2-6

THERE IS NO sequence in meditation. There is no continuity for this implies time and space and action within that. Our whole psychological activity is within the field of time and space and from this follows action which is always incomplete. Our mind is conditioned to the acceptance of time and space. From here to there, the chain of this and that, is time-sequence. In this movement action will bring about contradiction and therefore conflict. This is our life. Can action ever be free of time, so that there are neither regrets nor anticipation, the backward and forward looking of action? Seeing is acting. It is not first understanding and then acting, but rather seeing which in itself is action. In this there is no element of time, so the mind is always free. Time and space are the way of thought which builds and nourishes the self, the me and the not-me, with all its demands for fulfilment, its resistance and fear of being hurt.

冥想没有先后。 没有延续性，延续性意味着时间和空间以及其中的行动。 我们的整个心理活动都在时间和空间的领域内， 由此而产生的行动总是不完整的。 我们的头脑习惯于接受时间和空间。 从这里到那里，这与那的链条就是时间序列。 在这个运动中，行动会带来矛盾，从而产生冲突。这就是我们的生命。 行动能不能摆脱时间， 因而没有遗憾也没有期待，没有对行动的后悔和前瞻？ 看即是做。 它不是先理解再行动，而是在看的同时，它本身就是行动。 这样就没有时间因子，因此，这颗头脑总是自由的。 时间和空间是思想的方式 —— 它构建和滋养自我、“我”和“非我”， 其中包含了“我”的满足、反抗和怕受伤的恐惧。

On this morning the quality of meditation was nothingness, the total emptiness of time and space. It is a fact and not an idea or the paradox of opposing speculations. One finds this strange emptiness when the root of all problems withers away. This root is thought, the thought that divides and holds. In meditation the mind actually becomes empty of the past, though it can use the past as thought. This goes on throughout the day and at night sleep is the emptiness of yesterday and therefore the mind touches that which is timeless.

在今天早上，冥想的品质是虚无，时间和空间全然的空虚。 它是事实，而不是想法或对立猜测的悖论。 当所有问题的根源消失时，一个人发现这种奇怪的空虚。 这个根源是思想，导致分裂和占据的思想。 在冥想中，这颗头脑，实际上对过往变得虚无，尽管它可以使用这个过去，也就是思想。 这持续了一整天，晚上睡觉开始，就处于没有过往的虚无中， 因此，头脑接触到非时间的东西。

The young man with the beard and very long hair said, "I am an idealist who is a revolutionary. I don't want to wait for the slow progress of humanity. I want a radical change as quickly as possible. There are appalling social injustices among both blacks and whites, among all minorities, and of course the politicians as they now are, are corrupt, self-seeking in the name of democracy, and hypocritical. I am violent by nature and I cannot see anyway except through violence to bring about a radical change in the social structure. I am an idealist in the sense that we will tear down the mess and let something new grow. The new is our ideal. I don't know what it will be, but as we destroy the old, we will find out. I know what you think of violence but this is neither here nor there. Most people in the world are already violent, full of antagonisms and we will use that to pull down the Establishment and make a new society. We are for freedom. We want to be free to express ourselves; each one must fulfil himself, and the present society denies all this. We are, of course, against all religions."

这位留着胡子和很长的头发的年轻人说： “我是一个理想主义者，也是一个革命者。 我不想等待人类的缓慢进步。 我希望尽快有一个彻底的改变。 无论是黑人还是白人，在所有的少数族裔中，都存在着骇人听闻的社会不公， 当然，现在的政客们都是腐败的，以民主的名义谋求私利，而且虚伪。 我生性暴力， 除了通过暴力，我无法看到社会结构的根本改变。 我是一个理想主义者，因为我们会把混乱的局面推倒，让新的东西成长。 新，就是我们的理想。我不知道它会是什么，但当我们摧毁旧的，我们就会知道。 我知道你对暴力的看法，但这无关紧要。 世界上大多数人已经很暴力，充满了对抗， 我们将利用这一点来推翻当权派，建立一个新社会。 我们追求自由。我们想要自由地表达我们自己； 每个人都必须实现他自己，而现在的社会拒绝了这一切。 当然，我们反对所有的宗教。”

