对生活的评注 3-19

THE ROSE BUSHES just inside the gate were covered with bright red roses, heavy with perfume, and butterflies were hovering about them. There were also marigolds and sweet peas in bloom. The garden overlooked the river, and that evening it was full of the golden light of the setting sun. Fishing boats, shaped somewhat like gondolas, were dark on the still surface of the river. The village among the trees on the opposite side was over a mile away, and yet voices came clearly across the water. From the gate there was a path leading down to the river. It joined a rough road which was used by the villagers on their way to and from the town. This road ended abruptly at the bank of a stream that flowed into the big river. It was not a sandy bank, but heavy with damp clay, and the feet sank into it. Across the stream at this point they would presently build a bamboo bridge; but now there was a clumsy barge laden with the quiet villagers who were returning from their day of trading in the town. Two men punted us across, while the villagers sat huddled in the evening cold. There was a small brazier to be lit when it got a little darker, but the moon would give them light. A little girl was carrying a basket of firewood; she had put it down while crossing the stream, and was now having difficulty in lifting it again. It was quite heavy for a little girl, but with some help she got it carefully placed on her small head, and her smile seemed to fill the universe. We all climbed the steep bank with careful steps, and soon the villagers went chattering off down the road.

大门内的玫瑰丛里开满了鲜红的玫瑰、芬芳扑鼻，蝴蝶在它们周围飞舞。还有金盏花和甜豌豆在盛开。花园俯看着河流，那天傍晚，充满了夕阳的金光。渔船的形状有点像缆车，在静止的河面上，显得黑暗。对面树林中的村庄离我们有一英里多，但发出的声响却清晰地穿越了河流。大门口有一条通往河流的小路。它与一条崎岖的山路相连，村民们在这条路上往返于城镇。这条路突然在一条汇入河流的溪边结束。它不是一个沙质的堤岸，而是沾满了潮湿的粘土，脚陷入其中。此时，在溪流对面，他们正在建造一座竹桥；但现在有一艘笨拙的驳船，满载着安静的村民，他们从镇上的集市回来。两个男人用篙撑船，渡我们过去，而村民们则挤成一团，站在寒冷的傍晚里。当天变得再暗一点时，就可以点燃小火盆，但月亮会给他们带来光明。一个小女孩顶着一篮筐木柴。她在过河时放下了它，现在很难再次举起它。对于一个小女孩来说，它很沉重，但是在一些帮助下，她把它小心翼翼地放在她的小脑袋上，她的笑容似乎充满了宇宙。我们都小心翼翼地爬上陡峭的河岸，很快村民们喋喋不休地沿着路走了。

Here it was open country, and the soil was very rich with the silt of many centuries. The flat, well-cultivated land, dotted with marvellous old trees, stretched out to the horizon. There were fields of sweet smelling peas, white with blossom, as well as winter wheat and other grain. On one side flowed the river, wide and curving, and overlooking the river there was a village, noisy with activity. The path here was very ancient; the Enlightened One was said to have walked on it, and the pilgrims had been using it for many centuries. It was a holy path, and there were small temples here and there along that sacred way. The mango and tamarind trees were also very old, and some were dying, having seen so much. Against the golden evening sky they were stately, their limbs dark and open. A little further along there was a grove of bamboos, yellowing with age, and in a small orchard a goat tied to a fruit tree was bleating for its kid, which was jumping and skipping all over the place. The path led on through another grove of mangoes, and beside a tranquil pond. There was a breathless stillness, and everything knew the blessed hour. The earth and everything upon it became holy. It was not that the mind was aware of this peace as something outside of itself, something to be remembered and communicated, but there was a total absence of any movement of the mind. There was only the immeasurable.

