对生活的评注 3-41

IT WAS ONE of those huge, sprawling towns that are devouring the country, and to get beyond it we had to go for seemingly endless miles along shoddy streets, past factories, slums and railway sheds, through exclusive residential suburbs, until at last we saw the beginnings of the open country, where the skies were wide and the trees were tall and free. It was a beautiful day, clear and not too warm, for it had been raining recently – one of those soft, gentle rains that go deep into the earth. Suddenly, as the road crested a hill, we came upon the river, glistening in the sun as it wandered away among the green fields towards the distant sea. There were only a few boats on the river, clumsily built, with square, black sails. Many miles higher up there was a bridge for both trains and daily traffic, but at this point there was just a pontoon bridge, on which the traffic moved only one way at a time, and we saw a line of lorries, bullock carts and motor cars, and two camels, waiting their turn to cross over. We didn’t want to enter that lengthening queue, for it might be a long wait so we took another road back, leaving the river to make its way through hills and meadows, past many a village, to the open sea.

它是吞噬这种乡村的庞大而蔓延的城镇之一，为了穿越它，我们不得不沿着劣质的街道，经过工厂、贫民窟和铁路棚，穿过隔离的住宅郊区，似乎经过了无穷的英里，直到最后，我们看到了开阔的乡村的开端，那里的天空宽广，树木高耸而自由。它是一个美好的日子，晴朗而不太热，因为最近一直在下雨 —— 那软和、温柔的雨，滋润大地。突然，当道路爬上一座小山时，我们来到了河边，它蜿蜒于绿色的田野中，在阳光下闪亮，朝向远处的大海。河上只有几只船，建造得很笨拙，有方形的黑色帆。在沿河数英里的地方，有一座供火车和日常交通双用的桥，但此处只有一座浮桥，一次只能向一个方向移动，我们看到一排卡车、牛车和汽车，还有两头骆驼，等待着轮到他们越过。我们不想进入那个正在增长的队列，因为它可能是一个漫长的等待，所以我们去了另一条路，离开了河流 —— 它穿越群山和草地，经过许多村庄，到达开阔的大海。

The sky overhead was intensely blue, and the horizon was filled with enormous white clouds, with the morning sun upon them. They were fantastic in shape, and they remained motionless and distant. You couldn’t get near them, even if you drove towards them for miles. By the side of the road the grass was young and green. The coming summer would burn it brown, and the country would lose its green freshness; but now everything was made new, and there was joy in the land. The road was quite rough, with potholes all over-it, and though the driver avoided as many as he could, we bounced up and down, our heads almost touching the roof; but the motor was running beautifully, and there was no rattle in the car.

头顶的天空是深蓝色的，地平线上布满了巨大的白云，清晨的阳光照在他们身上。他们的形态很棒，他们保持着，一动不动、疏远。你无法靠近他们，即使你开车向他们走了好几英里。在路边，草地又年轻又绿。即将到来的夏天将把它烤成棕色，这个乡村将失去绿色的清新；但现在一切都是新的，这片土地上有欢乐。这条路相当崎岖，到处都是坑洼，尽管司机尽可能地避开，但我们仍然在上下弹跳，我们的头几乎碰到了车顶。但电机运行得很漂亮，车里没有嘎嘎声。

One’s mind was aware of the stately trees, the rocky hills, the villagers, the wide blue skies, but it was also in meditation. Not a thought was disturbing it. There was no flutter of memory, no effort to hold or to resist, nor was there anything in the future to be gained. The mind was taking everything in, it was quicker than the eye, and it didn’t keep what it perceived; the happening passed through it, as the breeze passes among the branches of a tree. One heard the conversation behind one, and saw the bullock cart and the approaching lorry, yet the mind was completely still; and the movement within that stillness was the impulse of a new beginning, a new birth. But the new beginning would never be old; it would never know yesterday and tomorrow. The mind was not experiencing the new: it was itself the new. It had no continuity, and so no death; it was new, not made new. The fire was not from the embers of yesterday.

