WHEN THE TRAIN started there was still light, but the shadows were lengthening. The town wound itself around the railway line. People came out to watch the train go by, and passengers waved to their friends. With a great roar we began to cross the bridge over a broad, curving river; it was several miles wide at this point, and the other shore was just visible in the fast-fading light. The train crossed the bridge very slowly, as though it were picking its way along; the spans were numbered, and there were fifty-eight of them between the two shores. How beautiful were those waters, silent, rich and deeply flowing! There were islands of sand that looked pleasantly cool in the distance. The town, with its noise, dust and squalor, was being left behind, and the clean evening air was coming in through the windows; but there would be dust again as soon as we left the long bridge.
当火车开动时，仍然有光，但阴影正在拉长。 铁路环绕着城镇。 人们出来看着飞驰的火车，乘客们向他们的朋友们挥手致意。 随着巨大的咆哮声，我们开始经过一条宽阔而弯曲的河流上的桥。 河有几英里宽，此刻，在快速消逝的阳光下，另一岸依稀可见。 火车非常缓慢地穿过桥，好似桥正在前进。 跨度是有编号的，两岸之间有五十八个跨度。 那些水多么美丽、平静、丰沛、深入地流涌！ 一个有沙滩的岛屿，从远处来看，很是凉爽。 这个城镇，以及它的噪音、灰尘和肮脏，被抛在后面， 暮色中，甘冽的空气从窗户进来； 但是，一旦我们离开长桥，就会再一次出现灰尘。
The man in the lower berth was very talkative, and as we had a whole night before us, he felt he had a right to ask questions. He was a heavy-built man with large hands and feet. He began by talking about himself, his life, his troubles and his children. He was saying that India should become as prosperous as America; this overpopulation must be controlled, and the people must be made to feel their responsibility. He talked of the political situation and the war, and ended with an account of his own travels.
在下铺的那个人很是健谈， 因为我们的面前有整整一个晚上，他觉得他有权问问题。 他是一个身材魁梧的人，手脚都很大。 他首先谈论他自己：他的生活、他的烦恼和他的孩子。 他说，印度应该像美国一样繁荣。 必须控制这种人口过剩，必须使人们感受到他们自己的责任。 他谈到了政治局势和战争，最后讲述了自己的旅行。
How insensitive we are, how lacking in swift and adequate response, how little free to observe! Without sensitivity, how can there be pliability and a quickening perception; how can there be receptivity, an understanding free of striving? The very striving prevents understanding. Understanding comes with high sensitivity, but sensitivity is not a thing to be cultivated. That which is cultivated is a pose, an artificial veneer; and this coating is not sensitivity, it is a mannerism, shallow or deep according to influence. Sensitivity is not a cultural effect, the result of influence; it is a state of being vulnerable, open. The open is the implicit, the unknown, the imponderable. But we take care not to be sensitive; it is too painful, too exacting, it demands constant adjustment, which is consideration. To consider is to be watchful; but we would rather be comforted, put to sleep, made dull. The newspapers, the magazines, the books, through our addiction to reading, leave their dulling imprint; for reading is a marvellous escape, like drink or a ceremony. We want to escape from the pain of life, and dullness is the most effective way: the dullness brought about by explanations, by following a leader or an ideal, by being identified with some achievement, some label or characteristic. Most of us want to be made dull, and habit is very effective in putting the mind to sleep. The habit of discipline, of practice, of sustained effort to become – there are respectable ways of being made insensitive.
我们多么不敏感，多么缺乏迅捷和充分的回应， 多么缺乏观察的自由！ 没有灵敏，怎么会有柔软与加速的感知； 怎么会有接纳，一种无须努力的理解呢？ 努力本身就妨碍理解。 理解伴随着高度地灵敏，但灵敏不是需要培养的东西。 培养出来的东西，是一种姿势、一种人造面膜； 而这层膜是不敏感的， 它是一种造作，根据影响而变换深浅。 灵敏不是一种文化效应，不是影响的结果； 它是一种脆弱的、敞开的状态。 这种敞开是含蓄的、未知的、不可思议的。 但我们不在意敏感性；它太痛苦、太严格了， 它需要不断地调整，也就是细致地考虑。 考虑就是警醒；但我们宁愿得到安慰、进入梦乡，变得沉闷。 报纸、杂志、书籍， 通过我们对阅读的成瘾，留下了它们枯燥的痕印； 因为阅读是一种奇妙的逃避，就像喝酒或一场仪式。 我们想逃避生活的痛苦，而沉闷是最有效的途径： 要抵达沉闷的状态，可以借助解释； 可以跟着一个领导或一个理想； 可以认同于某种成就、某个标签或个性。 我们大多数人都想处于沉闷之中， 而要使头脑进入梦乡，习惯是非常有效的手段。 戒律的习惯，实践的习惯，为了目标而不断努力的习惯 —— 有各种受人尊敬的方式可以使人变得不敏感。
“But what could one do in life if one were sensitive? We would all shrivel up, and there would be no effective action.”
