THE RIVER WAS very wide here, almost a mile and very deep; in midstream the waters were clear and blue, but towards the banks they were sullied, dirty and sluggish. The sun was setting behind the huge, sprawling city up the river; the smoke and the dust of the town were giving marvellous colours to the setting sun, which were reflected on the wide, dancing waters. It was a lovely evening and every blade of grass, the trees and the chattering birds, were caught in timeless beauty. Nothing was separate, broken up. The noise of a train rattling over the distant bridge was part of this complete stillness. Not far away a fisherman was singing. There were wide, cultivated strips along both banks, and during the day the green, luscious fields were smiling and inviting; but now they were dark, silent and withdrawn. On this side of the river there was a large, uncultivated space where the children of the village flew their kites and romped about in noisy enjoyment, and where the nets of the fishermen were spread out to dry. They had their primitive boats anchored there.
这里的河面很宽阔，差不多有一英里，也很深。 在河中央，水清澈而呈蓝色， 但靠近河边的水，却被玷污、浑浊而迟缓。 太阳落在位于河的上游的巨大而正在扩张的城市的后面。 城镇的烟雾和灰尘，给夕阳带来了奇妙的色彩， 这些夕阳反射在宽阔的、跳动的水域上。 这是一个美好的夜晚，每一片草叶、树和聊天的鸟儿们， 都被永恒的美丽所吸引。没有什么是分离的、破碎的。 远处的桥上传来了火车嘎嘎作响的噪音，是这完全寂静的一部分。 不远处，有个渔夫在歌唱。 两岸都有宽阔的耕地， 白天，绿色甜美的田野面带微笑，很是诱人。 但现在的她们，是黑暗的、沉默的、隐匿的。 在河的一边，有一块很大的、未开垦的空地， 村里的孩子们放风筝，在嘈杂的嬉戏中享受， 渔网被摊开晾晒。 他们把简陋的船只停泊在那里。
The village was just above higher up the bank, and generally they had singing, dancing, or some other noisy affair going on up there; but this evening, though they were all out of their huts and sitting about, the villagers were quiet and strangely thoughtful. A group of them were coming down the steep bank, carrying on a bamboo litter a dead body covered with white cloth. They passed by and I followed. Going to the river's edge, they put down the litter almost touching the water. They had brought with them fast-burning wood and heavy logs, and making of these a pyre they laid the body on it, sprinkling it with water from the river and covering it with more wood and hay. A very young man lit the pyre. There were about twenty of us, and we all gathered around. There were no women present, and the men sat on their haunches, wrapped in their white cloth, completely still. The fire was getting intensely hot, and we had to move back. A charred black leg rose out of the fire and was pushed back with a long stick; it wouldn't stay, and a heavy log was thrown on it. The bright yellow flames were reflected on the dark water, and so were the stars. The slight breeze had died down with the setting of the sun. Except for the crackling of the fire, everything was very still. Death was there, burning. Amidst all those motionless people and the living flames there was infinite space, a measureless distance, a vast aloneness. It was not something apart, separate and divided from life. The beginning was there and ever the beginning.
这个村庄就在河岸的正上方， 通常他们在那里唱歌、跳舞或其他一些嘈杂的事情。 但今晚，虽然他们都走出了小屋，坐在那里， 村民们安静下来，出奇地体贴。 他们一群人正沿着陡峭的河岸往下走， 抬着一张竹制担架，尸体上覆盖着白布。 他们路过，而我跟着。 走到河边， 他们放下了担架，几乎碰到了水面。 他们带来了易燃的木头和沉重的原木， 搭好柴堆，把尸体放在上面， 洒上一点河水，用更多的木头和干草覆盖它。 一个非常年轻的人点燃了柴堆。 我们大约有二十个人，我们都聚在一起。 在场的没有女人，男人们屁股坐在地上， 裹着他们的白布，完全的安静。 火势越来越烈，我们不得不往后退。 一条烧焦的黑腿从火中升起，被一根长棍推了回去； 它不会留下来，一根沉重的木头被扔在上面。 明亮的金黄色火焰倒影在漆黑的水面上，星星也是如此。 微风随着太阳的落山而消失。 除了火的噼啪声，一切寂然无声。 死亡就在那里，燃烧着。 在那些一动不动的人们和鲜艳的火焰中， 有一种无垠的空间、无量的距离、浩渺的自在。 它不是一个与生命分开、分离、切断的东西。 开始就在那里，永远都在开始。
Presently the skull was broken and the villagers began to leave. The last one to go must have been a relative; he folded his hands, saluted, and slowly went up the bank. There was very little left now; the towering flames were quiet, and only glowing embers remained. The few bones that did not burn would be thrown into the river tomorrow morning. The immensity of death, the immediacy of it, and how near! With the burning away of that body, one also died. There was complete aloneness and yet not apartness, aloneness but not isolation. Isolation is of the mind but not of death.