一个人的头脑意识到庄严的树木，多岩的山丘、村民、广阔的蓝天，但它也在冥想里。没有一丝想法打扰它。没有记忆的飘动，没有努力去保持或抵抗，也没有东西可在未来获取。头脑把一切都纳入其中，它比眼睛更快，而它没有保留它所感知到的；当微风穿过一棵树的树枝时，它发生了。一个人听到了身后的对话，看到了牛车和靠近的卡车，头脑却完全地静止。而那静止中，这个移动是一个新的开始、新的诞生的脉动。但是，新的开端永远不会是旧的。它永远不会知道昨天和明天。头脑不是在体验新：它本身即是新。它没有延续性，因此没有死亡；它是新，而不是创新。那火焰，不是源于昨天的余烬。

He had brought his friend, he said, so that with his help he could the better formulate his points. They were both rather reserved, and not given to many words, but they said they knew Sanskrit and some scripture. probably in their forties, they were slim and healthy looking with good heads and thoughtful eyes. “Why do the Scriptures condemn desire?” began the taller one. “Practically every teacher of old seems to have condemned it, especially sexual desire, saying that it must be controlled, subjugated. They evidently regarded desire as a hindrance to the higher life. The Buddha talked of desire as the cause of all sorrow and preached the ending of it. Shankara, in his complex philosophy, said that desire and the sexual urge were to be suppressed, and all the other religious teachers have more or less maintained the same attitude. Some of the Christian saints castigated their bodies and tortured themselves in various ways, while others held that one’s body, like the ass or the horse must be well-treated but controlled. We have not read very much, but as far as we are familiar with it, all religious literature seems to insist that desire must be disciplined, subjugated, sublimated, and so on. We are just beginners in the religious life, but somehow we feel there’s something missing in all this, a flower with perfume. We may be entirely wrong, and we are not pitting ourselves against the great teachers, but we would like, if we may, to talk things over with you. As far as we can make out from our reading, you have never said that desire must be suppressed or sublimated, but that it must be understood with an awareness in which there’s no condemnation or justification. Though you have explained this in different ways, we find it difficult to grasp the whole meaning of it, and our talking it over with you will be of considerable help to us.”

他说，他带了他的朋友来，这样在他的帮助下，他就可以更好地表达自己的观点。他们俩都相当保守，没有很多话，但他们说他们懂梵文和一些经文。他们大概四十多岁，他们看起来苗条、健康、脑瓜好、有会说话的眼睛。 “为什么圣经谴责欲望？” 高个子开始说。 “几乎每个老教师似乎都谴责过它，尤其是性欲，说它必须被控制，被征服。他们显然认为欲望是更高生命的障碍。佛陀谈论欲望是所有悲伤的原因，并宣扬它的结束。商羯罗在他复杂的哲学中说，欲望和性冲动是要被压制的，所有其他宗教老师或多或少都保持着同样的态度。一些基督教圣徒谴责他们的身体，以各种方式折磨自己，而另一些人则认为，一个人的身体，如驴子或马，必须得到很好的对待，但要加以控制。我们读得不多，但据我们了解，所有的宗教文献似乎都坚持认为，欲望必须受到纪律、征服、升华等等。我们只是宗教生活的初学者，但不知何故，我们觉得这一切中缺少了一些东西，一朵带有芬芳的花。我们可能完全错了，我们并不是在与伟大的老师作对，但我们希望，如果可以的话，和你谈谈。就我们从阅读中可以看出的，你从来没有说过欲望必须被压制或升华，而是说它必须以一种没有谴责或辩护的意识来理解它。虽然你以不同的方式解释了这一点，但我们发现很难理解它的全部含义，我们和你谈论它，将对我们有很大的帮助。”

What exactly is the problem you want to discuss? “Desire is natural, is it not, sir?” asked the other. “Desire for food, desire for sleep, desire for some degree of comfort, sexual desire the desire for truth —— in all these forms, desire is perfectly natural, and why are we told that it must be eliminated?”