这里是开阔的乡村，土壤非常肥沃，有很多个世纪的淤泥。平坦、耕耘良好，点缀着奇妙的古树，一直延伸到地平线。一片田地里有甜美的豌豆，开着白色的花朵，还有冬小麦和其他谷物。在河流的一边，宽阔而弯曲，俯瞰着河流，坐落了一个村庄，带有活动的噪音。这条路非常古老。据说开悟者走过它，朝圣者已经使用它很多世纪了。这是一条神圣的路，沿着那条神圣的路，随处都有小寺庙。芒果树和罗望子树也非常古老，有些已经死了，能看到很多。在金色的夕阳下，它们显得庄严、它们的肢体黑暗而伸展。再往前走一点，有一片竹林，随着年龄的增长而发黄，在一个小果园里，一只在果树边的山羊正在朝它的孩子而飞奔，它正在到处蹦跳。这条路穿过另一片芒果树林，旁边是一个宁静的池塘。有一种止息的寂静，万物都知道这个祝福的时刻。大地和它上面的一切都变得神圣。这并不是说头脑意识到这种和平是它自身之外的东西，是需要记住和交流的东西，而是头脑完全没有任何移动。只有这无量的。

He was a youngish man, in his early forties he said; and though he had faced audiences and spoken with great confidence, he was still rather shy. Like so many others of his generation, he had played with politics, with religion, and with social reform. He was given to writing poetry, and could put colour on canvas. Several of the prominent leaders were his friends, and he could have gone far in politics; but he had chosen otherwise and was content to keep his light covered in a distant mountain town.

他说，他是一个四十出头的年轻男子。虽然他面对听众时说话很自信，但他仍然相当地害羞。像他那一代的许多其他人一样，他玩弄过政治、宗教和社会改革。他有写诗的天赋，可以在画布上涂色彩。几位杰出的领导人是他的朋友，他本可以在政治上走得很远。但他选择了其他途径，并满足于将他的视线覆盖于一个遥远的山城。

“I have been wanting to see you for many years. You may not remember it, but I was once on the same boat with you going to Europe before the second world war. My father was very interested in your teachings, but I drifted away into politics and other things. My desire to talk to you again finally became so persistent that it could not be put off any longer. I want to expose my heart – something I have never done to anyone else, for it isn’t easy to discuss oneself with others. For some time I have been attending your talks and discussions in different places, but recently I have had a strong urge to see you privately, because I have come to an impasse.”

“我一直想见你很多年了。你可能不记得了，但我曾经在第二次世界大战前和你在同一条船上去欧洲。我父亲对你的教义非常感兴趣，但我渐渐地陷入了政治和其他事情中。我再次与你交谈的欲望终于变得如此持久，以至于再也无法拖延了。我想暴露我的心 —— 这是我从未向任何人做过的事情，因为与他人讨论自己并不容易。一段时间以来，我一直在不同的地方参加你的讲话和讨论，但最近我有一种强烈的冲动，想私下见你，因为我陷入了僵局。”

Of what kind? “I don’t seem to be able to ‘break through’. I have done some meditation, not the kind that mesmerizes you, but trying to be aware of my own thinking, and so on. In this process I invariably fall asleep. I suppose it is because I am lazy, easygoing. I have fasted, and I have tried various diets, but this lethargy persists.”

是什么样的？ “我似乎无法'突破'。我做了某些冥想，不是那种让你入迷的冥想，而是试图意识到我自己的思想，等等。在这个过程中，我总是睡着了。我以为这是因为我很懒惰、随和。我就斋戒，我尝试各种饮食，但这种嗜睡依然还在。”

Is it due to laziness, or to something else? Is there a deep, inward frustration? Has your mind been made dull, insensitive, by the events of your life? If one may ask, is it that love is not there?

是由于懒惰，还是由于其他原因？是否有一种深刻的、内在的挫败感？你的头脑是否被你生命中的事件弄得沉闷、不灵敏？如果有人可以问，那是不是没有爱？

“I don’t know sir; I have vaguely thought about these matters, but have never been able to pin anything down. perhaps I have been smothered by too many good and evil things. In a way, life has been too easy for me, with family, money, certain capacities, and so on. Nothing has been very difficult, and that may be the trouble. This general feeling of being at ease and having the capacity to find my way out of almost any situation may have made me soft.”