现在，头骨被烧毁了，村民们开始离开。 最后一个离去的人一定是近亲。 他双手合十，敬礼，缓缓地走上岸边。 现在所剩无几了。 高耸的火焰安息了，只余下发亮的余烬。 那几块没有烧焦的骨头，明天早上会被扔进河里。 死亡的浩瀚，它的即刻性，与现在，有多么地亲近！ 随着那具尸体的燃烧，一个人也死了。 完全的自在，却没分手，独立却无隔阂。 隔阂是属于头脑的，而与死亡无关。
Well advanced in age, with quiet manners and dignity, he had clear eyes and a quick smile. It was cold in the room and he was wrapped in a warm shawl. Speaking in English, for he had been educated abroad, he explained that he had retired from governmental work and had plenty of time on his hands. He had studied various religions and philosophies, he said but had not come this long way to discuss such matters.
他年事已高，举止安详而庄严，眼睛清澈，笑容灿烂。 房间里很冷，他被裹在温暖的披肩里。 他用英语说，因为他在国外受过教育， 他解释说，他已经从政府工作中退休，手头上有足够的时间。 他说，他研究过各种宗教和哲学， 但还没有走过这么远的路来讨论这些问题。
The early morning sun was on the river and the waters were sparkling like thousands of jewels. There was a small golden-green bird on the veranda sunning itself, safe and quiet. "What I have really come for," he continued, "is to ask about or perhaps to discuss the thing that most disturbs me: death. I have read the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and am familiar with what our own books say on the subject. The Christian and Islamic suggestions concerning death are much too superficial. I have talked to various religious teachers here and abroad, but to me at least all their theories appear to be very unsatisfactory. I have thought a great deal about the subject and have often meditated upon it, but I don't seem to get any further. A friend of mine who heard you recently told me something of what you were saying, so I have come. To me the problem is not only the fear of death, the fear of not being, but also what happens after death. This has been a problem for man throughout the ages, and no one appears to have solved it. What do you say?"
清晨的阳光照在河上，河水如成千上万的宝石一样闪闪发光。 阳台上，有一只金绿色的小鸟在晒太阳，安全而安静。 “我来这里的真正目的，” 他继续说道， “是想问，或者也许是为了讨论最让我不安的事情：死亡。 我读过《西藏死亡之书》， 熟悉我们自己的书籍对这个主题的说法。 基督教和伊斯兰教关于死亡的建议太肤浅了。 我曾与国内外的各种宗教老师们交谈过， 但至少在我看来，他们所有的理论似乎都非常地不令人满意。 我对这个主题想了很多，并且经常沉思它， 但我似乎没有进展。 我的一个朋友最近听到你， 向我转述了你所说的话，所以我来了。 对我来说，问题不仅仅是对死亡的恐惧，对不存在的恐惧， 还在于死后发生的事情。 这是人类历代以来的一个问题，似乎没有人解决掉了它。 你说呢？”
Let us first dispose of the urge to escape from the fact of death through some form of belief, such as reincarnation or resurrection, or through easy rationalization. The mind is so eager to find a reasonable explanation of death, or a satisfying answer to this problem, that it easily slips into some kind of illusion. Of this, one has to be extremely watchful. "But isn't that one of our greatest difficulties? We crave for some kind of assurance especially from those whom we consider to have knowledge or experience in this matter; and when we can't find such an assurance we bring into being, out of despair and hope, our own comforting beliefs and theories. So belief, the most outrageous or the most reasonable, becomes a necessity."
