佛教戒律 - johanzumimvon/Johan-zumimvon-Christianity GitHub Wiki
慾望法
激發人的慾望并不是什么难事; 抑制人的慾望, 或者至少让人的慾望不这么强, 则需要智慧.
既然多馀的慾望使我受苦, 那么我就应该捨弃不合理的慾望.
上座部佛教戒律又名sīla，式羅，シーラ，good virtue。意思是好的行为，好的言行，美德(virtue，ヲーツー)。
形式
戒律的名词形式为シーラ, 动词形式为シーラㇳ(持戒), 过去式为シーラ.
名词戒律
ㇷ゚ルラㇻ加æ, 或者将um变为æ, 或者将长音符变成ヤエ.
宾格元音加上m; 辅音加上um.
属格通数加上he; 多数将um变成ōlum或者加上ālum、ēlum、īlum、ōlum、ūlum、aelum、aulum、ユールㇺ.
与格元音加上θ～s; 辅音加上uθ～us.
工具格元音加上s～sˁ; 辅音加上us～usˁ.
呼格字(ヲーㇳ)前加ō
| 形式 | 通数 | ㇷ゚ルラㇻ |
|---|---|---|
| 主格 | シーラ | シーラエ |
| 宾格 | シーラㇺ | シーラエㇺ |
| 属格 | シーラヘ | シーラールㇺ |
| 与格 | シーラㇲ | シーラエㇲ |
| 工具 | シーラㇲ̲ | シーラエㇲ̲ |
| 呼格 | オー シーラ | オー シーラエ |
| 方位 | イㇴ シーラ | イㇴ シーラエ |
| 冠词 | ラ シーラ | ラ シーラエ |
数词则会插到虚词与名词之间, 比如
在五戒之中: イㇴ ペㇴタ(パㇴﾁｬ) シーラエ
亦可作: イㇴ ペㇴタ シーラ
这十条戒律: ラ シㇷ゚ シーラエ
亦可作: ラ シㇷ゚ シーラ
御十三僧残: オー タㇳイㇳ サン゚ガ도セーサエ
亦可作: オー タㇳイㇳ サン゚ガ도セーサ
数词列表
数词是基于十二进制的.
| 数 | 一般式 | 辞书式 |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | ﾁｪロ | |
| 1 | イㇳ | イㇳ |
| 2 | ト゚ㇷ゚ | ニー |
| 3 | ㇳレーㇲ | サㇺ |
| 4 | テㇳラ | セー |
| 5 | ペㇴタ | ペㇳ |
| 6 | ヘㇰサ | リュㇰ |
| 7 | セㇷ゚テㇺ | チㇳ |
| 8 | オㇰト | パㇳ |
| 9 | ノヱㇺ | キュー |
| ∗ | 드カ | シㇷ゚ |
| # | キ丌スイ | エㇾ |
| 10 | ニホカㇺ | タㇳ或者ナ̲ㇳ |
| 11 | ニホカㇺイㇳ | タㇳイㇳ |
| 100 | ケㇴㇳ | パエㇰ |
| 101 | イㇳケㇴㇳﾁｪロイㇳ | パエㇰイㇳ |
序数词则直接加イキㇴネ, 比如:
第十一: エㇾイキㇴネ
第十二: ニホカㇺイキㇴネ
动词持戒
| 形式 | |
|---|---|
| 基本式 | |
| 不定式 | シーラㇳ |
| 过去式 | シーラタ |
| 现在式 | シーラ丌 |
| 祈使式 | シーラテ |
| 未来式 | シーラト |
| 被动式 | |
| 被动 | 加トー |
| 尾式 | |
| 进行式 | 加ヨー |
| 完成式 | 加イー |
| 动名词 | |
| ヲーバㇻノㇴ | シーラテㇺ |
比如
过去正在持戒: シーラタヨー(式罗陀佑)
现在正在持戒: シーラ丌ヨー(式罗提佑)
未来正在持戒: シーラトヨー(式罗斗佑).
