“I KNOW YOU HAVE healed,” he said, “and will you not heal my son? He is nearly blind. I have seen a few doctors, and they can do nothing. They advise me to take him to Europe or America, but I am not a rich man and I cannot afford it. Will you not please do something? He is our only child, and my wife is heart-stricken.”
“我知道你已经医治了，”他说， “你不愿意医治我的儿子吗？他几乎失明了。 我看过一些医生，他们什么也做不了。 他们建议我带他去欧洲或美国， 但我不是一个富人，我负担不起费用。 你难道不能帮我一下吗？他是我们唯一的孩子，而我的妻子很伤心。”
He was a petty official, poor but educated, and like all of his group he knew Sanskrit and its literature. He kept on saying that it was the boy’s karma that he should suffer, and theirs too. What had they done to deserve this punishment? What evil had they committed, in a previous life or in the earlier part of this one, to have to bear such pain? There must be a cause for this calamity, hidden in some past action.
他是一个小官，贫穷却受过教育， 像他所有的小组成员一样，他知道梵文及其文献。 他一直说，小孩子的业力是他应有的报应，也是他们的业障。 他们究竟做了什么，才招致这种惩罚？ 在前世或今生的早期，他们造了什么孽， 才不得不承受这样的痛苦？ 这场灾祸必定有一个原因，隐藏在过去的某些行为里。
There may be an immediate cause for this blindness which the physicians have not yet discovered; some inherited disease may have brought it about. If the doctors cannot discover the physical cause, why do you seek a metaphysical one in the distant past? “By seeking the cause I may be better able to understand the effect.”
这种失明可能有一个直接的原因， 医生还没有发现这个原因； 某些遗传性的疾病，可能引起了它的症状。 如果医生们无法发现物理上的原因， 你为什么还要在遥远的过去中，去寻求一个抽象的原因呢？ “通过寻求这个原因，我也许能够更好地理解这个结果。”
Do you understand anything by knowing its cause? By knowing why one is afraid, is one free of fear? One may know the cause, but does that in itself bring understanding? When you say that you will understand the effect by knowing the cause, you mean that you will take comfort in knowing how this thing has come about, do you not?
通过知道事情的原因，您就能理解它吗？ 通过知道一个人为什么恐惧，一个人就能摆脱恐惧吗？ 一个人可能知道这个原因，但那个知道，能带来理解吗？ 你说：通过知道这个原因，你会理解这个结果。 你是指：当你知道这件事是如何发生的时候，你就会感到安慰，不是吗？
“Of course, that is why I want to know what action in the past has produced this blindness. It will certainly be most comforting.”
“当然，那就是为什么我想知道过去的什么行为导致了这种失明。 它肯定会是最令人欣慰的。”
Then you want comfort and not understanding. “But are they not the same thing? To understand is to find comfort. What is the good of understanding if there is no joy in it?”
那么，你想要安慰，而不是理解。 “但它们不是一回事吗？理解就是找到安慰。 如果理解中没有欢乐，那又何必去理解？”
Understanding a fact may cause disturbance, it does not necessarily bring joy. You want comfort, and that is what you are seeking. You are disturbed by the fact of your son’s ailment, and you want to be pacified. This pacification you call understanding. You start out, not to understand, but to be comforted; your intention is to find a way to quiet your disturbance, and this you call the search for the cause. Your chief concern is to be put to sleep, to be undisturbed, and you are seeking a way to do it. We put ourselves to sleep through various ways: God, rituals, ideals, drink, and so on. We want to escape from disturbance, and one of the escapes is this search for the cause.
理解一个事实可能会引起干扰，它不一定能带来欢乐。 你想要安慰，那就是你寻求的东西。 你对你儿子的疾病感到不安，你想得到安抚。 这种安抚，你称之为理解。 你的出发点，不是理解，而是得到安慰； 你的意图，是找一种平息你的不安的方法， 你称之为‘找原因’。 你的关注点是进入梦乡，不被打扰， 而你正在寻找一种方法来实现它。 我们用各种方式来打晕自己：上帝、仪式、理想、美酒等等。 我们想要摆脱不安，其中的一种摆脱方式，就是‘找原因’。
“Why shouldn’t one seek freedom from disturbance? Why shouldn’t one avoid suffering?”
寻找摆脱不安的自由？为什么一个人不应该避免痛苦？”
Through avoidance is there freedom from suffering? You may shut the door on some ugly thing, on some fear; but it is still there behind the door, is it not? What is suppressed, resisted, is not understood, is it? You may suppress or discipline your child, but surely that does not yield the understanding of him. You are seeking the cause in order to avoid the pain of disturbance; with that intention you look, and naturally you will find what you are seeking. There is a possibility of being free of suffering only when one observes its process, when one is aware of every phase of it, cognizant of its whole structure. To avoid suffering is only to strengthen it. The explanation of the cause is not the understanding of the cause. Through explanation you are not freed from suffering; the suffering is still there, only you have covered it over with words, with conclusions, either your own or those of another. The study of explanations is not the study of wisdom; when explanations cease, then only is wisdom possible. You are anxiously seeking explanations which will put you to sleep, and you find them; but explanation is not truth. Truth comes when there is observation without conclusions, without explanations, without words. The observer is built out of words, the self is made up of explanations, conclusions, condemnations, justifications, and so on. There is communion with the observed only when the observer is not; and only then is there understanding, freedom from the problem.
