识到。 哀伤是面对失去时的爱，由于新冠疫情，我们最近失去了很多东西。我们中那些有幸享受相对舒适生活的人，失去了对生活将大致不变的信心。如果我们以前有，我们失去了自己和亲人免受突发且可能致命疾病的安全感，以及生病时获得所需医疗保健的保障。我们中许多人失去了在亲人面临健康挑战甚至死亡时陪伴他们的机会。我们本可以与住在长期护理机构（完全封锁）的年迈朋友和家人共度的宝贵时光已经消失，永远不会回来。庆祝活动和文化再生活动被取消。 承认和体验哀伤非常重要，但我们有许多理由试图避免面对它。哀伤很痛苦。有时，哀伤会让人感到难以承受，就像我们把脚趾浸入痛苦的海洋，如果倾身太远，可能会掉进去淹死。如果我们让自己体验哀伤，通常只是短暂地、克制而谨慎地体验，然后试图尽快“克服它”。其他时候，我们应该处理和“处理”哀伤的建议暗示我们的目标是达到不再感到哀伤的状态。如果我们失去的是我们真正爱的人或物，这似乎像是背叛，或否认我们人性的本质。 问题是，如果我们试图控制哀伤——通过忽视、否认、压抑、克制或执着——我们会在情感上卡住。在某种程度上，我们拒绝面对现实，因为哀伤是我们现实的一部分。拒绝面对现实几乎完全违背佛教修持。此外，我们可能会卡在伊丽莎白·库伯勒-罗斯和大卫·凯斯勒定义的哀伤早期阶段之一，即否认、愤怒、讨价还价和抑郁（第五阶段是接受，凯斯勒在新书中提出了第六阶段，寻找意义）。 无法或不愿面对哀伤的后果可能对我们自己、亲人、社区和地球造成相当大的损害。例如，气候活动家越来越明显，我们需要鼓励和帮助人们面对他们对自然世界状态的哀伤，以及气候和生态崩溃对他们生活的影响。如果你的初衷只是让人们采取行动，这可能会让你感到惊讶。然而，这是严肃的事情；实际上有一个术语，Solastalgia，指“由气候和生态变化引起的情感和存在困扰”。Solastalgia 正被世界上许多人经历，他们看到整个社区、生计和生活方式因环境变化而瓦解。 不幸的是，处于气候崩溃负面影响前线的人们否认人为全球变暖的紧急情况并不罕见。这可能看起来奇怪，但考虑到哀伤的第一阶段通常是否认，你也可以将其视为自然。我们中其他人发现自己无法以我们认为适当或有效的方式应对地球自然生命支持系统的崩溃，因为我们卡在哀伤的其他早期阶段：愤怒（对应该负责的人，可能包括我们自己）、讨价还价（也许如果我们回收和节约用电，问题就会消失）或抑郁（情况如此黯淡和绝望，我们失去所有动力）。 如果我们不帮助人们面对他们的感受，他们可能永远无法达到哀伤的最后阶段，接受，在那里他们将能更好地应对我们的星球紧急情况。多么迷人，又奇怪地恰当，气候活动让我更仔细和尊重地探索哀伤。 早期佛教关于哀伤的教义 如果我们想面对哀伤并让哀伤过程展开而不卡住，我们该如何进行，特别是在佛教修持的背景下？让我们从早期佛教中关于哀伤的几个具体参考开始（只有几个），如巴利经典所传达。 经典的佛教哀伤观可以在 Kisagotami 和芥菜籽的故事中找到。Kisagotami 是一个年轻女子，显然外表不太有吸引力；“kisa”意为“憔悴”，所以她被称为“憔悴的 Gotami”。无论如何，她对找到丈夫感到绝望，但最终找到了，他非常爱她，能看到她的内在美。然而，她丈夫的家人对 Kisagotami 很苛刻，因为她来自贫穷家庭且不漂亮。当年轻女子生下一个儿子时，她在婆家的地位大大改善。Kisagotami 深爱她的儿子，非常幸福。 不幸的是，儿子突然去世。