接受戒律:
接受戒律: シーラㇳトー
已经接受戒律: シーラㇳトーイー
过去已经接受戒律: シーラタトーイー
现在已经接受戒律: シーラ丌トーイー
未来已经接受戒律: シーラトトーイー
形容词符合戒律者
| 形式 | |
|---|---|
| 不定式 | シーラㇻ |
| 过去式 | シーララ |
| 现在式 | シーラリ |
| 未来式 | シーラロ |
| 不定比较级 | シーラル |
| 不定最高级 | シーラレ |
| 比较级 | 加ル |
| 最高级 | 加レ |
比如过去最高级为シーララレ
五戒
不杀生戒 | Avihimsā | アヰヒㇺサー | 亦名アヒㇺサー
存在活的生命。
行者知道此为活的生命。
意欲杀害。
行杀害。
导致生命死亡。
五条要素都成立才会违犯此戒，只要有一条要素不成立就不会违犯此戒。
比如, 服用アㇻベㇴナ̲ﾁｮㇿ(albendazole)等等驱虫药, 就不属于杀生.
使用农药消除害虫杂草, 也不属于杀生
将食物煮熟消毒, 使用消毒液等等也不属于杀生
不偷盗戒
有主物。
知为有主物。
意欲偷盗。
行偷盗。
物品因此行为而被盗。
五条要素都成立才会违犯此戒，只要有一条要素不成立就不会违犯此戒。
如果是亲厚想而拿取父母的钱, 由于预设了父母给予我这一前提, 所以也不属于偷盗
不邪淫戒
不应发生性关系的对象（他人的配偶、伴侣，以及他人所照顾、监护的未成年少女）。
意欲和上述对象中的任何人交媾。
行交媾。
有淫乐。
四条要素都成立才会违犯此戒，只要有一条要素不成立就不会违犯此戒。
被强奸但没有任何乐感, 则不属于邪淫
不妄语戒
谎言。
意欲说谎。
说谎，包括使用文字、肢体语言、互联网、著书立说等等。
其他人领解（理解所说的谎言）。
四条要素都成立才会违犯此戒，只要有一条要素不成立就不会违犯此戒。
妄语的中囶汞产党霉体
央视现在怎么都是弱智在编写假新闻
美国士兵每月3万多人民币的收入, 费劲巴力地去偷叙利亚(シリア)小麦? 这就跟乡下老农民说李嘉诚去他家偷用他家的电一样荒唐可笑. 央视的人会不会写新闻啊?!
不饮酒戒
酒可以泛指任何含有乙醇的物质.
酒或其他能导致上瘾的物质。也包括香烟(一类致癌物)、毒品、槟榔(ピナン゚, 学名アレカカテ乊, 一类致癌物)，部分派别认为咖啡因、茶碱、可可碱等等也属于饮酒。
意欲饮用（诸酒或麻醉品）。
受用。
酒或麻醉品经喉而入。
四条要素都成立才会违犯此戒，只要有一条要素不成立就不会违犯此戒。
佛教根本教义之一是要通过修行熄灭贪嗔痴. 而嗜烟成瘾即为贪, 烟味刺激人动怒即为嗔, 明知有害无益而为之即为痴. 吸烟助长贪嗔痴, 显然有悖佛教.