您想讨论的问题到底是什么？ “欲望是自然的，不是吗，先生？” 另一个人问。 “对食物的欲望，对睡眠的欲望，对某种程度的安慰的欲望，对性的欲望，对真理的欲望 —— 在所有这些形式中，欲望是完全自然的，而为什么我们被告知它必须被消除？”

Putting aside what you have been told, can we inquire into the truth and the falseness of desire? What do you mean by desire? Not the dictionary definition, but what is the significance, the content of desire? And what importance do you give to it?

撇开你被告知的事情不谈，我们能探究欲望的真伪吗？你说的欲望是什么意思？不是字典里的定义，而是欲望的意义、内容是什么？你对它有多大的重视？

“I have many desires,” replied the taller one, “and these desires change in their value and importance from time to time. There are permanent as well as passing desires. A desire which I have one day may, by the very next day, be gone, or have become intensified. Even if I no longer have sexual desire, I may still want power; I may have passed beyond the sexual phase, but my desire for power remains constant.”

“我有很多欲望，” 身材高大的人回答说， “这些欲望的价值和重要性会不时地变化。有持久的欲望，也有短暂的欲望。有一天，我有一种欲望，到第二天，可能会消失，或者已经变得强烈。即使我不再有性欲望，我可能仍然想要权力；我可能已经超越了性阶段，但我对权力的欲望保持不变。”

That is so. Childish wants become mature desires with age, with habit, with repetition. The object of desire may change as we grow older, but desire remains. Fulfilment and the pain of frustration are always within the area of desire, are they not?

就是那样。幼稚的想法随着年龄的增长、习惯的出现、不断的重复，变为成熟的欲望。欲望的对象可能会随着年龄的增长而改变，但欲望依旧存在。成功与折翼之痛，总是在欲望的疆场之内，不是吗？

Now, is there desire if there’s no object of desire? Are desire and its object inseparable? Do I know desire only because of the object? Let us find out.

现在，如果没有想要的对象，会有欲望吗？欲望和它的对象是不可分割的吗？我知道欲望，仅仅是因为有这个对象存在吗？让我们来找找看。

I see a new fountain-pen, and because mine is not as good, I want the new one; so a process of desire is set going, a chain of reactions, till I get, or fail to get, what I want. An object catches the eye, and then there comes a feeling of wanting or not wanting. At what point in this process does the ‘I’ come in?

我看到一支新钢笔，因为我的钢笔不那么好，所以我想要新的；因此，一个欲望的过程开始了，一条反应链，直到我得到，或者没有得到我所想的。一个对象吸引了眼睛，然后出现一种‘想’或‘不想’的感觉。在这个过程中，‘我’在什么时候出现的？

“That’s a good question.”

“那是一个很好的问题。”

Does the ‘I’ exist before the feeling of wanting, or does it arise with that feeling? You see some object, such as a new type of fountain-pen, and a number of reactions are set going which are perfectly normal; but with them comes the desire to possess the object, and then begins another set of reactions which bring into being the ‘I’ who says, “I must have it”. So the ‘I’ is put together by the feeling or desire which arises through the natural response of seeing. Without seeing, sensing desiring, is there an ‘I’ as a separate, isolated entity? Or does this whole process of seeing, having a sensation, desiring, constitute the ‘I’?

‘我’存在于‘想’的感觉之前，还是随着那种感觉而产生？你看到某个对象，比如一种新型的钢笔，一组反应被设定好了，这完全正常的；但随之而来的是占有这个对象的欲望，然后开始了另一组反应，这条反应链产生了‘我’，这个‘我’说： “我必须占有它”。因此，‘我’是由感觉或欲望拼凑起来的；而感觉或欲望是通过看的自然反应而产生的。在没有看、没有感官感受的时候，有一个被称之为‘我’的分开的、孤立的实体吗？还是在这整个看的过程中，有一种感觉，欲求，构成了‘我’？

“Do you mean to say, sir, that the ‘I’ is not there first? Isn’t it the ‘I’ who perceives and then desires?” asked the shorter one.

