IT WAS EARLY in the morning and the cheerful birds were making an awful lot of noise. The sun was just touching the tree tops, and in the deep shade there were still no patches of light A snake must recently have crossed the lawn, for there was a long, narrow clearing of the dew. The sky had not yet lost its colour, and great white clouds were gathering. Suddenly the noise of the birds stopped, then increased with warning, scolding cries as a cat came and lay down under a bush. A big hawk had caught a white-and-black bird, and was tearing at it with its sharp, curving beak. It held its prey with eager ferocity, and became threatening as two or three crows came near. The hawk’s eyes were yellow with narrow black slits and they were watching the crows and us without blinking.
清晨，欢快的鸟儿们发出了大量的声响。 太阳刚刚碰到树梢，在浓密的树荫下，仍然没出现光斑， 一条蛇最近一定穿过了草坪，因为有一条狭长的露水。 天空还没有失去色彩，大朵的白云正在聚集。 突然间，鸟儿的声响嘎然而止，随后又带着警示而增强， 原来是一只猫走了过来，躺在灌木丛下，它们发出责骂的喊叫声。 一只大鹰抓住一只黑白相间的鸟， 并用它锋利的曲喙撕扯它。 它以急切的凶猛抓住猎物， 当两三只乌鸦靠近时，它变得具有威胁性。 鹰的眼睛是黄色的，有狭窄的黑色缝隙， 它们看着乌鸦和我们，没眨眼。
“Why shouldn’t I be exploited? I don’t mind being used for the cause, which has great significance, and I want to be completely identified with it. What they do with me is of little importance. You see, I am of no account. I can’t do much in this world, and so I am helping those who can. But I have a problem of personal attachment which distracts me from the work. It is this attachment I want to understand.”
“为什么我不应该被剥削？ 我不介意被用在事业上，这具有重大的意义， 我想我完全认同它。他们对我做了什么并不重要。 你看，我没有存款。 在这个世界上，我没什么能力，所以我正在协助那些有能力的人。 但我有一个私人的依恋问题，导致了我在工作时会分心。 我想理解的正是这个依恋。
But why should you be exploited? Are you not as important as the individual or the group that is exploiting you? “I don’t mind being exploited for the cause, which I consider has great beauty and worth in the world. Those with whom I work are spiritual people with high ideals, and they know better than I do what should be done.”
但是，你为什么要被剥削呢？ 难道你不如剥削你的人或团体那么重要吗？ “我不介意为了这个事业而被剥削， 我认为这个事业在世界上有很大的美和价值。 那些和我一起工作的人都是具有崇高的理想、灵性的人， 他们比我更清楚该做什么。”
Why do you think they are more capable of doing good than you are? How do you know they are “spiritual,” to use your own word, and have wider vision? After all, when you offered your services, you must have considered this matter; or were you attracted, emotionally stirred, and so gave yourself to the work?
为什么你认为他们比你更有能力做好事？ 你怎么知道他们是‘灵性的’，或者用你自己的话说，有更广阔的视野？ 毕竟，当您出卖你的劳力时，您必定考虑过这个事情； 还是你被吸引，因一时的冲动，把你自己献给了这个工作？”
“It is a beautiful cause, and I offered my services because I felt that I must help it.”
，我提供我的服务是因为我觉得我必须协助它。”
You are like those men who join the army to kill or to be killed for a noble cause. Do they know what they are doing? Do you know what you are doing? How do you know that the cause you are serving is “spiritual”? “Of course you are right. I was in the army for four years during the last war; I joined it, like many other men, out of a feeling of patriotism. I don’t think I considered then the significance of killing; it was the thing to do, we just joined. But the people I am helping now are spiritual.”
你就像那些为了一个崇高的事业而参军，杀人或被杀的人。 他们知道自己在做什么吗？你知道你在做什么吗？ 你怎么知道你所服务的事业是‘灵性的’？ “当然，你是对的。在上一次战争期间，我在军队服役了四年。 我和许多其他人一样，出于爱国主义的感觉而加入了它。 我不认为我当时考虑过杀戮的意义； 它是要做的事情，我们只是参与了。 但我现在协助的人是有灵性的。”
Do you know what it means to be spiritual? For one thing, to be ambitious is obviously not spiritual. And are they not ambitious? “I am afraid they are. I had never thought about these things, I only wanted to help something beautiful.”
