SILENCE IS NOT to be cultivated, it is not to be deliberately brought about; it is not to be sought out, thought of, or meditated upon. The deliberate cultivation of silence is as the enjoyment of some longed for pleasure; the desire to silence the mind is but the pursuit of sensation. Such silence is only a form of resistance, an isolation which leads to decay. Silence that is bought is a thing of the market in which there is the noise of activity. Silence comes with the absence of desire. Desire is swift, cunning and deep. Remembrance shuts off the sweep of silence, and a mind that is caught in experience cannot be silent. Time, the movement of yesterday flowing into today and tomorrow, is not silence. With the cessation of this movement there is silence, and only then can that which is unnameable come into being.
静是不能被培养的，不是故意带出的； 它不能被寻找、思考或沉思。 刻意培养静，就是作为某些渴望快乐的人的享受； 让头脑静下来的欲望，不过是对感觉的追求。 这种静，只是一种抵抗形式，一种导致腐败的隔绝。 买来的静，是含有活动噪音的商品。 寂静，伴随着欲望的消失而来。 欲望是迅速的、狡猾的和深刻的。 记忆尘封了寂静的低吟， 而一个被困在体验中的头脑，不可能静得下来。 时间、昨天淹没了今天，奔向明天。这种运动不是静。 随着这场运动的停止，静出现了， 只有那样，那无名的，才会呈现。
“I have come to talk over karma with you. Of course I have certain opinions about it, but I would like to know yours.”
“我来和你谈论业力。 当然，我对此有一定的看法，但我想知道你的意见。”
Opinion is not truth; we must put aside opinions to find truth. There are innumerable opinions, but truth is not of this or of that group. For the understanding of truth, all ideas, conclusions, opinions, must drop away as the withered leaves fall from a tree. Truth is not to be found in books, in knowledge, inexperience. If you are seeking opinions, you will find none here. “But we can talk about karma and try to understand its significance, can we not.”
意见不是真理；我们必须把意见放在一边，以寻找真实。 有无数的意见，但真实不属于这个人、那个人或群众。 为了理解真实， 所有的想法、结论、意见，都必须随着枯萎的树叶从树上掉下来而消失。 真实不是在书本上找到的，不是在知识中找到的，不在体验之中。 如果你正在寻求意见，你在这里会找不到。 “但我们可以谈论业力，并试图理解它的意义，不是吗。”
That, of course, is quite a different matter. To understand, opinions and conclusions must cease. “Why do you insist upon that?”
当然，这是另一回事。 为了理解，意见和结论必须停止。 “你为什么坚持这样做？”
Can you understand anything if you have already made up your mind about it, or if you repeat the conclusions of another? To find the truth of this matter, must we not come to it afresh, with a mind that is not clouded by prejudice? Which is more important, to be free from conclusions, prejudices, or to speculate about some abstraction? Is it not more important to find the truth than to squabble about what truth is? An opinion as to what truth is, is not truth. Is it not important to discover the truth concerning karma? To see the false as the false is to begin to understand it, is it not? How can we see either the true or the false if our minds are entrenched in tradition, in words and explanations? If the mind is tethered to a belief, how can it go far? To journey far, the mind must be free. Freedom is not something to be gained at the end of long endeavour, it must be at the very beginning of the journey.
如果你已经下定决心，或者如果你重复另一个人的结论， 你能理解任何东西吗？ 为了找到这件事的真相， 我们难道没必要带着一个不被偏见蒙蔽的头脑重新开始吗？ 哪一个更重要： 摆脱结论和偏见，还是推测出某些抽象？ 难道找到真理不比争论‘真理是什么’更重要吗？ 关于‘真理是什么’的观点，不是真理。 发现关于业力的真实性，难道不重要吗？ 把假看成是假，就是理解它的第一步，不是吗？ 如果我们的思想在传统、言语和解释中根深蒂固， 我们怎么能看见真假呢？ 如果心灵被一种信仰所束缚，它怎么能走得更远？ 要走得很远，头脑必须是自由的。 自由不是经过长期努力而最终要获取的东西， 它必须是在旅程的开始。
“I want to find out what karma means to you.”