他的母亲不仅失去了他，还失去了她作为通过生子证明价值的女性的整个社会地位。Kisagotami 完全崩溃，因哀伤而疯狂。她拒绝相信儿子死了，带着他的尸体四处走动，敲人们的门，乞求他们给药物治愈他。最后，有人告诉她去拜访佛陀，最好的医生。 当 Kisagotami 问佛陀是否会给她药物治愈儿子时，他说是。她只需要得到一些芥菜籽，这非常容易获得。然而，佛陀说，它们必须来自一个没有人死亡的家庭。Kisagotami 兴奋地寻求治愈，再次开始敲门。然而，在一家家之后，他们乐意给她芥菜籽，但当她问及死亡时，他们总是告诉她他们失去的各种家庭成员的故事。有些人甚至失去了孩子。 逐渐地，Kisagotami 恢复理智，埋葬儿子，去佛陀那里请求成为比丘尼。最终她证得阿罗汉果，或完全解脱，并对“诱惑者” Mara 说出以下诗句： “我孩子死亡的时间已过，我已完全与人断绝；我不哀伤，也不哭泣，我不怕你，朋友。感官愉悦在各方面已死，因为黑暗之众已被摧毁。击败死亡之军，我生活无染。” Kisagotami 故事中的信息，相当清楚，是我们因欲望和妄想而哀伤，一旦开悟，我们不哀伤。 同样的信息在巴利经典中另一个关于哀伤的故事中传达。Mahaparinibbana Sutta 描述了佛陀去世的场景，并说，一旦佛陀最终去世： “...在场的一些仍有激情的比丘哭泣，举起手臂。仿佛他们的脚被砍掉，他们倒下并来回滚动，哭喊，‘世尊完全涅槃太快了！’” 然后佛陀的首要弟子和法嗣，Maha Kassapa，对比丘们说： “够了，朋友们。不要哀伤。不要悲叹。世尊不是已经教导了对所有可爱和吸引人的事物变得冷漠的状态，分离的状态，变得不同的状态吗？还有什么可期待的？不可能禁止任何生起、存在、造作和易分解的事物分解。” 这些早期佛教教义似乎暗示我们修持的目标是一种我们不会哀伤的状态，因为我们完全接受了事物和众生的无常并对它们变得冷漠。在某种程度上，这个目标当然吸引人：肯定，感到平静比像 Kisagotami 在儿子去世后那样因哀伤而疯狂更好？哀伤是最痛苦的情感之一，也许是最痛苦的；我认为我们中一些人珍视灵性发展和洞察可能使我们免于感受它的希望并不奇怪。 灵性绕过的危险 然而，如果你不对佛教教义持保留态度，其中一些可能会让你内心扭曲。或者，也许不说“持保留态度”，好像它们可能不真实或不准确，我应该说记住每个佛教教义都有背景和目的是好的。有时接受一切都是无常，振作起来，继续前进是适当的。毕竟，巴利经典中关于不哀伤的告诫是针对那些带着尸体四处走动，在地上滚动的人！经典不包括佛陀可能对另一个情感压抑的学生说的话。 尽管如此，可以说大多数佛教，包括禅宗，很容易给你留下情感被认为本质上是妄想或无效的印象。有不止一个暗示，如果你开悟了——如果你真的觉醒到现实并接受无常，如果你灵性进步——你甚至不经历哀伤。以这种方式看待事物会邀请灵性绕过，约翰·韦尔伍德将其描述为“西方灵性寻求者中常见的倾向...使用灵性观念和实践来避免处理他们未完成的情感事务。” 不幸的是，除非你经历了重大损失，并且碰巧是愿意且能够强烈感受哀伤的人，否则通常很容易绕过哀伤，甚至不使用灵性方法。哀伤似乎愿意潜伏在我们日常生活的表面之下，像一个黑暗的地下蓄水池。大多数时候，我们可以完全忽略它，转而进行不那么令人生畏或解决更明显问题的灵性工作。我们可以驳回我们应该关注哀伤的建议，因为这似乎需要不必要地挖掘它，而且开悟的人反正不感受它。当我们能够以喜悦或平静度过生活时，尽管我们如果真的尝试可能会变得悲伤，我们不是至少稍微更开悟了吗？ 