对生活的评注 2-22

THE DAILY PATTERN of life was repeating itself around the only water tap in the village; the water was running slowly, and a group of women were awaiting their turn. Three of them were noisily and bitterly quarrelling; they were completely absorbed in their anger and paid not the slightest attention to anyone else, nor was anyone paying attention to them. It must have been a ritual. Like all rituals, it was stimulating, and these women were enjoying the stimulation. An old woman helped a young one to lift a big, brightly polished brass pot onto her head. She had a little pad of cloth to bear the weight of the pot, which she held lightly with one hand. Her walk was superb, and she had great dignity. A little girl came quietly, slipped her pot under the tap, and carried it away without saying a word. Other women came and went, but the quarrel went on, and it seemed as though it would never end. Suddenly the three stopped filled their vessels with water, and went away as though nothing had happened. By now the sun was getting strong, and smoke was rising above the thatched roofs of the village. The day’s first meal was being cooked. How suddenly peaceful it was! Except for the crows, almost everything was quiet. Once the vociferous quarrel was over, one could hear the roar of the sea beyond the houses, the gardens and the palm groves.

日常的生活模式，在村里唯一的水龙头周围重演。水流得很慢，一群妇女正在等待轮到她们。其中三人唧唧歪歪，吵得很厉害。他们完全沉浸在自己的愤怒中，丝毫没有留意其他人，也没有人关注她们。它一定是一种仪式。像所有的仪式一样，它具有刺激性，这些女人正在享受这种刺激。一位老妇人协助一位年幼的女孩，将一个大而明亮的黄铜水盆高举到她的头上。她有一小块布来承受盆的重量，用一只手轻轻地扶着水盆。她的走路是一流的，她有很大的尊严。一个小女孩悄悄地走过来，把她的盆放在水龙头下面，一言不发地把它带走了。其他女人来来去去，但争吵还在继续，似乎永远不会结束。突然，三人停了下来，把水装满了，然后走了，好像什么都没发生过一样。这时，太阳越来越烈了，烟雾从村子的茅草屋顶升起。当天的第一顿饭正在煮熟。突然间，它是多么的平和！除了乌鸦，几乎一切都很安静。一旦激烈的争吵结束，人可以听到房屋、花园和棕榈树林之外的大海的咆哮声。

We carry on like machines with our tiresome daily routine. How eagerly the mind accepts a pattern of existence, and how tenaciously it clings to it! As by a driven nail, the mind is held together by idea, and around the idea it lives and has its being. The mind is never free, pliable, for it is always anchored; it moves within the radius, narrow or wide, of its own centre. From its centre it dare not wander; and when it does, it is lost in fear. Fear is not of the unknown, but of the loss of the known. The unknown does not incite fear, but dependence on the known does. Fear is always with desire, the desire for the more or for the less. The mind, with its incessant weaving of patterns, is the maker of time; and with time there is fear, hope and death. Hope leads to death.

我们像机器一样继续我们疲惫的日常生活。头脑多么热切地接受一种存在模式，它多么顽强地紧紧抓住它！就像被一颗被敲打的钉子一样，头脑被观念牢牢地抓住，在观念的四合院内，它活动，而这，就是它的一生。头脑永远不是自由的、柔韧的，因为它总是被敲定的。它在自己中心的半径内移动，不论宽窄。它不敢从它的中心徘徊；当它这样做时，它就会迷失在恐惧中。恐惧与未知无关，而是对已知的丢失。未知不会激起恐惧，但对已知的依赖会。恐惧总是与欲望同在 —— 更多或更少的欲望。头脑，以其无休止的编织模式，是时间的创造者；在时间的长河里，翻滚着过去、恐惧、希望和死亡。希望即是黑白无常，导向死亡。

He said he was a revolutionary; he wanted to blast every social structure and start all over again. He had eagerly worked for the extreme left, for the proletarian revolution, and that too had failed. Look what had happened in the country where that revolution was so gloriously accomplished! Dictatorship, with its police and its army, had inevitably bred new class distinctions, and all within a few years; what had been a glorious promise had come to nothing. He wanted a deeper and wider revolution to be started all over again, taking care to avoid all the pitfalls of the former revolution.

他说他是一个革命者。他想打破每一个社会结构，让一切重新开始。他热切地为极左翼、无产阶级革命而工作，但这也失败了。看看在革命如此辉煌的国家发生了什么！独裁政权及其警察和军队不可避免地滋生出新的阶级差异，就在这几年之内；本来是光荣的允诺，却化为乌有。他希望重新开始一场更深刻、更广泛的革命，小心翼翼地避免前一次革命的所有陷阱。

What do you mean by revolution? “A complete change of the present social structure, with or without bloodshed, according to a clear-cut plan. To be effective, it must be well thought out, organized in every detail and scrupulously executed. Such a revolution is the only hope, there is no other way out of this chaos.”

你说的革命是什么意思？ “彻底改变目前的社会结构，无论是否流血，贯彻明确的计划。为了有效，它必须经过深思熟虑，在每一个细节上组织，并严格执行。这样的革命是唯一的希望，没有其他办法能摆脱这种混乱。”

But won’t you have the same results again – compulsion and its officers? “It may at first result in that, but we will break through it. There will always be a separate and united group outside the government to watch over and guide it.”