“我想找出业力对你意味着什么。”
Sir, let us take the journey of discovery together. Merely to repeat the words of another has no deep significance. It is like playing a gramophone record. Repetition or imitation does not bring about freedom. What do you mean by karma? “It is a Sanskrit word meaning to do, to be, to act, and so on. Karma is action, and action is the outcome of the past. Action cannot be without the conditioning of the background. Through a series of experiences, through conditioning and knowledge, the background of tradition is built up, not only during the present life of the individual and the group, but throughout many incarnations. The constant action and interaction between the background, which is the ‘me’, and society, life, is karma; and karma binds the mind, the ‘me’. What I have done in my past life, or only yesterday, holds and shapes me, giving pain or pleasure in the present. There is group or collective karma, as well as that of the individual. Both the group and the individual are held in the chain of cause and effect. There will be sorrow or joy, punishment or reward, according to what I have done in the past.”
先生，让我们一起踏上发现之旅。 仅仅重复别人的话，没有深刻的意义。 这就像播放留声机唱片一样。 重复或模仿不会带来自由。 你说的‘业力’是什么意思？ “这是一个梵语单词，意思是去做，保持，行动，等等。 业力是行动，行动是过去的结果。 行动不能不受背景的限制。 通过一系列的经验，通过局限性的条框和知识， 传统的背景被建立起来， 不仅在个人和群体的今生中， 而且在许多轮回中。 这种持续的行动和互动 —— 作为背景的我，与社会或生命的互动，即是业力； 业力束缚心灵，即“我”。 我过去的生命中所做的，或者只是昨天所做的事情，掌控并塑造了我， 给我带来了现在的痛苦或快乐。 有群体或集体的业力，也有个人的业力。 群体和个人都处于因果链中。 根据我过去所种的因， 将会有悲伤或喜悦，惩罚或奖励的果。”
You say action is the outcome of the past. Such action is not action at all, but only a reaction, is it not? The conditioning the background, reacts to stimuli; this reaction is the response of memory, which is not action, but karma. For the present we are not concerned with what action is. Karma is the reaction which arises from certain causes and produces certain results. Karma is this chain of cause and effect. Essentially, the process of time is karma, is it not? As long as there is a past, there must be the present and the future. Today and tomorrow are the effects of yesterday; yesterday in conjunction with today makes tomorrow. Karma, as generally understood, is a process of compensation.
你说行动是过去的结果。 这样的行动根本不是行动，而只是一种反应，不是吗？ 背景下的条件反射，对刺激做出反应； 这种反应是记忆的反应，不是行动，而是业力。 就目前而言，我们不关心行动是什么。 业力是由某些原因引发的，并产生出某些结果的反应。 业力就是因果链。 从本质上讲，时间的流程就是业力，不是吗？ 只要有过去，就一定有现在和未来。 今天和明天是昨天的结果； 昨天与今天相结合，成就了明天。 业力，对它通常的理解，是一种补偿的过程。
“As you say, karma is a process of time, and mind is the result of time. Only the fortunate few can escape from the clutches of time; the rest of us are bound to time. What we have done in the past, good or evil, determines what we are in the present.”
“正如你所说，业力是时间的流转，大脑是时间的产物。 只有幸运的少数人才能逃脱时间的束缚； 我们其他人注定要被时间所束缚。 我们过去所做的事情，无论好坏，决定了我们现在的样子。”
Is the background, the past, a static state? Is it not undergoing constant modification? You are not the same today as you were yesterday; both physiologically and psychologically there is a constant change going on, is there not? “Of course.”
背景，过去，是一种静止状态吗？ 它不是在不断修改吗？ 你今天和昨天不一样。 生理和心理上都有不断的变化， 不是吗？“当然。”
So the mind is not a fixed state. Our thoughts are transient, constantly changing; they are the response of the background. If I have been brought up in a certain class of society in a definite culture, I will respond to challenge, to stimuli, according to my conditioning. With most of us, this conditioning is so deep-rooted that response is almost always according to the pattern. Our thoughts are the response of the background. We are the background; that conditioning is not separate or dissimilar from us. With the changing of the background our thoughts also change.
所以头脑不是处于一种固定的状态。 我们的思想是短暂的，不断变化的； 它们是背景的响应。 如果我在某个社会阶层的某种文化中长大， 我会根据我的条件反射来应对挑战，回应刺激。 对于我们大多数人来说，这种条件反射是如此根深蒂固， 以至于回应几乎总是根据这种反射模式。 我们的想法是背景的回音。 我们即是背景；这种条件反射与我们不是分开的或不同的。 随着背景的变化，我们的想法也会改变。
“But surely the thinker is wholly different from the background, is he not?”