然后是正念和冥想是在情感风暴中让你平静下来的绝佳工具。如果你因某种原因开始感到很多哀伤，你只需要意识到你的身体并跟随呼吸，通常情感的强度会减弱。通过练习，我们变得擅长重新引导我们的心。当我们重新引导心远离恶意，或让自己摆脱无尽的焦虑思维循环时，这很棒。然而，也有可能重新引导心远离像哀伤这样的东西，因为它痛苦且我们不知道如何处理。这就是灵性绕过。 佛教哀伤观的演变 幸运的是，佛教是一个活传统。它随着人类学习和社会演变而不断变化。19 世纪和 20 世纪人类生活的伟大补充之一是心理学科学，它以新方式探索我们的情感生活。随着时间的推移，心理学家开始认识到以极其无益的方式压抑情感是多么容易。换句话说，停止感受情感的能力与已经达到与情感背后事物和平相处完全不同。你可能看起来像一个真正灵性进步的佛教徒，在其他人因哀伤而扭动时说出关于超脱的智慧话语，但实际上你可能只是简单地分隔或切断了自己现实的一部分。如果哀伤是面对失去时的爱，你可能通过关闭爱来克服哀伤的痛苦和尴尬。 一个 18 世纪关于 Satsujo 的故事，著名临济宗大师白隐的学生，给我们一个非常不同的佛教哀伤信息（来自《隐藏的灯：二十五个世纪觉醒女性的故事》一书）： “当白隐的伟大弟子 Satsujo 年老时，她失去了孙女，这让她非常哀伤。一个邻居老人来告诫她：‘你为什么哭得这么厉害？如果人们听到，他们都会说，“老太太曾经跟白隐学习并开悟了，所以现在为什么这么哀悼孙女？”你应该轻松一点。’ “Satsujo 瞪着她的邻居并责骂他：‘你这个秃头傻瓜，你知道什么？我的眼泪和哭泣比香、花和灯对我的孙女更好！’ “老人无言离开。” 我想象 Satsujo 公开哭泣，在葬礼上扑在孙女的棺材上。我想象人们来看她，但她拒绝他们的访问，说她仍然太悲伤无法与人互动。我想象 Satsujo 每天去孙女的坟墓，带花并在那里逗留，泪水流下她的脸。 Satsujo 的哀伤和我们如此困扰的哀伤——我们想否认或尽快克服的哀伤——撕裂和扭曲我们内心的哀伤有区别吗？有也没有。没有，情感的本质或痛苦没有区别。然而，在微妙的方式上，我认为 Satsujo 的哀伤和我们许多人挣扎的哀伤有区别。我认为 Satsujo 理解自己，全心全意地体验她的哀伤。她不担心这对她的灵性修持意味着什么，或别人怎么想。我也认为 Satsujo 有更大的现实感，她修持的果实，这给了她面对哀伤的勇气和力量，而不怕淹死。 接下来 在下一集中，我将讨论“修持”、“处理”或“应对”哀伤意味着什么。我们希望它消失吗？我还将讨论可以帮助我们将哀伤融入健康、开放和可持续生活的佛教修持，包括刻意正念哀伤、放下执着、仪式和对现实绝对层面的欣赏。 我还将提出一个激进的想法，哀伤可以被视为一种崇高的社会态度，或梵住，与爱、慈悲、随喜和平静并列。慈悲是当我们看到我们爱的众生受苦时爱如何显现，随喜是当我们看到我们爱的众生快乐时爱如何显现。哀伤可能是当我们失去我们爱的众生（或事物）时爱如何显现吗？ 我们被鼓励培养梵住作为我们关系和修持的坚实基础，不仅仅因为它们感觉良好。例如，慈悲需要同理心，意味着“共同受苦”。所以仅仅因为哀伤痛苦并不意味着它不是梵住。也许谈论培养哀伤——建立我们的能力——实际上并非不合理。这不意味着制造哀伤，但我们也不必制造慈悲。总会有痛苦唤起我们的慈悲，总会有失去唤起我们的哀伤。我们感受哀伤的能力是我们开放心胸和免于自我关注的衡量标准，就像感受其他梵住一样。