但是，你难道不会再次得到同样的结果吗 —— 压迫及其官员们？ “起初可能会造成这种情况，但我们会突破它。除了政府之外，总会有一个独立而团结的团体来监督和指导它。”

You want a revolution according to a pattern, and your hope is in tomorrow, for which you are willing to sacrifice yourself and others. Can there be a fundamental revolution if it is based on idea? Ideas inevitably breed further ideas, further resistance and suppression. Belief engenders antagonism; one belief gives rise to many, and there are hostility and conflict. Uniformity of belief is not peace. Idea or opinion invariably creates opposition, which those in power must always seek to suppress. A revolution based on idea brings into being a counter-revolution, and the revolutionary spends his life fighting other revolutionaries, the better organized liquidating the weaker. You will be repeating the same pattern, will you not? Would it be possible to talk over the deeper significance of revolution?

你想要按照一个模式进行革命，你的希望在明天，你愿意为此牺牲自己和他人。如果革命是基于思想的，它会是一场根本性的革命吗？思想不可避免地孕育着进一步的思想，进一步的抵抗和压制。信仰产生对抗；一种信仰孕育出更多的信仰，产生出敌对与冲突。信仰的一致性不是和平。思想或意见总是会产生反对意见，当权者必须始终寻求镇压。基于思想的革命，会带来反革命，革命者一生都在与其他革命者作斗争，更有组织能力的政党消灭弱者。你会重复同样的模式，不是吗？有没有可能谈论革命的更深层次意义？

“It would have little value unless it led to a definite end. A new society must be built, and revolution according to a plan is the only way to achieve it. I don’t think I will change my views, but let us see what you have to say. What you will say has probably already been said by Buddha, Christ, and other religious teachers, and where has it got us? Two thousand years and more of preaching about being good, and look at the mess the capitalists have made!”

“那将没什么价值，除非它导致明确的目标。一个新的社会必须被建设，而按计划进行革命，是实现这个目标的唯一途径。我不认为我会改变我的观点，但让我们看看你有什么要说的。你要说的话，可能已经被佛陀、基督和其他宗教导师说过了，而它把我们带到了哪里？两千多年来，人们都在劝诫自己做好人，看看这个资本家们已经制造出的烂摊子！”

A society based on idea, shaped according to a particular pattern, breeds violence and is in a constant state of disintegration. A patterned society functions only within the frame of its self-projected belief. Society, the group, can never be in a state of revolution; only the individual can. But if he is revolutionary according to a plan, a well-authenticated conclusion, he is merely conforming to a self-projected ideal or hope. He is carrying out his own conditioned responses, modified perhaps, but limited all the same. A limited revolution is no revolution at all; like reform, it is a retrogression. A revolution based on deduction and conclusions, is but a modified continuity of the old pattern. For a fundamental and lasting revolution we must understand the mind and idea.

一个以观念为基础的，按照特定模式雕塑而成的社会，滋生着暴力，并处于一种不断解体的状态。一个模式化的社会，只有在其自我投射的信仰框架内才能运作。社会，这个群体，永远不可能处于革命状态；而只有个人才能够。但是，如果他根据一个计划，一个经过充分验证的结论来革命，那么他只是在遵循一个自我投射的理想或希望。他正在执行自己受限的回应，也许是修正过的，但总是受限的。受限的革命，根本不是革命；就像改革一样，它是一种倒退。基于演绎和结论的革命，不过是旧模式的调整性的延续。为了一场根本性的、持久性的革命，我们必须理解头脑和观念。

“What do you mean by idea? Do you mean knowledge?”

“你说的‘观念’是什么意思？你是说知识吗？

Idea is the projection of the mind; idea is the outcome of experience, and experience is knowledge. Experience is always interpreted according to the conscious or unconscious conditioning of the mind. The mind is experience, the mind is idea; the mind is not separate from the quality of thought. Knowledge, accumulated and accumulating, is the process of the mind. Mind is experience, memory, idea, it is the total process of response. Till we understand the working of the mind of consciousness, there cannot be a fundamental transformation of man and his relationships, which constitute society.

观念是头脑的投影；观念是经验的结果，经验是知识。经验总是根据头脑中有意或无意的局限来演绎。头脑是经验，是观念；头脑与思想的品质不分家。知识，积累的和正在收集的，是头脑的流转过程。头脑是经验、记忆、观念，是它整个存在的回应。除非我们理解头脑中意识的运作，否则人与他的关系就不可能发生根本性的转变，而这种关系，构成了社会。

“Are you suggesting that the mind as knowledge is the real enemy of revolution, and that the mind can never produce the new plan, the new State? If you mean that because the mind is still linked with the past it can never comprehend the new, and that whatever it may plan or create is the outcome of the old, then how can there ever be any change at all?”

