Chỉ và Quán

Chỉ và Quán

*
Gắn Liền Cột Chặt (AN 4.170)
(HT Thích Minh Châu dịch)

1. Một thời, Tôn giả Ananda sống ở Kosàmbi, tại khu vườn Ghosita. Tại đấy, Tôn giả Ananda gọi các Tỷ-kheo:

-- Thưa các Hiền giả Tỷ-kheo.

-- Thưa vâng, Hiền giả.

Các tỷ-kheo ấy vâng đáp Tôn giả. Tôn giả Ananda nói như sau:

- Tỷ-kheo hay Tỷ-kheo-ni nào tuyên bố trước mặt tôi rằng, đã chứng được quả A-la-hán, tất cả vị ấy được đầy đủ bốn chi phần này, hoặc là một trong bốn chi phần này. Thế nào là bốn?

2. Ở đây, này chư Hiền, Tỷ-kheo tu tập quán, có chỉ đi trước; do vị ấy tu tập quán có chỉ đi trước, con đường được sanh khởi. Vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn. Do vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn, các kiết sử được đoạn tận, các tùy miên được chấm dứt.

3. Lại nữa, này chư Hiền, vị Tỷ-kheo tu tập chỉ, có quán đi trước. Do vị ấy tu tập chỉ có quán đi trước, con đường được sanh khởi. Vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn. Do vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn, các kiết sử được đoạn tận, các tùy miên được chấm dứt.

4. Lại nữa, này chư Hiền, Tỷ-kheo tu tập cả hai chỉ quán gắn liền với nhau. Do vị ấy tu tập cả hai chỉ quán gắn liền với nhau, con đường được sanh khởi. Vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn. Do vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn, các kiết sử được đoạn tận, các tùy miên được chấm dứt.

5. Lại nữa, này chư Hiền, Tỷ-kheo với các dao động đối với các pháp được hoàn toàn dứt sạch. Này các Hiền giả, đây là thời khi tâm của vị ấy an trú, an tọa, nhất tâm, định tĩnh. Với vị ấy, con đường sanh khởi [*]. Vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn. Do vị ấy thực hành con đường ấy, tu tập, làm cho sung mãn, các kiết sử được đoạn tận, các tùy miên được chấm dứt.

Này chư Hiền, Tỷ-kheo hay Tỷ-kheo-ni nào tuyên bố trước mặt tôi rằng, đã chứng được quả A-la-hán, tất cả vị ấy được đầy đủ bốn chi phần này, hoặc là một trong bốn chi phần này.

-------------------
Đọc thêm: Tu tập tâm: Chỉ & Quán, http://budsas.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/tu-tap-tam-chi-va-quan_23.html

* * *
Yuganaddha Sutta: In Tandem (AN 4.170)
(translated by Bhikkhu Thanissaro)

On one occasion Ven. Ananda was staying in Kosambi, at Ghosita's monastery. There he addressed the monks, "Friends!"

"Yes, friend," the monks responded.

Ven. Ananda said: "Friends, whoever — monk or nun — declares the attainment of arahantship in my presence, they all do it by means of one or another of four paths. Which four?

"There is the case where a monk has developed insight preceded by tranquillity. As he develops insight preceded by tranquillity, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

"Then there is the case where a monk has developed tranquillity preceded by insight. As he develops tranquillity preceded by insight, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

"Then there is the case where a monk has developed tranquillity in tandem with insight. As he develops tranquillity in tandem with insight, the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

"Then there is the case where a monk's mind has its restlessness concerning the Dhamma [Comm: the corruptions of insight] well under control. There comes a time when his mind grows steady inwardly, settles down, and becomes unified & concentrated. In him the path is born. He follows that path, develops it, pursues it. As he follows the path, developing it & pursuing it — his fetters are abandoned, his obsessions destroyed.

"Whoever — monk or nun — declares the attainment of arahantship in my presence, they all do it by means of one or another of these four paths."