十戒
十戒也叫沙弥戒，对于上座部佛教，其在家众也有持守十戒者。
远离杀生
第一戒，不杀生。即不杀害一切有情生命。
远离非与取
第二戒，不偷盗。即未经物主允许不窃为己有。
远离性行为
第三戒，不淫。又称不非梵行，即彻底断绝淫事，不与人、非人等行淫，与五戒中的不邪淫不同。
远离恶劣言语
第四戒，不妄语。即不说虚妄之事，妄语包括恶口（麤口詈罵）、两舌（离间语, 搬弄是非）、绮语（华而不实花言巧语），尤其是大妄语__未证言证（未证得圣果而言自己得果）是极大罪过。
远离上瘾物质
第五戒，不饮酒。即不沾染麻醉神智之物品，制戒初期只有酒类，现代高僧大德认为亦含烟、毒品。
远离华鬘、装饰品、化妆品、护肤品、防晒霜、香味用品等等
第六戒，不着华鬘（花鬘）、好香涂身。即不可打扮华丽，不可在身上涂抹高级的香油、香水、精油等物，不戴花鬘等装饰品。
远离声光视听娱乐
第七戒，不歌舞观听。即不可观看、聆听唱歌、跳舞、戏剧等相类似的声光视听娱乐。
远离高大的座位
第八戒，不坐高广大床上。此床非睡眠之床，本为“胡床”，即坐禅的座位，但汉地一般扩大内涵为坐卧起居不可使用宽大舒适的床、椅，严格来说并非犯戒。
不坐“高大广床”，此“床”本不是床，而是“胡床”，即草绳编织成的座位，坐禅所用，或高僧的高座、上座。不坐高大广床义为禅坐的座椅只能坐一般的，不能追求又高又大又广、极尽华丽，坐之生较慢、贡高之心。但古代译文不甚明了，致后来人皆以为睡眠的床具，其实睡眠在床上并不犯戒。
高广大床，此系西域僧人行头陀行之绳床。吾国此法不行，但不宜坐贵重珍妙之床榻耳。此绳床，同今之马札子，用绳穿之，可开可合。高不过一尺六寸，广不过四尺。尺系周尺，比今尺小二寸。此床非睡眠之床，乃坐禅之床榻也。
过午不食
第九戒，不非时食。即“过午不食”，只许在日出至日中时进食，中午之后便不再进食。
不持金银钱钞
第十戒，不捉持钱财金银宝物。即不拥有、不追求、不藏匿金钱珍宝等财产，传统佛教的僧人不可持有财物。
与五戒异同
十戒之前五项戒与五戒（不杀生、不偷盗、不邪淫、不妄语、不饮酒）大致相同，但其中不邪淫提升为不淫，也就是五戒允许正常的性行为，并且与基督信仰相同；而沙弥戒的不淫则是指没有任何性行为。
与八关斋戒异同
戒条上来说，十戒与八关斋戒仅差在捉金银戒。是以八关斋戒亦称“近住戒”，为在家人近阿罗汉而住（近清净僧侣而住），戒律上亦近于沙弥、沙弥尼十戒。
然而在家人之八关斋戒受持仅一日一夜，隔日清晨戒体即自动舍去；在未舍戒的情形下，十戒为出家僧人尽形寿受持（一生持守）。
士大夫评论
上座部佛教的在家众也有不少不持金银者！
戒律受持文
五戒受持文中文版
我有幸遇到稀有的第九世代! 我不勝殊甚铭感!
我归依佛陀
我归依佛法
我归依僧团
我受持离杀生学处
我受持离偷盗学处
我受持离邪淫学处
我受持离妄语学处
我受持离饮酒学处
愿我此功德, 导向诸漏尽!
愿我此功德, 导嚮苦灭道!
我此功德分, 回向诸有情.
愿彼等一切, 同得功德分!
サー豆̅! サー豆̅! サー豆̅!
五戒受持文パーリ版
パㇴ゙ﾁｬシーラ
ナモー タㇳサ バ̅ガワトー アラ゙ハトー サㇺマーサㇺブㇳナ̲̅ㇳサ!
ナモー タㇳサ バ̅ガワトー アラ゙ハトー サㇺマーサㇺブㇳナ̲̅ㇳサ!
ナモー タㇳサ バ̅ガワトー アラ゙ハトー サㇺマーサㇺブㇳナ̲̅ㇳサ!
ブㇳナ̲̅ㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ,
ナ̲̅ㇺマㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ,
サン゚ア゙ㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ;
豆丌ヤㇺピ ブㇳナ̲̅ㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ,
豆丌ヤㇺピ ナ̲̅ㇺマㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ,
豆丌ヤㇺピ サン゚ア゙ㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ;
タ丌ヤㇺピ ブㇳナ̲̅ㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ,
タ丌ヤㇺピ ナ̲̅ㇺマㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ,
タ丌ヤㇺピ サン゚ア゙ㇺ サラ゙ナ゚ㇺ ガㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーミ.
パーナ゚ー丌パーター ヱーラ゙マニ゚ー シㇰカ̅ーパナ̲ㇺ サマー노ヤーミ,
ア노ㇴナーナ̲ーナー ヱーラ゙マニ゚ー シㇰカ̅ーパナ̲ㇺ サマー노ヤーミ,
カーメース ミㇳﾁ̅ｬ̅ーﾁｬーラ゙ ヱーラ゙マニ゚ー シㇰカ̅ーパナ̲ㇺ サマー노ヤーミ,
ムサーワーナ̲ー ヱーラ゙マニ゚ー シㇰカ̅ーパナ̲ㇺ サマー노ヤーミ,
スラ゙ー_メーラ゙ヤ_マㇳﾁｬ゙_パマーナ̲ㇳ゚歹゚ーナー ヱーラ゙マニ゚ー シㇰカ̅ーパナ̲ㇺ サマー노ヤーミ.