The idealist who is also a revolutionary, though he may talk convincingly about freedom, inevitably will bring about a dictatorship of the few or of the many. He will also create a personal cult and destroy totally every form of freedom. You may have observed this in the French and Russian revolutions. Your ideal which may come out of the ashes of the present structure will only be speculative and theoretical and on this speculative Utopia - call it what you like - you want to build a new society. This is what all the physical revolutionaries have done. They start off with equality, social justice, the withering of the state and so on, and end up with a tyrannical bureaucracy, insistence on conformity and the exercise of authority in the name of the state. Surely this is not what you want. You feel or think that through the destruction of the present social structure, you will find as you go along, without having a blueprint, a new structure which you think will have social justice, freedom for all, economic equality and so on. You hope to produce all this through violence. Violence can only breed more violence. You may be able through violence to destroy present systems but it will breed resistance and deep-rooted unwillingness to co-operate.

这位理想主义者也是一位革命者， 尽管他可能会令人信服地谈论自由， 但不可避免地会导致少数人或多数人的专政。 他还将创造一种个人崇拜的狂热，并彻底摧毁一切形式的自由。 你可能已经在法国和俄国革命中观察到了这一点。 你的理想可能从当前结构的灰烬中浮现出来的， 它只是推测性和理论性的，在这个推测性的乌托邦 —— 随你怎么称呼它 —— 你想建立一个新的社会。 这就是所有的外在革命者所做的。 他们以平等、社会正义、国家的消亡等开始， 最终以专制的官僚机构、 坚决去服从和以国家的名义行使权力。 这肯定不是你想要的。 你感觉或认为，通过毁灭现有的社会结构， 你会在没有蓝图的情况下继续前进， 发现一个你认为会有社会正义、所有人都自由、经济平等等的新结构。 你希望通过暴力来产生这一切。 暴力只会滋生更多的暴力。 你也许可以通过暴力摧毁现有的系统， 但它会滋生出抵抗和根深蒂固的不合作。

It appears you all want quick changes only outwardly. You want to end wars immediately, with which most of us agree, but as long as there are divisions of nationalities, of religious beliefs with their dogmas, there must be conflict. Any form of division will breed antagonism and hatred. We want to change the surface of things without going to the very heart of the matter. The heart of the matter is education. It is the total understanding of man and not an emphasis on one fragment of his life - whether it be technology or earning a livelihood.

看起来，你们都只想要外界有一个快速的改变。 你想立即结束战争，我们大多数人都同意这一点， 但只要存在民族分歧、宗教信仰与教条分歧，就必然存在冲突。 任何形式的分裂都会滋生对抗和仇恨。 我们想改变事物的表面，而不是触及问题的核心。 问题的核心是教育。 它是对人的全面理解，而不是强调他生命的一个片段 —— 无论是技术，还是谋生方式。

We see that you are not listening to all this. If one may point it out, all the enthusiasts for outward change always brush aside the more fundamental issues. "What you say may be so, but all that will take time and we haven't time now to be properly educated. We must change the structure first in order to have proper education."

我们看到，你没有在听这一切。 如果一个人可以指出， 所有追求外部改变的人，总是对更根本的问题置之不理。 “你说的可能是事实，但这一切都需要时间， 我们现在没有时间接受适当的教育。 我们必须首先改变结构，才能接受适当的教育。”

The postponement of fundamental questions makes for a greater superficiality of life, of everyday existence, and leads to various forms of escape, including violence - escapes through so-called religions, through entertainment. We are not dividing the outer and the inner. We are concerned with the total movement of life and education is part of this. As it is now, in almost every country there is some sort of military service. Instead of that it should be part of education to work in the social field. But this too is not the fundamental issue.

根本问题的推迟使生命和日常生活更加肤浅， 并导致各种形式的逃避，包括暴力 —— 通过所谓的宗教、娱乐来逃避。 我们没有把外在和内在分开。 我们关切生命的整体运动，教育就是其中的一部分。 就像现在一样，几乎每个国家都有某种形式的兵役。 相反，它应该成为在社会领域工作的教育的一部分。 但这也不是根本问题。

"You are not convincing me. You haven't shown me what to do and how to act in this murderous world."