“先生，你的意思是说‘我’不是先有的吗？难道不是‘我’在感知，接着出现欲望吗？” 较矮的那个问道。

What do you say? Doesn’t the ‘I’ separate himself only in the process of perceiving and desiring? Before this process begins, is there an ‘I’ as a separate entity? “It is difficult to think of the ‘I’ as merely the result of a certain physio-psychological process, for this sounds very materialistic, and it goes against our tradition and all our habits of thought, which say that the ‘I’, the watcher, is there first, and not that he has been ‘put together’. But in spite of tradition and the sacred books, and my own wavering inclination to believe them, I see what you say to be a fact.”

你说什么？难道‘我’不是只在感知和欲求的过程中把自己分开的吗？在这个过程开始之前，是否有‘我’这个分离的实体？ “很难想象 ‘我’仅仅是某种生理-心理过程的产物，因为这听起来很唯物主义，它违背了我们的传统和我们所有的思想习惯，这些习惯说这个‘我’，观察者，首先存在，而不是说他被‘拼凑在一起’。但是，尽管有传统和神圣的书籍，以及我自己对它们摇摆不定的倾向，但我看到你所说的是一个事实。”

It’s not what another may say that makes for perception of a fact, but your own direct observation and clarity of thinking; isn’t that so? “Of course,” replied the taller one. “I may at first mistake a piece of rope for a snake, but the moment I see the thing clearly, there’s no mistaking, no wishful thinking about it.”

要感知一个事实，不能通过别人可能说出的话，而是通过你自己直接的观察和思考的清晰度；难道不是那样吗？ “当然，” 那个高个子回答。“起初，我可能会把一根绳子误认为是一条蛇，但当我清楚地看到那个东西，就不会弄错，就不存在想当然的想法。”

If that point is clear, shall we get on with the question of suppressing or sublimating desire? Now, what’s the problem? “Desire is always there, sometimes burning furiously, and sometimes dormant but ready to spring to life; and the problem is, what’s one to do with it? When desire is dormant, my whole being is fairly quiet, but when it’s awake, I am very disturbed; I become restless, feverishly active, till that particular desire is satisfied. I then become relatively calm – only to have desire begin all over again, perhaps with a different object. It’s like water under pressure, and however high you build the dam, it’s forever seeping through the cracks, going round the end, or spilling over the top. I have all but tortured myself, trying to go beyond desire, but at the end of my best efforts, desire is still there, smiling or frowning. How am I to be free of it?”

如果那一点清楚了，我们是否应该继续处理压抑或升华欲望的问题？现在，问题出在哪里？“欲望总是在那里，有时疯狂地燃烧，有时休眠，但准备着复苏；问题是，人应该怎么做？当欲望处于休眠状态时，我的整个存在是相当安静的，但是当它苏醒时，我非常地不安；我变得焦躁，狂热的活跃，直到那个特定的欲望得到满足。然后我变得相对平静 —— 只是在等待欲望重新开始，也许是另一个对象。这就像压力下的水，无论你建造的大坝有多高，它永远从裂缝中渗出，绕过墙垣，或者溢出顶部。我几乎折磨过我自己，试图超越欲望，但我尽了最大的努力，欲望仍然存在，微笑着或皱着眉。我怎样才能摆脱它呢？”

Are you trying to suppress, sublimate desire? Do you want to tame it, drug it, make it respectable? Apart from the books, ideals and gurus, what do you feel about desire? What is your impulse? What do you think? “Desire is natural, isn’t it, sir?” asked the shorter one.

