对生活的评注 2-11

HE WAS A school principal with several college degrees. He had been very keenly interested in education, and had also worked hard for various kinds of social reform; but now, he said, though still quite young, he had lost the spring of life. He carried on with his duties almost mechanically, going through the daily routine with weary boredom; there was no longer any zest in what he did, and the drive which he had once felt was completely gone. He had been religiously inclined and had striven to bring about certain reforms in his religion, but that too had dried up.

他是一名拥有多个大学学位的校长。他对教育有着浓厚的兴趣，也为各种社会改革而努力奋斗；但现在，他说，虽然他还很年轻，但他已经失去了生命的泉水。他几乎机械地继续他的职责，疲惫而无聊地过着日常生活；他所做的事情不再有任何热情，他曾经感受到的动力完全消失了。他曾有过宗教倾向，并努力在他的宗教中带来某些改革，但那种努力也已经枯竭。

He saw no value in any particular action.

他认为任何特定行动都没有价值。

Why? “All action leads to confusion, creating more problems, more mischief. I have tried to act with thought and intelligence, but it invariably leads to some kind of mess; the several activities in which I have engaged have all made me feel depressed, anxious and weary, and they have led nowhere. Now I am afraid to act, and the fear of doing more harm than good has caused me to withdraw from all save the minimum of action.”

为什么？ “所有的行动都会导致混乱，制造更多的问题，更多的悲剧。我试图以思想和智慧行事，但它总是导致某种混乱；我参与的几项活动都让我感到沮丧、焦虑和疲惫，而且它们毫无成效。现在我不敢行动，害怕所做的行动弊大于利，使我退出了一切，除了最低限度的行动。

What is the cause of this fear? Is it the fear of doing harm? Are you withdrawing from life because of the fear of bringing about more confusion? Are you afraid of the confusion that you might create, or of the confusion within yourself? If you were clear within yourself and from that clarity there were action, would you then be fearful of any outward confusion which your action might create? Are you afraid of the confusion within or without?

这种恐惧的原因是什么？是害怕造成伤害吗？你是因为害怕带来更多的困惑而从生活中隐退下来吗？你是害怕你可能造成的困惑，还是害怕你自己内心的困惑？如果你内心是清楚的，从那明晰之中，即会产生行动，你是害怕你的行为可能造成的任何外在的混乱吗？你害怕的是内在的困惑，还是外在的困惑？

“I have not looked at it in this way before, and I must consider what you say.”

“我以前没有这样看过，我一定要考虑你所说的。”

Would you mind bringing about more problems if you were clear in yourself? We like to run away from our problems, by whatever means, and thereby we only increase them. To expose our problems may appear confusing, but the capacity to meet the problems depends on the clarity of approach. If you were clear, would your actions be confusing? “I am not clear. I don’t know what I want to do. I could join some ism of the left or of the right but that would not bring about clarity of action. One may shut one’s eyes to the absurdities of a particular ism and work for it, but the fact remains that there is essentially more harm than good in the action of all isms. If I were very clear within myself, I would meet the problems and try to clear them up. But I am not clear. I have lost all incentive for action.”

如果你自己很清楚，你会介意带来更多的问题吗？我们喜欢逃避我们的问题，无论以何种方式，因此我们只会使它们增加。曝露我们的问题可能看起来令人困惑，但解决问题的能力取决于方法的明确性。如果你很清楚，你的行为会混乱吗？ “我不清楚。我不知道我想做什么。我可以加入左派或右派的一些主义，但那不会带来明晰的行动。一个人可能会对某种特别的主义的荒谬闭上眼睛，并为之努力，但事实仍然在，所有主义的行为本质上弊大于利。如果我内心非常清楚，我就会遇到问题，并试图清除它们。但我并不清楚。我失去了所有行动的动力。”

Why have you lost incentive? Have you lost it in the over expenditure of limited energy? Have you exhausted yourself in doing things that have no fundamental interest for you? Or is it that you have not yet found out what you are genuinely interested in? “You see, after college I was very keen on social reform, and I ardently worked at it for some years; but I began to see the pettiness of it, so I dropped it and took up education. I really worked hard at education for a number of years, not caring for anything else; but that too I finally dropped because I was getting more and more confused. I was ambitious, not for myself, but for the work to succeed; but the people with whom I worked were always quarrelling, they were jealous and personally ambitious.”