你知道灵性意味着什么吗？ 首先，雄心勃勃显然是非灵性的。他们不是雄心勃勃吗？ “恐怕他们是。 我从来没有想过这些事情，我只想帮忙，做某些美好的事情。”
Is it beautiful to be ambitious and cover it up with a lot of high-sounding words about Masters, humanity, art, brotherhood? Is it spiritual to be burdened with self-centredness which is extended to include the neighbour and the man across the waters? You are helping those who are supposed to be spiritual, not knowing what it is all about and willing to be exploited.
雄心勃勃的人是美好的吗？ 披上了‘大师’、‘人性’、‘艺术’、‘友情’之类的高能词语，它就好看了吗？ 背负着自我， 以自我为中心，不断延伸到周边，延伸到隔水相望的人，是灵性的吗？ 你在不知道什么是灵性的情况下， 去帮助那些被认为有灵性的人们，并甘愿被剥削。
“Yes, it is quite immature, isn’t it? I don’t want to be disturbed in what I am doing, and yet I have a problem; and what you are saying is even more disturbing.”
“是的，这很幼稚，不是吗？ 当我做事情的时候，我不想被打扰，但我还有一个问题； 而你说的话更令人不安。”
Shouldn’t you be disturbed? After all, it is only when we are disturbed, awakened, that we begin to observe and find out. We are exploited because of our own stupidity, which the clever ones use in the name of the country, of God, of some ideology. How can stupidity do good in the world even though the crafty make use of it? When the cunning exploit stupidity, they also are stupid, for they too do not know where their activities are leading. The action of the stupid, of those who are unaware of the ways of their own thought, leads inevitably to conflict confusion and misery.
难道你不应该被打扰吗？ 毕竟，只有当我们被打扰、被唤醒时，我们才开始去看、去找。 我们被剥削，因为我们的愚蠢， 聪明的人以国家、上帝、某种意识形态的名义来利用蠢人。 愚蠢怎么能在世界上做好事呢，即便有狡猾的人利用它？ 当狡猾的人利用愚蠢的时候， 他们也愚蠢了，因为他们也不知道他们的活动将导向何方。 蠢人的行动，那没有意识到他们自己的思考方式的人的行动， 必然导致相互抵触的困惑与痛苦。
Your problem may not necessarily be a distraction. Since it is there, how can it be? “It is disturbing my dedicated work.”
你的问题不一定是分心。 既然它在那里，它是怎么冒出来的？ “它扰乱了我专心地工作。”
Your dedication is not complete since you have a problem which you find distracting. Your dedication may be a thoughtless action, and the problem may be an indication, a warning not to get caught up in your present activities “But I like what I am doing.”
既然你有一个分心的问题，那么你的专心是不完整的。 你的专心可能是一种轻率的行为， 而出现的这个问题可能是一个指示，一种警告： 提醒你不要陷入你目前的活动， “但我喜欢我正在做的事情。”
And that may be the whole trouble. We want to get lost in some form of activity; the more satisfying the activity, the more we cling to it. The desire to be gratified makes us stupid, and gratification at all levels is the same; there is no higher and lower gratification. Though we may consciously or unconsciously disguise our gratification in noble words, the very desire to be gratified makes us dull, insensitive. We get satisfaction, comfort psychological security through some kind of activity; and gaining it, or imagining that we have gained it, we do not desire to be disturbed. But there is always disturbance – unless we are dead, or understand the whole process of conflict, struggle. Most of us want to be dead, to be insensitive, for living is painful; and against that pain we build walls of resistance, the walls of conditioning. These seemingly protecting walls only breed further conflict and misery. Is it not important to understand the problem rather than to find a way out of it? Your problem may be the real, and your work may be an escape without much significance.
那可能就是整个麻烦所在。 我们想迷失在某种形式的活动中； 活动越令人满意，我们就越依赖它。 令人满意的欲望使我们愚蠢，各种层面上的满意都是一路货色； 没有更高和更低的满意。 尽管我们可能会有意或无意地用高尚的言语掩饰我们的满意， 想满足的欲望，使我们变得沉闷、不敏感。 我们通过某种活动获取满意、舒适的心理安全感； 获取它，或者想象我们已经获取了它，我们就不想被打扰。 但总会有搅扰 —— 除非我们死了，或者理解这个冲突、挣扎的完整过程。 我们大多数人都想死，想麻木不仁，因为活着是痛苦的； 在反抗那种痛苦中，我们建造抵抗的城墙、限制的围墙。 这些看似有保护性的墙壁，只会滋生进一步的冲突与悲惨。 理解这个问题，难道不比寻找解决问题的方法更重要吗？ 你的问题可能是真实的，而你的工作可能是一种逃避，没有太大的意义。
“This is all very disturbing, and I shall have to think about it very carefully.”