イナ̲ㇺ メー プㇴ゙ナ゙ㇺ, アーサワㇰカ̅ヤーワハㇺ ホート゚!
イナ̲ㇺ メー シーラㇺ, ニㇳバーナㇳサ パㇳﾁｬヨー ホート゚!
ママ プㇴ゙ナ゙バ̅ーガㇺ サㇳバサㇳターナㇺ バ̅ﾁｪーミ!
テー サㇳベー メー サマㇺ プㇴ゙ナ゙バ̅ーガㇺ ラバ̅ㇴト゚!
サー豆̅! サー豆̅! サー豆̅!
居士八戒受持文中文版
我有幸遇到稀有的第九世代! 我不勝殊甚铭感!
我归依佛陀
我归依佛法
我归依僧团
我受持离杀生学处
我受持离偷盗学处
我受持离淫欲学处
我受持离妄语学处
我受持离饮酒学处
我受持过午不食学处
我受持离观听跳舞、唱歌、音乐、表演、妆饰、装扮之因的穿戴花鬘、芳香、涂香学处
我受持离高大座位学处
愿我此功德, 导向诸漏尽!
愿我此功德, 导嚮苦灭道!
我此功德分, 回向诸有情.
愿彼等一切, 同得功德分!
サー豆̅! サー豆̅! サー豆̅!
サーマネーラ学处受持文中文版
我有幸遇到稀有的第九世代! 我不勝殊甚铭感!
我归依佛陀
我归依佛法
我归依僧团
我受持离杀生学处
我受持离偷盗学处
我受持离淫欲学处
我受持离妄语学处
我受持离饮酒学处
我受持过午不食学处
我受持离观听跳舞、唱歌、音乐、表演学处
我受持离妆饰、装扮之因的穿戴花鬘、芳香、涂香学处
我受持离高大座位学处
我受持离接受金银学处
我远离故意出精
我远离故意触摸女人
我远离对女人说麤恶绮丽之语
我远离赞叹女人以淫欲侍奉自己
我远离做媒
愿我此功德, 导向诸漏尽!
愿我此功德, 导嚮苦灭道!
我此功德分, 回向诸有情.
愿彼等一切, 同得功德分!
サー豆̅! サー豆̅! サー豆̅!
参考资料
Under Your Skin
A Thai forest monk explains why a healthy body image is not what you think it is.
By Thanissaro(歹ニㇳサロー) Bhikkhu(ビㇰク), Illustrations by Beppe Giacobbe
Winter 2014
During my first year as a monk, when I was staying at a monastery near Bangkok, we received an invitation from the children of a man in the last stages of liver cancer, asking for some monks to visit their father in the hospital, as he wanted to make merit and hear the dhamma one last time before he died. Five of us went the next morning, and the senior monk in the group chatted with the man for quite a while to put his mind at ease and help him prepare for his coming death. Now was the time, the monk said, for him to put aside all concern for his body and to focus instead on the state of his mind so that it wouldn’t be overcome by pain as his body fell apart.
Suddenly the man blurted out that the worst part of the cancer wasn’t the pain. It was the embarrassment. All his life he had prided himself on staying fit and trim while his friends had gotten fat and paunchy, but now his belly was so horribly bloated from the cancer that he couldn’t bear to look at it or to imagine what other people might think, seeing him like this. No matter how much the senior monk tried to reassure him that it was nothing to be ashamed of—that this was part of the body’s normal nature beyond anyone’s control—the man wouldn’t let go of the conviction that his body had betrayed him and was now an embarrassment in the eyes of the world.
All through the conversation I couldn’t help thinking that the man would have suffered a lot less if he had taken some of the time he had devoted to looking fit and spent it on contemplating the unattractiveness of the body instead. I myself had never felt much enthusiasm for this particular meditation theme—I preferred focusing on the breath, and would contemplate the parts of the body more out of a sense of duty than anything else. But now I saw that the Buddha’s teaching on body contemplation was really an act of kindness, one of the many effective and essential tools he left behind to help alleviate the sufferings of the world.