* * *

Ghi chú:

[*]  Bản dịch tiếng Anh của Tỳ-khưu Bodhi:

Again, a bhikkhu’s mind is seized by restlessness about Dhamma. But there comes an occasion when his mind becomes internally steady, composed, unified, and concentrated. Then the path is generated in him. He pursues this path, develops it, and cultivates it. As he is pursuing, developing, cultivating this path, the fetters are abandoned and the underlying tendencies are uprooted.

Tôi xin tạm dịch:

Lại nữa, tâm vị Tỳ-khưu bị trói chặt bởi dao động về Pháp. Nhưng đến một lúc nội tâm vị ấy trở nên vững vàng, hội tụ, điềm tĩnh, hợp nhất và tập trung. Lúc ấy, bên trong vị ấy sinh khởi con đường. Vị ấy đi theo, phát triển, tu dưỡng con đường ấy, các kiết sử được đoạn tận và các tùy miên được trừ diệt.

-- Theo Tỳ-khưu Bodhi, ở đây có nghĩa là vị Tỳ-khưu suy ngẫm, quán chiếu thâm sâu về Pháp, có một sự bức xúc mãnh liệt, rồi cuối cùng khi có đầy đủ duyên lành hỗ trợ, tâm vị ấy trở nên định tĩnh, trầm lắng, và tuệ quán về con đường được sinh khởi.

(02-08-2015)

-ooOoo-

Buddhist Ceremonial Release of Captive Birds May Harm Wildlife

Buddhist Ceremonial Release of Captive Birds May Harm Wildlife
by Rachel Nuwer
Scientific American, August 01, 2012
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=buddhist-ceremonial-release-captive-birds-may-harm-wildlife

* 

A young Vietnamese woman’s husband fell ill. Desperate for a cure, she later recounted, she visited the local Buddhist temple. A monk there instructed her to “release 40 birds, one for every year of your husband’s life.” So she did, purchasing and releasing 40 birds at the temple grounds. The woman soon rejoiced; her husband made a full recovery.

This is a common story in Asia, where “merit releases” of captive wild animals are performed in Buddhist rituals. But the practice raises concern amongst the conservation community for its potential to impact threatened species. Before a bird can be freed, it has to be captured—often just after having been released by someone else. The result is the denuding of wild populations and a vast recycling of mistreated animals, most of which are likely die on one of their ersatz flights to freedom. As if that were not bad enough, the dead, disease-ridden animals are then sold in food markets.

“We were staggered by the number of birds moving through this trade,” says Martin Gilbert, a veterinarian at the Wildlife Conservation Society who recently co-authored a study in Biological Conservation on merit releases. “It’s a very good rational and understandable thing to do, to let captive animals go free,” he says. “But in certain situations, it creates a trade purely for demand for animals in cages.”

Gilbert and his colleagues monitored daily sales of merit release birds in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, over a period of 13 months. From their findings, they estimated nearly 700,000 animals pass through the local trade annually. They recorded a total of 57 bird species in the cages, including globally near-threatened Asian golden weavers and vulnerable yellow-breasted buntings.

“This paper highlights the potentially huge impact merit releases have on a few birds that are easily caught and are already of conservation concern,” says John Pilgrim, a conservation consultant who specializes in Southeast Asia and Melanesia and who was not involved in the study.

Gilbert says he knows of only one other study, conducted in Hong Kong, which attempted to estimate merit release figures. The numbers were comparable, reporting that Hong Kong Buddhist temples released up to 580,000 birds per year.

“It’s pretty scary that this [new] paper estimates just a dozen families in two small markets sold more than 630,000 birds per year,” Pilgrim says.

Conservationists do not know how the merit release market figures into Asia’s overall wildlife trade, which also exploits wild birds for pets, food, passerine fights and song contests. Globally, trade in wild birds impacts about 400 species that are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, or one third of all threatened bird species. No one know how many birds succumb each year to the wildlife trade since much of the trafficking is illegal, but within Southeast Asia alone, it is likely “in the order of tens of millions,” says Kelly Edmunds, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in England who investigates the emerging infectious diseases amongst bird sellers in Asia and was not involved in the study.