“你没有说服我。 你没有告诉我，在这个杀气腾腾的世界该做什么、怎么做。”

We are not trying to convince you of anything. We are pointing to certain facts, certain truths which are neither yours nor mine. We are saying that to bring about a radical change in the social structure, fundamental questions must be answered; and in the very asking is the answer. The answer is the action; not in some distant future, but now. That is the greatest revolution. The greatest and the only revolution. To that you reply: we haven't time, we want to change the social structure immediately. If we may point it out, this reply is utterly immature. Man is not merely a social machine. He is concerned with love, concerned with sex, with fears. Yet without taking all that into account, you hope by transforming the scaffolding of the social structure to bring about a radical change. The activist is the extrovert. But what we are concerned with is neither extrovert nor introvert - which again is a very superficial division. What really concerns us is the change of the human mind. If this is not deeply understood, your revolution will be a reform and like every reform will need further reform.

我们不是要说服您相信任何事情。 我们指出的是某些事实，某些既不属于你也不属于我的真理。 我们是说，要彻底改变社会结构， 必须回应根本问题；深切地调查就是答案。 答案就是行动；不是在某个遥远的未来，而是现在。 那是最伟大的革命，最伟大的，同时也是唯一的革命。 对此你回复：我们没有时间，我们想立即改变社会结构。 如果我们可以指出，这个答复是完全不成熟的。 人不仅仅是一台社会机器。他关切爱，关切性、恐惧。 然而，如果不考虑所有这些， 你希望通过改变社会结构的脚手架，以带来根本性的变化。 活动家是外向的。 但是我们所关心的既不是外向的也不是内向的 —— 这又是一个非常肤浅的划分。 我们真正关心的是人的头脑的改变。 如果不深刻理解这一点， 你的革命将是一场改进，就像每一次改进都需要进一步的改进。

"I'm bored with all this." A tall clean-shaven young man, in sloppy clothes spoke. "I'm not interested in this at all. But what does interest me - not as an escape - is really to find out what meditation is. Can we go into that?"

“我对这一切感到厌烦。” 一个身材高大、胡子刮得干干净净、穿着邋遢的年轻人开口了。 “我对这一切根本不感兴趣。但我感兴趣的是 —— 不是作为一种逃避 —— 是真正找出冥想是什么。 我们可以深入那吗？”

Sirs, you see how divided we all are. One occupied with your physical revolution, another with sex, another with art or writing, and another with the understanding of truth. All these fragmentations make man self-centred, confused and miserable. And you with your revolution hope to solve all these problems by changing the superficial structure. To that you will probably reply: change the environment and man will be different. But again that is only a partial answer, or the statement of a partial fact. We are concerned with the total understanding of man. And this is meditation. Meditation is not an escape from 'what is'. It is the understanding of it and going beyond it. Without understanding 'what is', meditation becomes merely a form of self-hypnosis and escape into visions and imaginative flights of fancy. Meditation is the understanding of the whole activity of thought which brings into being the "me", the self, the ego, as a fact. Then thought tries to understand the image which it has created, as though that self were something permanent. This self again divides itself into the higher and the lower and this division in turn brings conflict, misery and confusion. The knowing of the self is one thing and the understanding of how the self comes into being, is another. One presupposes the existence of the self as a permanent entity. The other, through observation, learns how the self is put together by thought. So the understanding of thought, its ways and its subtleties, its activities and its divisions, is the beginning of meditation.

先生们，你看我们有多么分裂。 一个专注于你的外在革命，另一个专注于性， 另一个专注于艺术或写作，另一个专注于对真理的理解。 所有这些碎片化，导致了人以自我为中心、困惑和痛苦。 你和你的革命希望通过改变外部结构来解决所有这些问题。 对此，您可能会回答：改变环境，人就会不同。 但同样，这只是部分答案，或部分事实的陈述。 我们关心的是对人的全面理解。这就是冥想。 冥想不是逃避什么是。 而是理解它，并超越它。 如果不理解什么是， 冥想就变成了一种自我催眠的形式，逃入幻象和想象之中。 冥想是对整个思想活动的理解， 思想活动使“我”、自我、自我成为事实。 然后，思想试图理解它所创造的印象，好像那个自我是永恒的东西。 这个自我再次将自己划分为较高级别的和较低级别的， 而这种分裂又会带来冲突、痛苦和困惑。 认识自我是一回事，理解自我如何产生又是另一回事。 一个是预设出这个自我，当作一个永久性实体。 另一个是通过观察，学习自我是如何通过思想而组合在一起的。 因此，对思想的理解：它的方式、它的微妙、它的活动和划分， 就是冥想的开始。