On the way back to the monastery, I also realized, to my chagrin, that I had been complacent about my attitude toward my own body. Despite my contemplation of my liver, intestines, and everything else under my skin, I still took pride in the fact that I had kept fit when other people my age were getting a little flabby. Although I had consciously resisted the unrealistic standards for looking good fostered by the media, I had felt a little moral superiority about staying in good shape. But now I had to admit that even my “reasonable” amount of pride was dangerous: I, too, was setting myself up for a fall. Eating and exercising to be healthy may generally be a good policy, but a concern for looking healthy can be unhealthy for the mind.
Most of us in the West, of course, don’t see it that way. Because the modern obsession with impossibly perfect body images has taught so many people to hate their bodies to a pathological degree, we’ve come to identify all positive body images as psychologically healthy, and all negative body images as psychologically sick. When we learn of the Buddha’s recommendations for contemplating the body, we see them as aggravating rather than solving the problem. What we need, we think, is a way of meditating that develops positive images of the body as a beautiful and sacred vehicle for expressing compassion and love.
From the Buddha’s perspective, though, this attitude is radically deluded. As a prince he had been no stranger to the obsession of trying to measure up to extravagant standards of beauty. If you read the monastic rules describing the means of beautification denied to monks and nuns—creams, cosmetics, jewelry, red dye for hands and feet—you realize that India was just as obsessed with superhuman ideals of beauty as we are. Through the Buddha’s understanding of how perceptions of the body can function both as aids and hindrances in the quest for liberation, he came to realize that there are four kinds of body images, not just two: healthy positive, unhealthy positive, healthy negative, and unhealthy negative—“healthy” meaning leading to long-term happiness; “unhealthy” leading to long-term suffering and pain.
Related: I Tried the “Buddhist Monk” Diet—And It Worked
When you understand this point, you’ll see that his teachings on the body are aimed at liberating us from unhealthy body images of both sorts and replacing them with both sorts of healthy images. And when you understand the dangers of un-healthy body images—whether positive or negative—along with the freedom that comes from cultivating both sorts of healthy body images, you’ll realize that the Buddha’s training in resetting your body image is both a useful defense against the skewed messages of our culture and a necessary part of the Buddhist path.
Unhealthy body images, whether positive or negative, start with the assumption that the body’s worth is measured by the beauty of its appearance. The damage done by this assumption when it leads to negative body images is common knowledge, but the damage done when it leads to positive images is just as bad, if not worse.
This is because the perception of beauty carries a power. We sense the power wielded by the people we perceive as attractive, and we want to exert the same power ourselves. This is one of the reasons we resist the idea of seeing the body as unattractive, for that would be to deny ourselves a major source of the power we consciously and unconsciously try to wield. We forget, or choose to ignore, the dangers that this kind of power entails.
The desire to use your beauty to exert control over others ends up enslaving you to those you hope to control.
First, it leads to unskillful karma. Because beauty is a quality that invites comparison, it often carries with it a sense of pride and conceit with regard to those you perceive as less attractive than you, along with the kinds of unskillful actions that pride and conceit can so easily engender.
Second, it’s fragile. No matter how hard you try to stave off the signs of aging, they always arrive too soon. The pride that once sustained you now turns around to stab you. Even when the body is at the pinnacle of its health and youth, to perceive it as beautiful requires huge blind spots: that you ignore any external features that are less than beautiful, that you view it only from certain angles and when the lighting is just so—and don’t even think of what lies inside, just under the skin, ready to ooze out of your orifices and pores. Because these unattractive features can show themselves at any time, you need constant reassurance that no one else notices them, and even then you wonder if the people reassuring you are telling you the truth.
When you’re attached to something so fragile, you’re setting yourself up to suffer. The appearance of each new wrinkle becomes a source of fear and anxiety, and when this is the case, how will you not be afraid of aging, illness, and death? And if you can’t overcome this fear, how will you ever be free?