“但思想者肯定与背景完全地不同，不是吗？”
Is he? Is not the thinker the result of his thoughts? Is he not composed of his thoughts? Is there a separate entity, a thinker apart from his thoughts? Has not thought created the thinker, given him permanence amidst the impermanence of thoughts? The thinker is the refuge of thought, and the thinker places himself at different levels of permanency. “I see this is so, but it is rather a shock to me to realize the tricks that thought is playing upon itself.”
是吗？思想者不就是他思想的结果吗？ 难道他不是由他的思想组成的吗？ 除了他的思想之外，还有一个单独的实体，一个思想者吗？ 难道思想没有创造出思想者， 在思想的无常中赋予他永恒吗？ 思想者是思想的避难所， 思想者将自己置于不同的、永恒的层面上。 “我看到是这样，但意识到思想正在自身上玩弄诡计，这让我感到震惊。”
Thought is the response of the background, of memory; memory is knowledge, the result of experience. This memory, through further experience and response, gets tougher, larger, sharper, more efficient. One form of conditioning can be substituted for another, but it is still conditioning. The response of this conditioning is karma, is it not? The response of memory is called action, but it is only reaction; this ‘action’ breeds further reaction, and so there is a chain of so-called cause and effect. But is not the cause also the effect? Neither cause nor effect is static. Today is the result of yesterday and today is the cause of tomorrow; what was the cause becomes the effect, and the effect the cause. One flows into the other. There is no moment when the cause is not also the effect. Only the specialized is fixed in its cause and so in its effect. The acorn cannot become anything but an oak tree. In specialization there is death; but man is not a specialized entity, he can be what he will. He can break through his conditioning – and he must, if he would discover the real. You must cease to be a so-called Brahmin to realize God.
思想是背景、记忆的回音； 记忆是知识，是体验的结果。 这种记忆，通过进一步的体验和反应， 变得更坚韧，更广大，更锋利，更有效。 一种形式的条件反射可以被另一种形式所取代， 但它仍然是条件反射。 这种条件反射是业力，不是吗？ 记忆的反应被称为行动，但它只不过余音； 这种‘行动’滋生了进一步的回响， 因此出现了所谓的因果链。 但是，原因不也是结果吗？原因和结果都并非一成不变的。 今天是昨天的结果，今天是明天的起因； 曾经的因，变成了果，结果就是原因。 一个流入另一个。 没有一个时刻，原因不是结果。 只有在划定的时刻，存在对应的因与果。 橡子不能变成什么，只能变成一棵橡树。 在划定的时刻，即是死亡； 但人不是一个划定的实体，他可以成为他想要的。 他可以突破他的制约 —— 如果他能发现真实的话，他必须这样做。 你必须不再是一个所谓的婆罗门，才能觉察到上帝。
Karma is the process of time, the past moving through the present to the future; this chain is the way of thought. Thought is the result of time, and there can be that which is immeasurable, timeless, only when the process of thought has ceased. Stillness of the mind cannot be induced, it cannot be brought about through any practice or discipline. If the mind is made still, then whatever comes into it is only a self-projection, the response of memory. With the understanding of its conditioning, with the choiceless awareness of its own responses as thought and feeling, tranquillity comes to the mind. This breaking of the chain of karma is not a matter of time; for through time, the timeless is not.
业力是时间的过程，过去通过现在移动到未来； 这个链条，就是思维方式。 思想是时间的结果， 只有思想进程停摆， 才有不可估量的、非时间的东西。 头脑的寂静不能被诱导， 它不能通过任何修行或纪律来实现。 如果头脑被镇静， 那么，无论什么进入它的里面，都只是一种自我的投影、记忆的回响。 随着对它自身局限性的理解， 随着对自身作为思想和感觉的余音的无选择地意识， 平静降临于头脑。 业力链的断裂不是时间的问题。 因为在时间里，没有那非时间的东西。
Karma must be understood as a total process not merely as something of the past. The past is time, which is also the present and the future. Time is memory, the word, the idea. When the word, the name, the association, the experience, is not, then only is the mind still, not merely in the upper layers, but completely, integrally.
业力必须被作为一个完整的过程而理解，而不仅仅是过去的东西。 过去是时间，也是现在和未来。 时间就是记忆，是文字，是想法。 当这个言词、名字、联想、体验不在， 那么头脑才有寂静，不仅仅在上表层，而是在完全、完整地。