你是在试图压抑、升华欲望吗？你想驯服它、给它下毒，使它受人尊敬吗？抛开书籍、理想和大师，你对欲望有什么感觉？你的冲动是什么？你自己怎么想的？ “欲望是自然的，不是吗，先生？” 矮个子问。

What do you mean by natural? “Hunger, sex, wanting comfort and security – all this is desire, and it seems so healthily sane and normal. After all, we are built like that.”

你说的自然是什么意思？ “饥饿、性、想要舒适和安全 —— 所有这些都是欲望，它看起来如此健康地理智和正常。毕竟，我们是那样建造的。”

If it is so normal, why are you bothered by it? “The trouble is, there’s not just one desire, but many contradictory desires, all pulling in different directions; I am torn apart inside. Two or three desires are dominant, and they override the conflicting lesser ones; but even among the major desires, there’s a contradiction. It’s this contradiction, with its strains and tensions, that causes suffering.”

如果它如此的正常，你为什么会被它打扰呢？ “问题是，不只有一种欲望，而是许多相互矛盾的欲望，都朝着不同的方向拉动；我里面被撕裂了。两三个欲望占据支配地位，它们压倒了相互冲突的次要欲望；但即使在主要的欲望中，也存在着矛盾。正是这种矛盾，以及它的焦虑和紧张，造成了痛苦。”

And to overcome this suffering, you are told you must control, suppress, or sublimate desire. Isn’t that so? If the fulfilment of desire brought only pleasure and no suffering, you would go merrily along with it, wouldn’t you?

为了克服这种痛苦，你被告知你必须控制、压抑或升华欲望。难道不是那样吗？如果欲望的达成只带来快乐而没有痛苦，你会快乐地跟随它，你不会吗？

“Obviously,” put in the taller one. “But there’s always some pain and fear as well, and this is what we want to eliminate.”

“当然会，” 高个子说。 “但总会有一些痛苦和恐惧，这就是我们想要消除的。”

Yes, everyone does, and that is why the whole design and background of our thinking is to continue with the pleasures while avoiding the pain of desire. Isn’t this what you also are striving after? “I’m afraid it is.”

是的，每个人都想这么做，那就是我们在思考时的整张蓝图和背景：继续享受快乐，同时避免欲望的痛苦。这不就是你也在努力追求的吗？“恐怕是的。”

This struggle between the pleasures of desire and the suffering which also comes with it is the conflict of duality. There’s nothing very puzzling about it. Desire seeks fulfilment, and the shadow of fulfilment is frustration. We don’t admit that, so we all pursue fulfilment, hoping never to be frustrated; but the two are inseparable.

欲望中的快乐和紧随其后的痛苦之间的这种挣扎，是对立面之间的冲突。关于这一点，没有什么难以理解的。欲望寻求达成，而达成的阴影就是挫折。我们不承认那一点，所以我们都追求达成，希望永远不受挫折；但两者是密不可分的。

“Is it never possible to have fulfilment without the pain of frustration?”

“难道永远不可能在没有挫折的痛苦下达成吗？”

Don’t you know? Haven’t you experienced the brief pleasure of fulfilment, and isn’t it invariably followed by anxiety, pain? “I have noticed that, but one tries in one way or another to keep ahead of the pain.”

你不知道吗？你有没有体验过短暂的成就感，难道它的后面不总是伴随着焦虑、痛苦吗？ “我注意到了那一点，但人试图以这种或那种方式保持领先，处于痛苦之前。”

And have you succeeded? “Not yet, but one always hopes to.”

你成功了吗？“还没有，但人总是希望如此。”

How to guard against such suffering is your chief concern throughout life; so you begin to discipline desire; you say, “This is the right desire, and the other is wrong, immoral.” You cultivate the ideal desire, the what should be, while caught in the what should not be. The what should not be is the actual fact, and the what should be has no reality except as an imaginary symbol. This is so, isn’t it?