你为什么失去了动力？您在做那些对你来说根本没有兴趣的事情的时候，消耗了你自己吗？你是不是还没有发现你真正感兴趣的是什么？ “你看，大学毕业后，我非常热衷于社会改革，我热切地工作了几年；但我开始看到它的琐碎，所以我放弃了它，开始接受教育。我真的在教育方面努力工作了很多年，不关心其他任何事情；但是我最终也放弃了教育，因为我越来越困惑。我雄心勃勃，不是为了我自己，而是为了工作上的成就；但与我一起工作的人总是在争吵，他们嫉妒，抱有自私的野心。

Ambition is an odd thing. You say you were not ambitious for yourself, but only for the work to succeed. Is there any difference between personal and so-called impersonal ambition? You would not consider it personal or petty to identify yourself with an ideology and work ambitiously for it; you would call that a worthy ambition, would you not? But is it? Surely, you have only substituted one term for another, ‘impersonal’ for ‘personal; but the drive, the motive is still the same. You want success for the work with which you are identified. For the term ‘I’ you have substituted the term ‘work’, ‘system’, ‘country’, ‘God’, but you are still important. Ambition is still at work, ruthless, jealous, feudal. Is it because the work was not successful that you dropped it? Would you have carried on if it had been?

雄心是一个奇怪的东西。你说你没有自私的野心，而只是为了工作的成功。个人野心和所谓的非个人的雄心，两者有什么区别吗？当你将自己与一种意识形态认同并为之雄心勃勃地工作时，你不会认为它是个人或琐碎的野心；你会称之为一个有价值的雄心，难道不是吗？但事实果真如此吗？很确定，你只用一个词代替了另一个词，用“非个人”代替了“个人”；但这种驱动力，这种动机还是一样的。您希望在被认同的工作中获得成功。对于‘我’这个词，你已经用‘工作’、‘体系’、‘国家’、‘上帝’取代了它，但你仍然很重要。雄心还在起作用，无情、嫉妒、封建。是因为你的工作没有成功而放弃了它吗？如果是的话，你会继续下去吗？

“I don’t think that was it. The work was fairly successful, as any work is if one gives time, energy and intelligence to it. I gave it up because it led nowhere; it brought about some temporary alleviation, but there was no fundamental and lasting change.”

“我不认为是这样。这项工作相当成功，如同任何一项工作一样，只要一个人为之付出时间、精力和智慧。我放弃了它，因为它没有成效；它带来了一些暂时的缓解，但没有根本性和持久化的改变。”

You had the drive when you were working, and what has happened to it? What has happened to the urge, the flame? Is that the problem? “Yes, that is the problem. I had the flame once, but now it is gone.”

您在工作时有驱动力，那时发生了什么事？这种冲动，火焰出现了什么问题？这就是问题所在吗？ “是的，这就是问题所在。我曾经有过火焰，但现在它已经消失了。”

Is it dormant, or is it burnt out through wrong usage so that only ashes are left? Perhaps you have not found your real interest. Do you feel frustrated? Are you married?

它是休眠的，还是由于错误的使用而烧坏，只剩下灰烬？也许你还没有找到你真正的兴趣。你感到沮丧吗？你结婚了吗？

“No, I do not think I am frustrated, nor do I feel the need of a family or of the companionship of a particular person. Economically I am content with little. I have always been drawn to religion in the deep sense of the word, but I suppose I wanted to be ‘successful’ in that field too.”

“不，我不认为我很沮丧，我也不觉得需要一个家庭或一个特定人的陪伴。在经济上，我满足于少许的财物。我一直被这个词的深层意义上的宗教所吸引，但我可能我也想在这个领域‘成功’。”

If you are not frustrated, why aren’t you content just to live? “I am not getting any younger, and I don’t want to rot, to vegetate.”

如果你不感到沮丧，你为什么不满足于生活呢？ “我不能变得更年轻，我不想腐烂，不想变成植物人。”

Let us put the problem differently. What are you interested in?

让我们以不同的方式看待这个问题。您对什么感兴趣？

Not what you should be interested in, but actually? “I really don’t know.”