“这一切很是令人不安，我必须非常仔细地考虑它。”
It was getting warm under the trees and we left. But how can a shallow mind ever do good? Is not the doing of “good” the indication of a shallow mind? Is not the mind, however cunning, subtle, learned, always shallow? The shallow mind can never become the unfathomable; the very becoming is the way of shallowness. Becoming is the pursuit of the self-projected. The projection may be verbally of the highest, it may be an extensive vision, scheme or plan; yet it is ever the child of the shallow. Do what it will, the shallow can never become the deep; any action on its part, any movement of the mind at any level, is still of the shallow. It is very hard for the shallow mind to see that its activities are vain, useless. It is the shallow mind that is active, and this very activity keeps it in that state. Its activity is its own conditioning. The conditioning, conscious or hidden, is the desire to be free from conflict, from struggle, and this desire builds walls against the movement of life, against unknown breezes; and within these walls of conclusions, beliefs, explanations, ideologies, the mind stagnates. Only the shallow stagnate, die.
树荫下越来越热，我们离开了。 但是，一个肤浅的头脑怎么能做好事呢？ 做‘好事’ —— 不正是一个肤浅的头脑的标志吗？ 这个头脑，无论多么狡猾、微妙、博学，不总是肤浅的吗？ 这个浅薄的头脑永远不会成为那无量的； ‘成为’的行动，即是肤浅的路径。 ‘成为’是自我投射出的追求。 投射出的，可能是最高的召唤，可能是一个延展的愿景、构架或规划； 然而，它还是这个肤浅的孩子。 它随便怎么去做，这个肤浅永远不能成为那种深厚； 它的任何行动，头脑在任何层面上的任何动作，依然是肤浅的。 这个肤浅的头脑，很难看出它的活动是徒劳的、没有用的。 这个浅薄的头脑是积极的，正是这种积极的活动使它处于那种状态。 它的活动即是它自身的束缚。 这种或明或暗的束缚，就是想摆脱冲突、挣扎的欲望， 而这个欲望，在建造城墙，以抵抗生命的运动、阻挡未知的微风； 在这一堵用结论、信仰、解释、意识形态建造的围墙之中，这个头脑停滞不前。 只剩下浅薄的抑郁，死亡。
The very desire to take shelter through conditioning breeds more strife, more problems; for conditioning is separating, and the separate, the isolated cannot live. The separate, by joining itself to other separates, does not become the whole. The separate is always the isolated, though it may accumulate and gather, expand, include and identify. Conditioning is destructive, disintegrating; but the shallow mind cannot see the truth of this, for it is active in search of truth. This very activity hinders the receiving of truth. Truth is action, not the activity of the shallow, of the seeker, of the ambitious. Truth is the good, the beautiful, not the activity of the dancer, of the planner, of the spinner of words. It is truth that liberates the shallow, not his scheme to be free. The shallow, the mind can never make itself free; it can only move from one conditioning to another, thinking the other is more free. The more is never free, it is conditioning, an extension of the less. The movement of becoming, of the man who wants to become the Buddha or the manager, is the activity of the shallow. The shallow are ever afraid of what they are; but what they are is the truth. Truth is in the silent observation of what is, and it is truth that transforms what is.
正是这种想通过限制来避难的欲望，滋生出更多的冲突、更多的问题； 因为限制是分割，而那割裂的、孤立的东西不能存活。 那被割裂的，把自己和其余的部分粘接在一起，却没能成为一个整体。 那被割裂的，总是孤立的， 尽管它可以积累和收集、扩展、包含和识别。 限制是破坏性的、分裂性的； 但是肤浅的头脑看不到这一点的真实性，因为它在积极地寻找真理。 正是这种积极的活动在阻挡真理的接纳。 真理是行动，而不是肤浅者、寻求者、野心勃勃者的活动。 真理是善、美， 而不是舞蹈者、计划者、咬文嚼字者的活动。 是真理解放了肤浅者，而不是他对自由的策划。 这个肤浅者，这个头脑，永远不能使它自己自由； 它只能从这种限制转移到另一种限制，以为在另一种限制中，有更多的自由。 ‘更多’永远不自由，它就是限制，是‘更少’的一种扩张。 ‘成为’的动作， 想要成为佛或领袖，就是肤浅的活动。 浅薄者总是害怕他们本来的面目；但他们本来的面目就是真理。 安静地观察现状，那里面，那真理在运转现状。