通过避免，就能从痛苦中解脱吗？ 你可能会把某些丑陋的、恐惧的东西拒之门外； 但它仍然在门后，它不在吗？ 那些被压抑的、被抵制的，就是没有被理解的，不是吗？ 你可能会压制或管束你的孩子， 但肯定的是，那不会产生对他的理解。 您正在寻求这个原因，以摆脱不安的痛苦； 带着那个意图，你看，自然地，你会找到你所寻找的东西。 只有当一个人观察它的过程，意识到它的每一个阶段，认识到它的整个框架的时候， 才可能从痛苦中解脱。 避免痛苦，只能使它增强。 解释原因，不等于理解原因。 通过解释，你不能从痛苦中解脱； 痛苦仍然存在，你只不过是在掩盖它， 给它铺上了一层布，布料就是言语、结论 —— 无论是你自己的还是别人的结论。 对解释的研究，不是对智慧的研究； 当解释停止的时候，唯有如此，智慧才可能来。 你正在焦急地寻求能使你入睡的解释，你找到了它们； 但解释不是真理。 没有结论、没有解释、没有言语地观察，真理就来了。 观察者是用言语构建的， 自我是由解释、结论、谴责、理由等等组装而成的。 只有当观察者消亡的时候，才能与被观察者交融； 唯有如此，才有理解、摆脱这个问题的自由。
“I think I see this; but is there not such a thing as karma?”
“我想我看到了这一点；但是，有业力这样的东西吗？”
What do you mean by that word? “Present circumstances are the result of previous actions, immediately past or long removed. This process of cause and effect, with all its ramifications, is more or less what is meant by karma.”
你说的这个词是什么意思？ “目前的情景，诞生于以前的行为 —— 瞬间消逝的或早已消失的行为。 这个因果过程，连同它的所有后果，或多或少就是业力的意思。”
That is only an explanation, but let us go beyond the words. Is there a fixed cause producing a fixed effect? When cause and effect are fixed, is there not death? Anything static, rigid, specialized, must die. The specialized animals soon come to an end, do they not? Man is the unspecialized, and so there is a possibility of his continued existence. That which is pliable endures; that which is not pliable is broken. The acorn cannot become anything but an oak tree; the cause and the effect are in the acorn. But man is not so completely enclosed, specialized; hence, if he does not destroy himself through various ways, he can survive. Are cause and effect fixed, stationary? When you use the word “and” between cause and effect, does it not imply that both are stationary? But is cause ever stationary? Is effect always unchangeable? Surely, cause-effect is a continuous process, is it not? Today is the result of yesterday, and tomorrow is the result of today; what was cause becomes effect, and what was effect becomes cause. It is a chain-process, is it not? One thing flows into another, and at no point is there a halt. It is a constant movement, with no fixation. There are many factors that bring about this cause-effect-cause movement.
那只是一种解释，但让我们超越言语。 有没有一个固定的原因，以产生一个固定的结果？ 当因果固定后，难道不就是死亡吗？ 任何一个静态的、僵化的、特定的东西，必定是死的。 特定的动物很快会灭绝，它们不会吗？ 人不是特定的，所以他可能继续他的存在。 那柔软的能够存活；那不柔软的就坏掉了。 橡子不能变成任何东西，只能变成一棵橡树。 原因和结果都在这颗橡子里。 但是人不是那么完全封闭的、特定的； 因此，如果他不通过各种方式摧残他自己，他就能存活。 因果关系是固定的、静止的吗？ 当你在‘因’和‘果’之间，使用‘和’这个词的时候， 是否意味着两者都是静止的？ 但是，‘因’是静止的吗？‘果’总是不变的吗？ 显然，因果关系是一个连续过程，它不是吗？ 今天是昨天的果，明天是今天的果； 原来的‘因’，变成了‘果’；原先的‘果’，变成了因。 它是一个连锁过程，它不是吗？ 一个东西流入另一个，在任何时候都不会停顿。 它是一个持续的动作，没有固定的居所。 有许多因素导致这种‘因——果——因’的动作。
Explanations, conclusions, are stationary, whether they are of the right or of the left, or of the organized belief called religion. When you try to cover the living with explanations, there is death to the living, and that is what most of us desire; we want to be put to sleep by word, by idea, by thought. Rationalization is merely another way to quiet the disturbed state; but the very desire to be put to sleep, to find the cause, to seek conclusions, brings disturbance, and so thought is caught in a net of its own making. Thought cannot be free nor can it ever make itself free. Thought is the result of experience, and experience is always conditioning. Experience is not the measure of truth. Awareness of the false as the false is the freedom of truth.
解释，结论，是静止的， 无论它们是右派还是左派，还是被称之为宗教的有组织的信仰。 当你试图用解释来掩盖生物的时候，就是生物的死期， 那就是我们大多数人所渴望的。 通过言语、想法、思想，我们希望进入梦乡。 合理化，只不过是另一种方式，以使不安的状态安静。 但是，正是这个想进入梦乡、 想去寻找这个原因、寻求结论的欲望，引狼入室、使人不安， 因此，思想陷入了它自己编织的网罟之中。 思想不能自由，也不可能使它自己自由。 思想是体验的结果，体验总是受限的。 体验不是衡量真理的标准。 意识到假就是假，就是真理的展翅。