And third, the fragility of this power also enslaves you to others. When you want to look good to others, you’re placing your worth in their hands. This is why people who are self-conscious about their looks resent being the object of someone else’s objectifying gaze. They would prefer that it be an expression of pure admiration, but they know deep down that it often isn’t. Do those who are gazing at you really admire you? What standards are they measuring you against? Even if they do admire you, how pure is the driving force behind their admiration? Is their attention something you really want? Even though you may have cultivated your beauty as a means of power, you can’t control who that power will draw to you, or why.
When you internalize the gaze of others, you’re a prisoner of what, in reality, you’re reading into their gaze—an uncertain process at best. The more you want to believe in your own beauty, the more you become attracted to people who show signs of being attracted to you, but then you find yourself serving their interests rather than your own.
In your quest to develop and maintain your beauty, you also become a slave to the beauty industry in its various forms—an industry that holds out the promise that perpetual beauty is possible but at the same time keeps pushing the ideal of beauty to more and more impossible extremes, requiring more and more of your money and time. These extremes can even compromise our health, as we see in the cult of freakishly thin female models and morbidly muscular men.
This is probably the most ironic aspect of the power of beauty: that the desire to use your beauty to exert control over others ends up enslaving you to those who promise to help you maintain your beauty as well as to those you hope to control.
In contrast to an unhealthy positive body image, a healthy one focuses not on how good the body can look but on the good it can do. As an object of concentration, the body can be a source of rapture and well-being to sustain you on the path. We learn to appreciate the body as a tool for expressing kindness and developing the inner beauty of generosity and virtue—which, as the Buddha noted, are beautiful even through old age (see SN 1.51). With this sort of body image, the appearance of wrinkles is not a threat to the worth of your body but simply a reminder to accelerate our efforts to do good as time is running out.
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Illustration by Beppe Giacobbe
Most people believe that it’s possible to appreciate the body both because of its potential for beauty and because of its potential for goodness, but an unhealthy positive body image undermines a healthy positive body image because the time and energy spent on shoring up your perception of your own beauty lessens the time and energy you could spend on doing good.
At the same time, the hidden agendas of beauty often confuse and pervert your perception of what “good” really is. This confusion, for instance, is what allows spiritual teachers to claim that sex with their students can be a sacred and healing activity. No one who is free of an unhealthy positive or negative body image would seriously entertain such an idea.
Related: How to Heal After Your Teacher Crosses the Line The ultimate purpose of this contemplation is to see that the problem doesn’t lie with the body; it lies with your choice of perceptions.
It’s because an unhealthy positive body image works at cross-purposes with a healthy positive image that it needs to be counteracted by a healthy negative image of the body’s beauty. This differs from an unhealthy negative body image in three important respects:
First, an unhealthy negative body image sees an unattractive body as bad. A healthy negative body image sees that physical unattractiveness is simply a perception, as empty as all other perceptions, and irrelevant to the body’s worth or to your own worth as a person.
Second, an unhealthy negative body image comes from seeing your body as unattractive and other people’s as attractive. A healthy negative body image comes from regarding everyone as basically unattractive—like houses in the tropics made of frozen meat. Even if some of them are more nicely shaped than others, when you smell their slow decay in the present and think of what they’ll be like when completely thawed, you’re not attracted to any of them at all.
Third, an unhealthy negative body image is the result of attachment. Hating our appearance doesn’t mean we’re unattached to our bodies. We’re actually fiercely attached both to our bodies and to an ideal of beauty that our bodies have yet to attain. The conflict between these two forms of attachment is what makes us suffer.
What makes a healthy negative body image healthy is that it allows you to see the body’s beauty as a matter of indifference and to regard the body purely as a tool for developing the skillful qualities of the mind.
The Buddha’s strategy for developing a healthy negative body image starts with the mindfulness practice of focusing on the body “in and of itself, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world” (DN 22). In other words, instead of regarding the body through the internalized gaze of others, you regard it simply as you experience it here and now, on its own terms. A good place to begin is with the experience of the breath, learning how to manipulate that experience so as to induce a feeling of ease and refreshment in your immediate sense of the body. This sense of well-being reaffirms the worth of the body as a source for harmless happiness—when approached skillfully—even as you dismantle your notions of its attractiveness.
There are two traditional ways to start the dismantling: either visualizing what the body would be like if you dissected it into its various parts, or visualizing how it would decompose after death.