Buddhists free captive animals in order to accumulate health and longevity merits for themselves and loved ones. The exact origins of the practice are unclear, though it was mentioned in fifth-century Chinese Buddhist texts that instructed followers to “practice the act of releasing animals due to the mind of compassion.”

Today that practice extends to birds, turtles, fish, crabs and even ants. A 1999 study in Taipei found that 29.5 percent of 1,000 randomly interviewed people had released prayer animals at some point in their life.

As hopeful as the flight of a bird from a cage may look, few of the creatures escape to a better life. After buyers free them, hunters often wait nearby to recapture the fatigued, disoriented animals. No sure mortality estimates exist for the practice, but a report (pdf) issued by the wildlife trade–monitoring organization TRAFFIC estimates that 30 to 55 percent of all birds that enter the wildlife trade do not survive. The Institute of Supervising Animal Epidemic Control of Guangzhou in China claims that 90 percent or more of the birds used in merit releases die, according to an article in the journal Contemporary Buddhism.

“There are cages rammed in with hundreds of birds of different species,” Edmunds says. “Cages are often stacked on top of one another, so feces and feather dust pass down onto the animals below,” she describes. The birds become stressed, increasing their susceptibility to disease, which is a concern for both animals and humans.

Gilbert and his colleagues tested the Cambodian birds for pathogens and found that more than 10 percent carried bird flu. Buyers come into close contact with the birds they release, and the traders sell deceased birds to roadside diners at the end of the day, which introduces the potential for disease transmission. “I was really puzzled when I first saw people kissing the birds when they released them,” says Philippe Buchy, a medical virologist at the Pasteur Institute of Cambodia in Phnom Penh who was not involved in the study. “I thought, what would happen if one of these little birds was infected with the H5N1 virus?”

In a recent study, Buchy showed that Eurasian tree sparrows, a species commonly used in merit releases, can harbor H5N1 and transmit it to other birds. He also found viral particles on the sparrows’ feathers, meaning infected merit release birds could pass the disease on to susceptible people. “As a microbiologist, I will always say that whatever wild animal it is, humans should not go into contact with it,” Buchy says.

Still, banning merit releases outright is likely not the solution. “Who are we to say these practices are wrong?” Edmunds says. “But I think there is scope to improve the conditions under which these practices take place,” she adds.

Gilbert imagines programs forged between researchers and Buddhist communities in which declining native species are captive-bred and then released by practitioners. The Society for Conservation Biology and Buddhist communities are already exploring initial ways of doing this.

“I think the next logical step is work out a method that allows releases to be done in a way that is true to the original spirit of the practice,” he says.

* * *

Từ điển trực tuyến (Online Dictionaries)

Từ điển trực tuyến (Online Dictionaries)

Từ điển Hán-Việt Trích dẫn
http://www.vietnamtudien.org/hanviet/index.php

Từ điển Pali-Anh (PaliText Society)
http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/

Tự điển Hán-Việt Thiều Chửu
http://nguyendu.com.free.fr/langues/hanviet.htm

Tra Từ: Từ điển Đa ngôn ngữ (Việt, Anh, Pháp, Nhật, Trung, Hàn)
http://tratu.soha.vn/

Từ điển Đa ngôn ngữ (Việt, Anh, Pháp, Đức, Na Uy)
http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~duc/Dict/

Vdict.com - Từ điển Đa ngôn ngữ (Việt, Anh, Pháp, Trung)
http://vdict.com

Buddhism Dictionary
http://www.buddhismdictionary.org/

Buddhist Dictionary – Nyanatiloka Mahathera
http://budsas.110mb.com/ebud/bud-dict/dic_idx.htm

English Dictionary
http://dictionary.reference.com/

Buddhist Dictionary of Pali Proper Names (Malalasekera)
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/dic_idx.html

Từ điển Làng Mai (2012)
http://langmai.org/tang-kinh-cac/tu-dien-lang-mai

Từ điển Làng Mai (2012) – Site 2
http://tudienlangmai.blogspot.com.au/

Việt Nam Tự Điển (Khai Trí Tiến Đức)
http://www.vietnamtudien.org/vntd-kttd/index.html

* * *