“我不知道，先生；我模糊地思考过这些问题，但一直无法确定任何东西。也许我被太多的善恶之事所吞噬。从某种意义上说，生命对我来说太容易了，因为我有家庭，有钱，有某些能力，等等。没有什么是非常困难的，那可能是麻烦。这种经常性的容易感和有能力在任何情况下找到出路的感觉可能使我变得软弱。”

Is that it? Is that not just a description of superficial happenings? If those things had affected you deeply, you would have led a different kind of life, you would have followed the easy course. But you have not, so there must be a different process at work that is making your mind sluggish and inept. “Then what is it? I am not bothered by sex; I have indulged in it, but it has never been a passion with me to the extent that I became a slave to it. It began with love and ended in disappointment, but not in frustration. Of that I am pretty sure. I neither condemn nor pursue sex. It’s not a problem to me, anyway.”

是那样吗？那不是对肤浅事物的描述吗？如果这些事物深刻地影响了你，你就会过上一种不同的生活，你会遵循简单的线路。但你没有，所以一定有一个不同的过程在起作用，使你的头脑迟钝和无能。 “那它是什么？我不被性所困扰；我沉溺于其中，但它并未发展成一种奴役我的激情。它始于爱，以失望告终，却不是挫折。对此我很确定。我既不谴责也不追求性。无论如何，对我来说，它不是问题。”

Has this indifference destroyed sensitivity? After all, love is vulnerable, and a mind that has built defence against life ceases to love. “I don’t think I have built a defence against sex; but love is not necessarily sex, and I really do not know if I love at all.”

这种冷漠是否破坏了灵敏性？毕竟，爱是脆弱的，一个对生命竖起围墙的头脑，让爱消逝了。 “我不认为我已经建立了对性的防御；但爱不一定是性，我真的不知道，自己到底有没有爱。”

You see, our minds are so carefully cultivated that we fill the heart with the things of the mind. We give most of our time and energy to the earning of a livelihood, to the gathering of knowledge, to the fire of belief, to patriotism and the worship of the State, to the activities of social reform, to the pursuit of ideals and virtues, and to the many other things with which the mind keeps itself occupied; so the heart is made empty, and the mind becomes rich in its cunningness. This does make for insensitivity, doesn’t it?

你看，我们的头脑是如此精心地被培养，以至于我们用头脑的东西填满了心灵。我们把我们大部分的时间和精力用于谋生，用于知识的收集，用于信仰之火，用于爱国主义和对国家的崇拜，用于社会的改革活动，用于追求理想和美德，以及各种其它的事物这样一来，头脑一直占据着；所以心灵变得空虚，狡猾的头脑变得富有。这确实会导致不灵敏，不是吗？

“It is true that we over-cultivate the mind. We worship knowledge, and the man of intellect is honoured, but few of us love in the sense you are talking about. Speaking for myself, I honestly do not know if I have any love at all. I don’t kill to eat. I like nature. I like to go into the woods and feel their silence and beauty; I like to sleep under the open skies. But does all this indicate that I love?”

“的确，我们过度培养了头脑。我们崇拜知识，有知识的人是受人尊敬的，但我们当中，很少有人如你所说的那样爱。就我自己而言，老实说，我根本不知道我是否有爱。我不为吃而杀生。我喜欢大自然。我喜欢走进树林，感受他们的寂静和美丽；我喜欢在开阔的天空下睡觉。但这一切是否表明我爱呢？”

Sensitivity to nature is part of love; but it isn’t love, is it? To be gentle and kind, to do good works, asking nothing in return, is part of love; but it isn’t love, is it? “Then what is love?”

对自然的敏感是爱的一部分；但它不是爱，不是吗？温柔、善良、行善、不求任何回报，是爱的一部分；但它不是爱，不是吗？ “那么，什么是爱呢？”

Love is all these parts, but much more. The totality of love is not within the measure of the mind; and to know that totality, the mind must be empty of its occupations however noble or self-centred. To ask how to empty the mind, or how not to be self-centred, is to pursue a method; and the pursuit of a method is another occupation of the mind.

爱是所有的这些部分，但更多。爱的整体，不在头脑的尺度之内；要知道那种整体，头脑必须清空它的占有物，无论这些物品有多么的高贵或核心。问如何清空头脑，或者如何不以自我为中心，就是追求一种方法；而对方法的追求，是头脑的另一个占有物。

“But is it possible to empty the mind without some kind of effort?”