让我们首先来处理这种冲动 —— 从真切的死亡中逃跑 —— 通过某种形式的信仰，如转世或复活，或通过简单的合理化。 头脑如此渴望找到一个关于死亡的合理的解释， 或者对这个问题有一个令人满意的答案，以至于轻易地陷入某种幻觉。 关于这一点，人必须非常警惕。 “但这难道不是我们最大的困难之一吗？ 我们渴望某种保证， 特别是那些我们认为在这件事上知晓或体验的人的保证。 当我们找不到这样的保证时， 我们出于绝望和希望，带来了使我们自己舒坦的信仰和理论。 因此，信仰，最离谱或最合理的信仰，成为一种必需品。”
However gratifying an escape may be, it does not in any way bring understanding of the problem. That very flight is the cause of fear. Fear comes in the movement away from the fact, the what is. Belief, however comforting, has in it the seed of fear. One shuts oneself off from the fact of death because one doesn't want to look at it, and beliefs and theories offer an easy way out. So if the mind is to discover the extraordinary significance of death it must discard, easily, without resistance, the craving for some hopeful comfort. This is fairly obvious, don't you think?
无论逃避是多么的令人满意， 它都不会以任何方式带来对问题的理解。 这种逃逸，恰好是恐惧的起因。 恐惧发源于远离真实，远离现状的运动。 信仰，无论多么令人欣慰，里面总有恐惧的种子。 一个人把自己与死亡的真实性隔离开，因为他不想看它， 而信仰和理论提供了一条简单的出路。 因此，如果头脑要发现死亡的非凡意义， 它就必须轻松地、毫无抵抗地抛弃对某种充满希望的、给人欣慰的渴望。 这是相当明显的，你不觉得吗？
"Aren't you asking too much? To understand death we must be in despair; isn't that what you are saying?"
“你是不是要求太多了？ 要理解死亡，我们必须处于绝望之中；这不就是你刚才所说的吗？”
Not at all, sir. Is there despair when there is not that state which we call hope? Why should we always think in opposites? Is hope the opposite of despair? If it is, then that hope holds within it the seed of despair, and such hope is tinged with fear. If there is to be understanding is it not necessary to be free of the opposites? The state of the mind is of the greatest importance. The activities of despair and hope prevent the understanding or the experiencing of death. The movement of the opposites must cease. The mind must approach the problem of death with a totally new awareness in which the familiar, the recognizing process, is absent.
一点也不是，先生。 当没有那种被我们称之为‘希望’的状态时，有绝望吗？ 为什么我们总是站在对立面思考呢？希望是绝望的反面吗？ 如果是这样的话，那么这种希望就蕴含着绝望的种子， 那么，这种希望就散发着恐惧的气息。 如果要去理解，难道没有必要摆脱对立面吗？ 头脑的状态是最重要的。 绝望和希望的活动，阻止了对死亡的理解或体验。 对立面的运动必须停下。 头脑必须以一种全新的意识来着手死亡的问题， 在这种意识中，那种熟悉的、认知的过程是不存在的。
"I am afraid I don't quite understand that statement. I think I vaguely grasp the significance of the mind's being free from the opposites. Though it is an enormously difficult task, I think I see the necessity of it. But what it means to be free from the recognizing process altogether eludes me."
“恐怕我不太理解这些。 我想我模糊地理解了头脑从对立面中解脱的意义。 虽然这是一项极其困难的任务，但我认为我看到了它的必要性。 但是，从认知的过程中解脱，意味着什么呢？我完全无法理解。”
Recognition is the process of the known, it is the outcome of the past. The mind is frightened of that with which it is not familiar. If you knew death, there would be no fear of it, no need for elaborate explanations. But you cannot know death, it is something totally new, never experienced before. What is experienced becomes the known, the past, and it is from this past, from this known that recognition takes place. As long as there is this movement from the past, the new cannot be.
认知是已知的过程，它是过去的产物。 头脑害怕它不熟悉的东西。 如果你知道死亡，就不会害怕它，不需要详尽的解释。 但你不可能知道死亡，它是某种全新的，从未体验过的东西。 过往的体验，变成了已知、过去， 正是从这个过去，从这个已知出发，认知才能发生。 只要有这种过时的动作，新事物就无法生存。
"Yes, yes, I am beginning to feel that, sir."
“是的，是的，我开始有这种感觉了，先生。”
What we are talking over together is not something to be thought about later, but to be directly experienced as we go along. This experience cannot be stored up for if it is, it becomes memory, and memory, the way of recognition, blocks the new, the unknown. Death is the unknown. The problem is not what death is and what happens thereafter, but for the mind to cleanse itself of the past, of the known. Then the living mind can enter the abode of death, it can meet death, the unknown.
