十二因緣=Twelve dependent originations; 能知=the knower; 被知=the known; 循因=backtracking the causes; 觀看心念=observing the thought in the mind; 劃分=setting the boundary
摘要
「能知與被知的劃分」在明白心性上是非常重要的觀念，因為明瞭心性的過程就是在做能知與被知的劃分，當心明白到哪裡，能知與被知就劃分到哪裡。〈從十二因緣談能知與被知的劃分〉一文，提出能知與被知的劃分理論，本文將從此理論應用在個別心念上，探討個別心念細部運作的劃分情形。當注意、觀看、覺知、覺察到某個心念時，這個心念就會劃分為被知，「注意、觀看、覺知、覺察」則屬於能知。覺察劃分通常都是從淺層的心念開始，然後「循因」覺察、回頭，一層一層的往裡頭劃分，最後劃到無可再劃，就回到「本明」了。在尚未回到「本明」之前，能知都是混雜著許多尚未被覺知的心念，而會被推著走，直到所有心念被覺知，並化為被知後，就完全回到「本明」了。 'Setting the boundary between “the knower” and "the known"' is a very important concept in realizing the nature of mind, since the process of realizing the nature of mind is the process of setting the boundary between “the knower” and “the known”. The Purpose of this paper is to apply the theory ‘setting the boundary between “the knower” and “the known”’ to individual thoughts. The term ‘to know’ a thought in this paper means the same as ‘to observe’, ’to be aware of’, ’to see’, and ‘to pay attention to’ a thought. When observing or being aware of a thought, the content of the thought belongs to ‘the known’, and the observing or the awareness belongs to ‘the knower’. At the very moment of observing, then, the boundary between ‘the knower’ and ‘the known’ will be set between the thought and the observing or the observer. The observation of a thought or the boundary-setting between ‘the knower’ and ‘the known’ will always begin from the thoughts in the more shallow layers of mind. With the method of backtracking the causes, people keep observing the thoughts in the deeper layers of mind. At last, when all the thoughts are observed and are set to belong to ‘the knower’, the pure self-brightness or self-nature will emerge.