文章概要
本文探讨了佛教对哀伤的看法，特别是针对中年哀伤与丧失的应对方法。文章指出，哀伤是面对失去时的爱，但人们常因痛苦而压抑或绕过它，导致卡在否认、愤怒、讨价还价或抑郁等早期阶段。早期佛教教义如 Kisagotami 的故事强调，哀伤源于欲望和妄想，开悟后不再哀伤，但这可能被误解为灵性绕过——用灵性观念避免处理情感。文章警告这种危险，并引用 Satsujo 的故事展示一种更开放的哀伤观，即哀伤可以成为爱的一种表现。随着佛教演变，心理学的影响使人们认识到压抑情感的危害，哀伤可能被视为一种梵住（崇高社会态度），与慈悲并列。文章建议通过正念、放下执着等修持整合哀伤，培养开放心胸，以健康方式面对丧失，这在中年阶段尤为重要，因为人们常经历多重丧失如健康、亲人或意义感。佛教方法鼓励直面现实，而非逃避，以促进情感成长和灵性进步。
高德明老师的评价
1. 用12岁初中生可以听懂的语音来重复翻译的内容 这篇文章就像在说，当我们失去喜欢的东西或人时，比如心爱的玩具坏了或者宠物不在了，我们会感到很难过，这种难过叫做哀伤。佛教告诉我们，哀伤其实是因为我们太喜欢那些东西了，放不下它们。但如果我们能明白一切都会变化，就像玩具会旧、宠物会老，我们可能就不会那么难过了。不过，文章也说，如果我们假装不难过，或者用学佛当借口不去面对难过，那反而会让我们卡住，变得更不开心。所以，佛教教我们要勇敢地感受哀伤，就像感受爱一样，这样我们才能真的成长。 2. 佛学的各个宗派视角评价，突出《显密圆通成佛心要集》的视角 从佛学宗派视角看，本文涉及早期佛教（如巴利经典）强调通过洞察无常来超越哀伤，这属于小乘或声闻乘的路径，注重个人解脱。大乘佛教如禅宗（文中提到的 Zen）则可能更注重在现实生活中修心，但有时也被误解为压抑情感。从《显密圆通成佛心要集》的视角，这部经典融合显密教法，强调“心要”为成佛关键。对于哀伤，它可能教导我们，哀伤是众生习气的显现，但通过准提法等密法修持，可以转化情感为智慧。准提法作为显密圆通的代表，提倡“即事而真”，在哀伤中直接观照心性，不逃避也不执着，从而将哀伤转化为菩提心的养分。这突出了大乘佛教的慈悲与智慧双运，以及密宗即身成佛的实践优势。 3. 在修行实践上可以应用的和可以解决人们的十个问题。 在修行实践上，基于本文和佛教智慧，可以应用以下方法来解决人们的十个问题： （1）解决情感压抑问题：通过正念冥想，如实观察哀伤而不评判，培养情感接纳能力。 （2）解决现实逃避问题：修习无常观，提醒自己一切变化是自然规律，增强面对失去的勇气。 （3）解决自我封闭问题：实践慈悲冥想，扩展爱心至所有众生，打破自我中心的哀伤循环。 （4）解决灵性成长停滞问题：结合准提法咒语修持，在哀伤中持诵，转化负面能量为灵性动力。 （5）解决人际关系紧张问题：以哀伤为桥梁，培养同理心，改善与亲友的沟通和理解。 （6）解决生命意义迷失问题：通过佛教仪式如祈福或回向，为失去赋予灵性意义，找到新方向。 （7）解决心理健康风险问题：定期禅修，稳定情绪，预防哀伤导致的抑郁或焦虑。 （8）解决社会疏离问题：参与佛教团体活动，分享哀伤经验，建立支持网络。 （9）解决修行障碍问题：将哀伤视为修心机会，练习放下执着，提升般若智慧。 （10）解决未来恐惧问题：培养梵住如平静，增强内在安全感，从容应对未知丧失。 这些实践突出了准提法的优点，如简便易行、即身成就，能快速整合情感，促进显密圆通的修行成果。