“你是在说，作为知识的头脑，是革命的真正敌人，而那个头脑永远不可能产生新的计划，新的国家吗？如果你的意思那样，因为头脑仍然与过去联系在一起，它永远无法理解新事物，无论它计划或创造什么，都是旧事物的结果，那么怎么可能存在任何改变呢？”

Let us see. Mind is held in a pattern; its very existence is the frame within which it works and moves. The pattern is of the past or the future, it is despair and hope, confusion and Utopia, the what has been and the what should be. With this we are all familiar. You want to break the old pattern and substitute a ‘new’ one, the new being the modified old. You call it the new for your own purposes and manoeuvres, but it is still the old. The so-called new has its roots in the old: greed, envy, violence, hatred, power, exclusion. Embedded in these, you want to produce a new world. It is impossible. You may deceive yourself and others, but unless the old pattern is broken completely there cannot be a radical transformation. You may play around with it, but you are not the hope of the world. The breaking of the pattern, both the old and the so-called new, is of the utmost importance if order is to come out of this chaos. That is why it is essential to understand the ways of the mind. The mind functions only within the field of the known, of experience whether conscious or unconscious, collective or superficial. Can there be action without a pattern? Until now we have known action only in relation to a pattern, and such action is always an approximation to what has been or what should be. Action so far has been an adjustment to hope and fear, to the past or to the future.

让我们来看。头脑被固化在一个模子里；它的真身即是模具，它在里面工作和移动。模式从属于过去或未来，它是绝望、希望、困惑与乌托邦，是‘已经发生的’和‘应该发生的’。这些东西，我们都很熟悉。你想打破旧的模具，用一个‘新’的来代替，新的模具就是修改后的旧模具。你为了自己的目的和策略，把它称之为新的，但它仍然是旧的。所谓的‘新’源于‘旧’：贪婪、嫉妒、暴力、仇恨、权力、排斥。被嵌入其中的你，想创造一个新的世界，是不可能的。你可能会欺骗自己和他人，但除非完全打破旧模式，否则就不可能有根本性的转变。你可以玩弄它，但你不是世界的希望。打破这种模式，无论是旧的还是所谓的新的，是至关重要的，如果要使这种混乱出现秩序。这就是为什么理解头脑的方式为何重要。头脑只能运转于已知的领域，经验之内无论是显意识的或无意识的，集体的还是肤浅的。有没有一种行动是没有模式的？到目前为止，我们只知道与模式相关的行动，这种行动总是近似于‘已经发生的’和‘应该发生的’。迄今为止，行动是对希望和恐惧、对过去或未来的调整。

“If action is not a movement of the past to the future, or between the past and the future then what other action can there possibly be? You are not inviting us to inaction, are you?”

“如果行动不是过去到未来的运动，也不是过去和未来之间的运动，那么还有可能存在某种其他的行动呢？你不是在邀请我们无所作为，对吧？”

It would be a better world if each one of us were aware of true inaction, which is not the opposite of action. But that is another matter. Is it possible for the mind to be without a pattern, to be free of this backward and forward swing of desire? It is definitely possible. Such action is living in the now. To live is to be without hope, without the care of tomorrow; it is not hopelessness or indifference. But we are not living, we are always pursuing death, the past or the future. Living is the greatest revolution. Living has no pattern, but death has: the past or the future, the what has been or the Utopia. You are living for the Utopia, and so you are inviting death and not life.

如果我们每个人都意识到真正的无所作为，那将是一个更美好的世界，这不是行动的对立面。而是另一回事。头脑有没有可能没有模式，摆脱这种向后和向前的欲望钟摆？这绝对是可能的。这种行动即是活在现下。生活即是熄灭希望，不关心明天；它不是失望或冷漠。但我们没有生活，我们总是在追求死亡、过去或未来。生活是最伟大的革命。生活没有模式，但死亡有：过去或未来，已经发生的或乌托邦。你是为乌托邦而活，所以你在邀请死亡而不是生活。

“That is all very well, but it leads us nowhere. Where is your revolution? Where is action? Where is there a new manner of living?”

“这一切都很好，但它使我们无处可去。你的革命在哪里？行动在哪里？哪里有新的生活方式？”

Not in death but in life. You are pursuing the ideal, the hope, and this pursuit you call action, revolution. Your ideal, your hope is the projection of the mind away from what is. The mind, being the result of the past, is bringing out of itself a pattern for the new, and this you call revolution. Your new life is the same old one in different clothes. The past and the future do not hold life; they have the remembrance of life and the hope of life, but they are not the living. The action of the mind is not living. The mind can act only within the frame of death, and revolution based on death is only more darkness, more destruction and misery.

不是在死亡中，而是在生命中。你正在追求理想、希望，而这种追求，你称之为行动、革命。你的理想，你的希望是头脑远离现状的投影。头脑，作为过去的结果，正在给‘新的’套上一种模具，这就是你所说的革命。你的新生命，是穿着不同衣服的旧生命。过去和未来，套不住生命；它们是对生命的回忆，对生命的希望，但他们不是活的。头脑的行动不是活的。头脑只能在死亡的框架下行动，而基于死亡的革命只能是更多的黑暗、更多的破坏和痛苦。