不是你应该感兴趣的，而是真正的兴趣？“我真的不知道。”

Aren’t you interested in finding out? “But how am I to find out?”

你没有兴趣去寻找吗？“可是我要怎么找？”

Do you think there is a method, a way to find out what you are interested in? It is really important to discover for yourself in what direction your interest lies. So far you have tried certain things, you have given your energy and intelligence to them, but they have not deeply satisfied you. Either you have burnt yourself out doing things that were not of fundamental interest to you, or your real interest is still dormant, waiting to be awakened. Now which is it?

你认为有一种方法，一种途径可以找到你感兴趣的内容吗？亲自发现你的兴趣方向是非常重要的。到目前为止，你已经尝试了某些事情，你已经把你的精力和智慧给了他们，但它们并没有让你深刻地满意。要么你已经把自己烧坏了，做了一些对你来说没有根本意义的事情，要么你真正的兴趣仍然处于休眠状态，等待着被唤醒。现在，它是哪种情况？

“Again, I don’t know. Can you help me to find out?”

“再说一遍，我不知道。你能帮我找出来吗？”

Don’t you want to know for yourself the truth of the matter? If you have burnt yourself out, the problem demands a certain approach; but if your fire is still dormant, then the awakening of it is important. Now which is it? Without my telling you which it is, don’t you want to discover the truth of it for yourself? The truth of what is is its own action. If you are burnt out, then it is a matter of healing, recuperating; lying creatively fallow. This creative fallowness follows from the movement of cultivating and sowing; it is inaction for complete future action. Or it may be that your real interest has not yet been awakened. Please listen and find out. If the intention to find out is there, you will find out, not by constant inquiry, but by being clear and ardent in your intention. Then you will see that during the waking hours there is an alert watchfulness in which you are picking up every intimation of that latent interest, and that dreams also play a part. In other words, the intention sets going the mechanism of discovery.

你不想知道事情的真相吗？如果你已经把自己烧坏了，问题需要某种处理手段；但是如果你的火仍然处于休眠状态，那么对它的呼唤是很重要的。现在，是哪种情况？没有我告诉你它是什么，你不想自己发现它的真相吗？真相有它自己的行动。如果你被烧坏了，那么这是一个愈合、恢复的问题；创造性地躺着休耕。这种创造性的休耕源于耕种和播种的运动。这是对未来完全行动的无所作为。或者可能是你真正的兴趣还没有被唤醒。请听并找出答案。如果寻找的意图在那里，你会找到，不是通过不断的询问，而是通过清晰和热切的意图。然后你会看见，在醒来的时间里，有一种警醒的觉察，在其中你会捕捉到这种潜在兴趣的每一个暗示，而梦也发挥了作用。换句话说，意图设定了发现的机制。

“But how am I to know which interest is the real one? I have had several interests, and they have all petered out. How do I know that what I may discover to be my real interest won’t also peter out?”

“但是我怎么知道哪个兴趣才是真正的呢？我有几个兴趣，它们都逐渐消失了。我怎么知道，我可能发现的那个真正的兴趣不会同样地消失呢？”

There is no guarantee, of course; but since you are aware of this petering out, there will be alert watchfulness to discover the real. If I may put it this way you are not seeking your real interest; but being in a passively watchful state, the real interest will show itself. If you try to find out what your real interest is, you will choose one as against another you will weigh, calculate, judge. This process only cultivates opposition; you spend your energies wondering if you have chosen rightly, and so on. But when there is passive awareness, and not a positive effort on your part to find, then into that awareness comes the movement of interest. Experiment with this and you will see.

当然，无法保证。但是，既然您知道这种逐渐消失的情况，就会有警醒的觉察来发现真实。如果我可以这样说，你没有寻求你真实的兴趣；但却处于被动的监视状态，真正的兴趣就会自动显现出来。如果你试图找出你真正的兴趣是什么，你会选择一个，而不是另一个，你会权衡，计算，判断。这个过程只会培养对立面；你花费你的精力想知道你是否做出了正确的选择，等等。但是，当出现被动地意识，而不是你积极的努力寻找，那么进入这种意识中，就会出现兴趣的运动。试试这个，你会看到的。