我们一起谈论的东西不是以后要考虑的事情， 而是在我们前进的旅途中，直接地体验。 这种体验是无法储存的，如果它被储存，它就会成为记忆， 而记忆，作为认知的方式，阻止了新的，未知的事物。 死亡即是未知。 问题不在于死亡是什么，以及今后会发生什么， 而是让头脑从过去、从已知的事物中净化自己。 然后，充满生气的头脑可以进入死亡的住所，它可以迎接死亡，迎接未知。
"Are you suggesting that one can know death while still alive?"
“你是说，一个人在活着的时候就能知道死亡吗？”
Accident, disease and old age bring death, but under these circumstances it is not possible to be fully conscious. There is pain, hope or despair, the fear of isolation, and the mind, the self, is consciously or unconsciously battling against death, the inevitable. With feudal resistance against death we pass away. But is it possible - without resistance, without morbidity, without a sadistic or suicidal urge, and while fully alive, mentally vigorous - to enter the house of death? This is possible only when the mind dies to the known, to the self. So our problem is not death, but for the mind to free itself from the centuries of gathered psychological experience, from ever-mounting memory, the strengthening and refining of the self.
事故、疾病和年老带来了死亡， 但在这种情景下，不可能有充分地意识。 有痛苦、希望或绝望、对孤独的恐惧， 而这个头脑、这个自我，正在有意或无意地与死亡抗争，而死亡是无法避免的。 在与死亡的对决中，我们逝去了。 但是，有没有可能 —— 不去抵抗，不产生变态的、虐待的或自杀的冲动， 在完全清醒中，在理智很活泼的时候 —— 进入死亡之屋？ 只有当头脑死于已知，死在自我的面前，这才有可能。 因此，我们的问题不在于死亡， 而在于头脑从几个世纪以来积累的心理的体验中解脱， 从不断增加的记忆中，从对自我的强化和改善中解脱。
"But how is this to be done? How can the mind free itself from its own bondages? It seems to me that either an outside agency is necessary, or else the higher and nobler part of the mind must intervene to purify the mind of the past."
“但这要如何做到呢？ 头脑如何才能从自己的束缚中解脱？ 在我看来，要么需要一个外部机构， 要么头脑中更高层的、更高贵的部分必须进行干预，以净化过去的思想。”
This is quite a complex issue, is it not? The outside agency may be environmental influence, or it may be something beyond the boundaries of the mind. If the outside agency is environmental influence, it is that very influence, with its traditions, beliefs and cultures, that has held the mind in bondage. If the outside agency is something beyond the mind, then thought in any form cannot touch it. Thought is the outcome of time; thought is anchored to the past, it can never be free from the past. If thought frees itself from the past, it ceases to be thought. To speculate upon what is beyond the mind is utterly vain. For the intervention of that which is beyond thought, thought which is the self must cease. Mind must be without any movement, it must be still with the stillness of no motive. Mind cannot invite it. The mind may and does divide its own field of activities as noble and ignoble, desirable and undesirable, higher and lower, but all such divisions and subdivisions are within the boundaries of the mind itself; so any movement of the mind, in any direction, is the reaction of the past, of the 'me', of time. This truth is the only liberating factor, and he who does not perceive this truth will ever be in bondage, do what he may; his penances, vows, disciplines, sacrifices may have sociological and comforting significance, but they have no value in relation to truth.
这是一个相当复杂的问题，不是吗？ 外部机构可能会影响环境， 也可能是超出了头脑的边界。 如果说外部机构受环境的影响， 那么正是这种影响，及其传统、信仰和文化， 使头脑处于束缚之中。 如果外部机构是超越头脑的东西，那么任何形式的思想都无法触及它。 思想是时间的产物； 思想扎根于过去，它永远不可能从过去中解脱。 如果思想从过去中解脱了，它就不再是思想。 去推测超出头脑的东西，是白费力气。 为了介入超越思想的事物，作为‘自我’的思想必须停止。 头脑必须没有任何动作，它必须是静止的，毫无动机的安静。 头脑无法邀请它。 头脑可能而且确实将自己的活动领域划分为 高贵和卑贱、可取和不受欢迎、更高和更低， 但所有这些划分和细分，都在头脑本身的疆域内； 因此，头脑的任何运动，在任何方向上， 都是过去的反应，是‘我’的反应，是时间的反应。 这个真理，是唯一的解放因子， 不感知这种真理，就永远会被束缚，不管他怎么做。 他的忏悔、誓言、纪律、牺牲，可能具有社会和安抚的意义， 但对于真理来说，它们没有任何价值。