But if you consider the self a permanent entity, you are studying a self which is non-existent, for it is merely a bundle of memories, words and experiences. So self-knowing is not the knowledge of the self but seeing how the self has been put together and how this makes for the fragmentation of life. One must see very clearly this misunderstanding. There is no permanent self about which to learn. But learning about the ways of thought and its activities is to dissipate self-centred activity. This is the foundation of meditation. Without understanding this deeply and radically, meditation becomes merely a game for the foolish, with their absurd little visions, fanciful experiences and the mischief of power. This foundation implies awareness, the observation of what is, without any choice, to see without any prejudice actually what is going on, both outwardly and inwardly, without any control or decision. This attention is action which is not something separate by itself; for life is action. You don't have to become an activist, which again is a fragmentation of life. If we are really concerned with total action, not a fragmentary one, then total action comes with total attention, which is to see actually 'what is' both inwardly and outwardly. And that very seeing is the doing.

但是，如果你认为自我是一个永久的实体， 你就是在研究一个不存在的自我，因为它只是一堆记忆、文字和体验。 因此，自我认识不是对这个自我的理解， 而是看这个自我是如何拼装起来的，以及它如何导致了生命的支离破碎。 一个人必须非常清楚地看到这种误解。 不存在一个永恒的、可以学习的自我。 但是，学习思想的方式，以及它的活动，是为了驱散以自我为中心的活动。 这是冥想的基础。 如果没有深刻而彻底地理解这一点，冥想就变成了愚蠢的游戏， 带着荒谬的小愿景、幻想性的体验和追逐权力的诡计。 这个基础意味着觉察，观察什么是，没有任何选择， 没有任何偏见地看正在真实地发生的事情，无论是外在的还是内在的，没有任何的控制或决心。 这种注意就是行动，它本来就不是分离的东西；因为生命就是行动。 你不必成为一名激进分子，这又是一种生命的碎片化。 如果我们真的关心完整的行动，而不是零碎的行动， 那么整体的行动伴随着对整体的注意而来， 也就是，看真实发生的‘什么是’，内在和外在的。而这种看，就是做。

"But don't you need training in this? Some method to practise so as to become attentive, so as to become sensitive?"

“可是，这不需要修炼吗？ 有什么方法可以修炼，变得有注意力，变得敏感？”

That is what so-called schools of meditation offer, which is really quite absurd. Method implies a mechanical repetition of words, or of control, or of conformity. In this repetition the mind becomes mechanical. A mind that is mechanical is not sensitive. In seeing the truth of this mechanical process the mind is liberated and therefore is sensitive. The seeing is the attention. "But," said the young man, "I can't see clearly. How am I to do this?"

那就是所谓的禅宗所提供的，实在是太荒唐了。 方法意味着对词语、控制或一致性的机械性重复。 在这种重复中，头脑变得机械化。 一颗机械的头脑是不敏感的。 在看到这个机械过程的真实性时，头脑得到解放，因此变得敏感。 看即是注意。“但是，”年轻人说，“我看不清楚。我该怎么办？”

To see clearly there must be no choice, no prejudice, no resistance or escape. Find out if you have escapes, if you are choosing, if you have prejudices. Understand this. Then the mind can observe very clearly not only the skies, the world, but what is going on within you - the self. "But doesn't meditation bring about extraordinary experiences?"

要看得清楚，必须没有选择、没有偏见、没有抵抗或逃避。 找出你是否有逃避，如果你正在选择，如果你有偏见。理解这。 那么，这颗头脑不仅可以非常清楚地观察这片天空、这个世界， 还可以非常清楚地观察你内在发生的事情 —— 这位自我。 “但冥想不会带来非凡的体验吗？”

Extraordinary experiences are totally irrelevant and dangerous. The mind being surfeited with experience wants wider, greater, more transcendent experience. The more is the enemy of the good. The good flowers only in the understanding of 'what is', not in wanting more or greater experiences. In meditation there are certain things that do happen, for which there are no words; and if you talk about them, then they are not the real.

非凡的体验是完全无关紧要和危险的。 这颗被体验淹没的头脑，想要更广泛、更伟大、更超越的体验。 “更多”是善的敌人。 善的花朵只能开在理解‘什么是’的基地上，而不是想要更多或更大的体验中。 在冥想中，某些事情确实发生了，没有语言可以形容它们； 如果你谈论它们，那么它们就不是真实的。