“但是，如果一个人敏感，能在生活中做些什么呢？ 我们都会萎缩，不会有高效的行动。”
What do the dull and insensitive bring to the world? What is the outcome of their “effective” action? Wars, confusion within and without, ruthlessness and increasing misery for themselves and so for the world. The action of the unwatchful inevitably leads to destruction, to physical insecurity, to disintegration. But sensitivity is not easy to come by; sensitivity is the understanding of the simple, which is highly complex. It is not a withdrawal, a shrivelling up, an isolating process. To act with sensitivity is to be aware of the total process of the actor.
沉闷和不敏感，给世界带来了什么？ 他们‘高效’的行动，产出了什么果实？ 战争、里里外外的困惑与残忍， 给他们自己乃至整个世界带来的不断增长的悲惨。 缺乏警醒的行为 不可避免地导致破坏，导致身体上的不安全、外在的崩塌。 但是，敏感并不容易出现； 敏感，是对单纯地理解，是高度复杂的。 它不是一种撤退、一种萎缩、一种孤立的过程。 灵敏地行动，就是意识到行动者的整个情境。
“To understand the total process of myself will take a long time, and meanwhile my business will go to ruin and my family will starve.”
“理解自我的整个过程需要很长的时间， 同时我的生意会破产，我的家人会挨饿。”
Your family will not starve; even if you have not saved up enough money, it is always possible to arrange that they shall be fed. Your business will undoubtedly go to ruin; but disintegration at other levels of existence is already taking place. You are only concerned with the outward break-up, you do not want to see or know what is happening within yourself. You disregard the inner and hope to build up the outer; yet the inner is always overcoming the outer. The outer cannot act without the fullness of the inner; but the fullness of the inner is not the repetitious sensation of organized religion nor the accumulation of facts called knowledge. The way of all these inner pursuits must be understood for the outer to survive, to be healthy. Do not say that you have no time, for you have plenty of time; it is not a matter of lack of time, but of disregard and disinclination. You have no inward richness, for you want the gratification of inner riches as you already have that of the outer. You are not seeking the wherewithal to feed your family, but the satisfaction of possessing. The man who possesses, whether property or knowledge, can never be sensitive, he can never be vulnerable or open. To possess is to be made dull, whether the possession is virtue or coins. To possess a person is to be unaware of that person; to seek and to possess reality is to deny it. When you try to become virtuous, you are no longer virtuous; your seeking virtue is only the attainment of gratification at a different level. Gratification is not virtue, but virtue is freedom.
你的家人不会挨饿； 即使您没有攒足够的钱， 总是有可能养活他们。 毫无疑问，你的生意会走向毁灭； 但是，在其他存在层面上，崩溃已经发生了。 你只关心外在的崩溃， 你不想看或知道你自己的内在发生了什么。 你无视内在，希望建立外在； 然而，内在总是战胜外在。 没有内在的充盈，外在不能行动； 但内在的充盈，不是组织化的宗教的重复感， 也不是被称之为‘知识’的事实的积累。 所有这些内在的追求方式，必须被理解，以便外在得以生存、健康。 别说你没有时间，因为你有足够的时间； 这不是缺乏时间的问题，而是无视和不愿意。 你没有内在的富足， 因为当你拥有了外在的财富，你就想获取内在的满意。 你不是在寻求养家糊口的资财，而是在寻求占有的满意感。 占据财产或知识的人，永远不可能是灵敏的， 他永远不是脆弱的或敞开的。 占据就是变得迟钝，无论是占据美德还是金币。 占据一个人，就是忽视这个人； 寻求和占据真理，就是拒绝它。 当你试图变得有美德的时候，你就不再有美德； 你对美德的追求，只是想在不同的层面上获得满意感。 满意不是美德，而美德是自由的。
How can the dull, the respectable, the unvirtuous be free? The freedom of aloneness is not the enclosing process of isolation. To be isolated in wealth or in poverty, in knowledge or in success, in idea or in virtue, is to be dull, insensitive. The dull, the respectable cannot commune; and when they do, it is with their own self-projections. To commune there must be sensitivity, vulnerability, the freedom from becoming, which is freedom from fear. Love is not a becoming, a state of “I shall be”. That which is becoming cannot commune, for it is ever isolating itself. Love is the vulnerable; love is the open, the imponderable, the unknown.
沉闷的、体面的、没有美德的人怎么能自由呢？ 独立的自由，不是孤立的封闭过程。 被财富或贫穷、知识或成功、思想或美德包裹， 就是迟钝、不灵敏。 那种沉闷、那种尊贵，无法共融； 他们想要的共融，是他们拥有的自我投影。 共融，必须具有灵敏性、脆弱性、摆脱了‘成为’的自由， 也就是摆脱恐惧的自由。 爱不是一种‘成为’，一种‘我将成为’的状态。 那正在‘成为’的，不能共融，因为它总是在孤立它自己。 爱是脆弱的；爱是敞开的、不可思议的、未知的。