如何防范这种痛苦是你一生中最关心的问题；所以你开始管制欲望；你说， “这是正确的欲望，另一个是错误的，不道德的。” 你培养了理想的欲望，‘应该是什么’，同时陷入了‘不应该是什么’。 ‘不应该是什么’是真实的事实，而‘应该是什么’除了是一个虚幻的符号之外，没有任何的真实性。就是这样，不是吗？

“But however imaginary, aren’t ideals necessary?” asked the shorter one. “They help us to get rid of the suffering.”

“但无论多么地虚幻，理想难道不是必需的吗？” 矮个子问道。 “它们帮助我们摆脱痛苦。”

Do they? Have your ideals helped you to be free from suffering, or have they merely helped you to carry on with the pleasure while ideally saying to yourself that you shouldn’t? So the pain and the pleasure of desire continue. Actually, you don’t want to be free of either; you want to drift with the pain and the pleasure of desire, meanwhile talking about ideals and all that stuff. “You are perfectly right, sir,” he admitted.

是吗？你的理想是帮助你摆脱痛苦，还是它们只是帮助你继续快乐，同时用理想的口气对自己说‘不应该那样’？因此，欲望的痛苦和快乐仍在继续。实际上，你不想摆脱任何一个；你想随着欲望的痛苦和快乐而漂流，同时谈论理想和所有那些东西。 “你完全正确，先生，” 他承认到。

Let’s proceed from there. Desire is not to be divided as pleasurable and painful, or as right and wrong desire. There’s only desire, which appears under different forms, with different objectives. Unless you understand this, you will merely be struggling to overcome the contradictions which are the very nature of desire. “Is there then a central desire which must be overcome, a desire from which all other desires spring?” asked the taller one.

让我们从这里开始。欲望不能被分割成快乐和痛苦，也没有正确与错误之分。只有欲望，它以不同的形式出现，有不同的目标。除非你理解这一点，否则你只会努力克服那些矛盾，而矛盾正是欲望的本性。 “那么，有没有一个必须克服的中心欲望，所有其它的欲望都从中涌现出来的那个欲望？” 高个子问道。

Do you mean the desire for security?

您是指对安全的欲望吗？

“I was thinking of that; but there is also the desire for sex, and for so many other things.”

“我在想那个问题；但也有对性的欲望，以及对许多其它东西的欲望。”

Is there one central desire from which other desires spring like so many children, or does desire merely change its object of fulfilment from time to time, from immaturity to maturity? There’s the desire to possess, to be passionate, to succeed, to be secure both inwardly and outwardly, and so on. Desire weaves through thought and action, through the so-called spiritual as well as the mundane life, does it not?

有没有一种核心的欲望其余的欲望像许多小孩子一样从中产生，或者欲望只是不时地、从不成熟到成熟地，变换着它想要的对象？欲望有占有欲、快感、成就感、内在和外在的安全感，等等。在所谓的灵性和世俗生活中，通过思想和行动，欲望纠缠在一起，它不是吗？

They were silent for some time. “We can’t think any further,” said the shorter one. “We are stumped.”

他们沉默了一段时间。 “我们想不下去了，” 较矮的那个说。“我们走不动了。”

If you suppress desire, it comes up again in another form, doesn’t it? To control desire is to narrow it down and be self-centred; to discipline it is to build a wall of resistance, which is always being broken down – unless, of course, you become neurotic, fixed in one pattern of desire. To sublimate desire is an act of will; but will is essentially the concentration of desire, and when one form of desire dominates another, you are back again in your old pattern of struggle.

如果你压抑了欲望，它就会以另一种形式再次出现，不是吗？控制欲望就是以自我为中心，收紧它的活动范围；管制就是建立一堵抵抗的墙，这堵墙总是被打破 —— 当然，除非你变得神经质，固定在一种欲望的模式中。升华欲望是一种意志行为；但是，从本质上看，意志是对欲望的锤炼，当一种形式的欲望支配另一种时，你又开始挣扎，又回到了旧的模式之内。

Control, discipline, sublimation, suppression – it all involves effort of some kind, and such effort is still within the field of duality, of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ desire. Laziness may be overcome by an act of will, but the pettiness of the mind remains. A petty mind can be very active, and it generally is, thereby causing mischief and misery for itself and others. So, however much a petty mind may struggle to overcome desire, it will continue to be a petty mind. All this is clear, isn’t it?