For the dissection contemplation, you can start with the canonical list of 31 parts: head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, muscles, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, large intestines, small intestines, contents of the stomach, feces, bile, phlegm, lymph, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin-oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, and urine. Visualize each of these parts until you find one that’s especially disenchanting, and focus on that. Or you can focus on any part not on the list. I, for instance, have found it effective to think of what eyes look like without eyelids.
To get started with the right attitude to this contemplation—serious enough to show you mean business, but lighthearted enough to keep from getting depressed—you can ask yourself as you reach each part: What would you do if you opened a room and unexpectedly found that part on the floor? Or if you sat down at a table and found it on your plate? If it’s liquid, would you want to bathe in a vat of it? Think in these ways until you realize how ridiculous it is to want to look for beauty in a body made of these things.
For the decomposition contemplations, you can first visualize the body aging in ten-year stages, then dying, getting bloated, and drying out until it’s just dust. Then you can reverse the contemplation, bringing the body back to its present state to emphasize the fact that the potential for all those stages is right here, right now. This contemplation helps to remind you that no matter how wisely you care for the body or how artfully you improve its appearance, it will someday reach the point where you wouldn’t want to be near it at all. If you don’t learn how to let go of it now, you’ll have a hard time letting go when death forces the issue.
For these perceptions to be healthy, you have to learn how to apply them equally to everyone. In fact, that’s what these perceptions are meant to be: equalizers. You’re looking at the truths of all bodies, equally, all over the world. Most meditators are encouraged to apply these perceptions to their own bodies before applying them to others—on the grounds that our attraction to others often starts with our attraction to ourselves—but if you suffer from an unhealthy negative body image, start by applying them to a body you envy. Imagine, for instance, that supermodels were required to wear their skin inside out, and that all athletes and entertainers flaunting their abs were required to display everything else their abdomens contain. Only when your sense of humor can shake off your envy should you apply the perceptions of unattractiveness to yourself.
Regardless of what kind of unhealthy body image you start with, this contemplation is sure to get under your skin not only in a literal sense but also in an idiomatic one. It has to, because a part of the mind, well-entrenched for lifetimes, is sure to resist. If you obey the inner voices that put up resistance, you’ll never be able to dig up the unhealthy attitudes hiding behind them. Only when you challenge that resistance will you clearly see the underlying unskillful agendas behind your attachment to bodily beauty. And only when you see them clearly can you work your way free from them.
After all, the ultimate purpose of this contemplation is to see that the problem doesn’t lie with the body; it lies with your choice of perceptions. And it sensitizes you to how those choices are made: When you’ve been developing the perception that the body is unattractive, why does the mind suddenly switch back to the perception that it’s attractive? What are the steps in that shift? When you try to answer these questions through observing the mind in action, you learn a lot about how the mind can fool itself—and how willing it is to be fooled.
Above all, try to bring an attitude of humor to this contemplation, so that you can laugh good-naturedly at your foolishness in looking for beauty in the body. If, at any time, these exercises lead to feelings of disgust or depression, drop them and return your attention to the breath until you’ve induced a sense of inner ease and refreshment. Resume the perceptions of unattractiveness only when you’re in a more balanced state of mind. As one famous Thai meditation teacher said, you’re not aiming at revulsion; you’re simply trying to sober up.
If you’re in a relationship, don’t worry that you’ll ruin it with this meditation. Only after a great deal of time and dedication can these perceptions—and the understanding you gain from them—eradicate sexual desire entirely. In the meantime, you can actually use these perceptions to strengthen your relationship as you apply them to anyone outside the relationship who might tempt you to be unfaithful to your partner. They also help you to focus more attention on the aspects of the relationship that will give it a more substantial basis to last over time.
And don’t be afraid that this meditation will leave you listless and morose. The more you can free yourself from your internalization of the gaze of others, the more liberated you feel. As you bring more humor to issues of the body’s appearance, the more you will unleash the healthy energies of the mind.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu is an American Theravada Buddhist monk trained in the Thai Forest Tradition. He currently serves as abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California and is a frequent contributor to Tricycle. His latest book is Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections. Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s talks, writings, and translations are all freely available at his website, dhammatalks.org.
Beppe Giacobbe is an Italian conceptual illustrator.