“但是，有没有可能不费吹灰之力就清空头脑呢？”

All effort, the ‘right’ as well as the ‘wrong’, sustains the centre, the core of achievement, the self. Where the self is, love is not. But we were talking of the lethargy of the mind, of its insensitivity. Have you not read a great deal? And may not knowledge be part of this process of insensitivity? “I am not a scholar, but I read a lot, and I like to browse in libraries. I respect knowledge, and I don’t quite see why you think that knowledge necessarily makes for insensitivity.”

所有的努力，无论是‘对的’还是‘错的’，都在维持中心、成就的核心、自我。自我在哪里，爱就不在。但是我们谈论的是头脑的昏睡，它的不灵光。你不是读过很多书吗？或许，知识不就是这种不灵敏的一部分吗？ “我不是一个学者，但我读了很多书，我喜欢在图书馆里浏览。我尊重知识，我不太明白为什么你认为知识必然会导致不灵敏。”

What do we mean by knowledge? Our life is largely a repetition of what we have been taught, is it not? We may add to our learning, but the repetitive process continues and strengthens the habit of accumulating. What do you know except what you have read or been told, or what you have experienced? That which you experience now is shaped by what you have experienced before. Further experience is what has been experienced already, only enlarged or modified, and so the repetitive process is maintained. Repetition of the good or the bad, of the noble or the trivial, obviously makes for insensitivity, because the mind is moving only within the field of the known. May not this be why your mind is dull?

我们所说的‘知识’是什么意思？在很大程度上，我们的生命就是重复我们被教导的东西，不是吗？我们可能会累积我们所学到的，但重复的过程仍在继续，并加强了积累的习惯。除了你读过的或被告知的，或者你经历过的事情之外，你还知道什么？你现在所体验到的，是由你以前的经历塑造出来的。进一步的体验是已经体验过的经历 —— 只不过是对它的扩大或修改，因此这种重复的过程被维持着。重复好的或坏的，高尚的或琐碎的，很明显，会导致不灵敏，因为头脑只在已知的领域内移动。或许，这不就是你头脑迟钝的原因吗？

“But I can’t put away all that I know, all that I have accumulated as knowledge.”

“但我不能把我所知道的一切、我所有的积累，都放下。”

You are this knowledge, you are the things that you have accumulated; you are the gramophone record that is ever repeating what is impressed on it. You are the song, the noise, the chatter of society, of your culture. Is there an uncorrupted ‘you’, apart from all this chatter? This self-centre is now anxious to free itself from the things it has gathered; but the effort it makes to be free is still part of the accumulative process. You have a new record to play, with new words, but your mind is still dull, insensitive.

你就是这个知识，你就是你所积累的东西；你就是留声机唱片，一直在回放刻录进去的声音。你就是社会和熏陶你的文化的歌声、噪音和喋喋不休。除了所有这些喋喋不休之外，还有一个不朽的“你”吗？这个自我中心，现在急于将自己从它所收录的内容里解放出来。但它为自由所做的努力，仍然是累积过程的一部分。你有一张新唱片要烧录，里面有新的言语，但你的头脑仍然是沉闷的，不敏感的。

“I see that perfectly; you have described very well my state of mind. I have learnt, in my time, the jargons of various ideologies, both religious and political; but, as you point out, my mind has in essence remained the same. I am now very clearly aware of this; and I am also aware that this whole process makes the mind superficially alert clever and outwardly pliable, while below the surface it is still that same old self-centre which is the ‘me’.”

“我完美地看见那个了。你已经很好地描述了我头脑的状态。在我的时代，我学会了各种意识形态的行话，包括宗教和政治上的；但是，正如你所指出的，我的头脑在本质上是同一种材质。我现在非常清楚地意识到这些；而我也意识到，这整个过程使头脑在表面上变得有警觉性的聪明，外表上柔韧，而在表面之下，它仍然是那个旧的自我中心，也就是'我'。”

Are you aware of all this as a fact, or do you know it only through another’s description? If it is not your own discovery, something that you have found out for yourself, then it is still only the word and not the fact that is important. “I don’t quite follow this. please go slowly, sir, and explain it again.”