控制、管束、升华、压抑 —— 这一切都涉及某种努力，而这种努力仍然在相互对立的‘正确’与‘错误’的欲望领域之内。懒惰可能被意志行为所克服，但头脑的琐碎依然存在。一个琐碎的头脑能够非常地活跃，在通常的情况下，它就是，从而给它自己与别人带来了灾难和痛苦。因此，无论一个琐碎的头脑怎样与欲望作斗争，它都会继续处于琐碎的状态。所有这些都很清楚，不是吗？

They looked at each other. “I think so,” replied the taller one. “But please go a little slower, sir, and don’t cram every sentence with ideas.”

他们互相看了看。“我想是的，” 那个高个子回答。 “但是请慢一点，先生，不要把每句话都塞满想法。”

Like steam, desire is energy, is it not? And as steam can be directed to run every kind of machinery, either beneficial or destructive, so desire can be dissipated, or it can be used for understanding without there being any user of that astonishing energy. If there’s a user of it, whether it be the one or the many, the individual or the collective, which is tradition, then the trouble begins; then there’s the closed circle of pain and pleasure.

就像蒸汽一样，欲望就是能量，它不是吗？正如蒸汽可以被引导来运转每一种机器，无论是有益的还是破坏性的，因此，欲望可以被耗散，或者它可以被用于理解，而不被任何使用者耗散那种惊人的能量。如果有使用者，无论是一个还是很多个，无论个人还是集体，集体也就是传统，那么麻烦就开始了；接着就是痛苦和快乐的死循环。

“If neither the individual nor the collective is to use that energy, then who is to use it?”

“如果个人和集体都不使用那种能量，那么谁来使用它呢？”

Isn’t that a wrong question you’re asking? A wrong question will have a wrong answer, but a right one may open the door to understanding. There’s only energy; there’s no question of who will use it. It’s not that energy, but the user of it, who sustains confusion and the contradiction of pain and pleasure. The user, as the one and as the many, says, “This is right and that is wrong, this is good and that is bad”, thereby perpetuating the conflict of duality. He is the real mischief maker, the author of sorrow. Can the user of that energy called desire cease to be? Can the watcher not be an operator, a separate entity embodying this or that tradition, and be that energy itself?

你问的这个问题难道不是一个错误的问题吗？一个错误的问题会产生一个错误的答案，但一个正确的问题可能会敲开门而理解。只存在能量；不必问谁会使用它。它不是那种能量，而是能量的使用者，是它维持着困惑，导致痛苦与快乐的冲突。这个使用者，作为一个人或一群人，说， “这是正确的，那是错误的，这是好的，那是坏的”，从而使二元性的冲突永久化。他是真正的灾难制造者，是悲伤的作者。那个被称为欲望的能量的使用者，能消逝吗？观察者能够不做操作员，一个分离的实体，这种或那种传统的化身，而成为那个能量本身吗？

“Isn’t that very difficult?”

“那不是很难吗？”

It’s the only problem, and not how to control, discipline, or sublimate desire. When you begin to understand this, desire has quite a different significance; it is then the purity of creation, the movement of truth. But merely to repeat that desire is the supreme, and so on, is not only useless, it is definitely harmful, because it acts as a soporific, a drag to quiet the petty mind. “But how is the user of desire to come to an end?”

这是唯一的问题，而不是如何控制、约束或升华欲望。当你开始理解这一点时，欲望就具有完全不同的意义。然后是创造的纯洁，真实的移动。但是，仅仅重复那种欲望是至高无上的，等等，不仅没有用，而且绝对有害，因为它充当了一种催眠药，一种毒药，使琐碎的头脑安静。 “但是，欲望的使用者是如何结束的呢？”