你是否意识到这一切的真实性，还是你只是通过别人的描述才知道的？如果它不是你自己的发现，是你自己找到的，那么它仍是言词，而不是事实。那才是重点。 “我似乎没有跟上你的话。请慢点，先生，再解释一遍。”

Do you know anything, or do you only recognize? Recognition is a process of association, memory, which is knowledge. That is true, isn’t it?

你知道任何东西吗，还是你只是认识？认识是一个联想、记忆的过程，也就是知识。那是真实的，它不是吗？

“I think I see what you mean. I know that bird is a parrot only because I have been told so. Through association, memory which is knowledge, there is recognition, and then I say: ‘It is a parrot’.”

“我想我明白你的意思。我知道鸟是一只鹦鹉，只是因为我被告知了。通过联想，回忆，即知识，产生了认知，然后我说：'它是一只鹦鹉'。”

The word ‘parrot’ has blocked you from looking at the bird, the thing that flies. We almost never look at the fact, but at the word or the symbol that stands for the fact. The fact recedes and the word, the symbol, becomes all-important. Now, can you look at the fact, whatever it may be, dissociated from the word, the symbol? “It seems to me that perception of the fact, and awareness of the word representing the fact, occur in the mind at the same time.”

‘鹦鹉’这个词，妨害了你观看鸟的行为，那个飞翔的动物。我们几乎从不看事实，而在看代表事实的词或符号。事实被减弱，这个词、符号，变得至关重要。现在，你能观看这个事实，不管它是什么，切断与那个词、那个符号的联系吗？ “在我看来，对事实的感知，以及对代表事实的词的意识，同时出现在头脑中。”

Can the mind separate the fact from the word? “I don’t think it can.”

头脑能把事实与词语分开吗？“我认为不可能。”

Perhaps we are making this more difficult than it is. That object is called a tree; the word and the object are two separate things, are they not? “Actually it is so; but, as you say we always look at the object through the word.”

也许我们正在使这些变得更加困难。那个对象被称之为‘树’；词语和对象是两个独立的东西，不是吗？ “其实是这样；但是，正如你所说，我们总是通过这个词来看待对象。”

Can you separate the object from the word? The word ‘love’ is not the feeling, the fact of love.

你能把这个对象和词语分开吗？ ‘爱’这个词不是那个感觉，不是爱的事实。

“But, in a way, the word is a fact too, isn’t it?”

“但是，在某种程度上，这个词也是一个事实，不是吗？”

In a way, yes. Words exist to communicate and also to remember, to fix in the mind a fleeting experience, a thought, a feeling; so the mind itself is the word, the experience, it is the memory of the fact in terms of pleasure and pain, good and bad. This whole process takes place within the field of time, the field of the known; and any revolution within that field is no revolution at all, but only a modification of what has been.

在某种程度上，是的。词的存在，是为了交流，也是为了记录，在头脑中固定一个转瞬即逝的体验、一个思想、一种感觉；所以头脑本身就是这个词，这个体验，它是对这个事实的记忆，并冠以‘快乐’和‘痛苦’、‘好’与‘坏’的名称。这整个过程发生在时间的领域内，在已知的范围内；这个领域内的任何革命都不是革命，而只是对过往的事物的一种修改。

“If I understand you correctly, you are saying that I have made my mind dull, lethargic, insensitive, through traditional or repetitive thinking, of which self-discipline is a part. To bring the repetitive process to an end, the gramophone record, which is the self must be broken; and it can be broken only by seeing the fact, and not through effort. Effort, you say, only keeps the recording machine wound up, so in that there is no hope. Then what?”

“如果我正确地理解你，你是说，我通过传统或重复的思考，其中包含了自律使我的头脑变得迟钝、昏昏欲睡、不灵敏。为了结束这种重复机制，这些留声机记录，也就是自我，必须被打破；只有通过看到事实，而不是通过努力，它才能被打破。你说，努力只会让录音机运转，所以没有出头之日。然后呢？”