YOU WERE ALREADY fairly high up, looking down into the valley, and if you climb a mile or more up and up the winding path, passing all kinds of vegetation - live oaks, sage, poison oak - and past a stream which is always dry in the summer, you can see the blue sea far away in the distance, across range after range. Up here it is absolutely quiet. It is so still there isn't a breath of air. You look down and the mountains look down on you. You can go on climbing up the mountain for many hours, down into another valley and up again. You have done it several times before, twice reaching the very top of those rocky mountains. Beyond them to the north is a vast plain of desert. Down there it is very hot, here it is quite cold; you have to put something on in spite of the hot sun.
你已经爬得相当高了，往下看山谷， 如果你沿着蜿蜒的小径上爬一英里或更远，经过各种植被 —— 充满生机的橡树、鼠尾草、毒橡树 —— 经过一条在夏天总是干燥的小溪， 你可以看到远处的蓝色大海，无边无际。 上到这个高度，绝对的安静。它如此的平静，周围没有一丝气息。 你往下俯瞰看，群山也俯瞰你。你可以继续往上爬几个小时， 向下到达另一个山谷，然后再翻上去。 你以前这么做过几次，两次到达那些岩石嶙峋的大山的顶端。 在他们以北是一片宽广的沙漠。 那里非常热，这里很冷；尽管太阳很热，你还是必须穿上一些东西。
And as you come down, looking at the various trees, plants and little insects, suddenly you hear the rattle of a rattle snake. And you jump, fortunately away from the rattler. You are only about ten feet away from it. It is still rattling. You look at each other and watch. Snakes have no eyelids. This one was not very long but quite thick, as thick as your arm. You keep your distance and you watch it very carefully, its pattern, its triangular head and its black tongue flickering in and out. You watch each other. It doesn't move and you don't move. But presently, its head and its tail towards you, it slithers back and you step forward. Again it coils up and rattles and you watch each other. And again, with its head and tail towards you, it begins to go back and again you move forward; and again it coils and rattles. You do this for several minutes, perhaps ten minutes or more; then it gets tired. You see that it is motionless, waiting, but as you approach it, it doesn't rattle. It has temporarily lost its energy. You are quite close to it. Unlike the cobra which stands up to strike, this snake strikes lunging forward. But there was no movement. It was too exhausted, so you leave it. It was really quite a poisonous, dangerous thing. Probably you could touch it but you are disinclined to, though not frightened. You feel that you would rather not touch it and you leave it alone.
当你下山，看见各种树木、植物和小昆虫，突然你听到了响尾蛇的沙沙声。 你跳了起来，幸运地离开了响尾蛇。你离它只有十英尺的距离。 它仍然在沙沙作响。你们看着对方，观察。蛇没有眼睑。 这一只不是很长，但很粗，和你的胳膊一样粗。 你们保持距离，你非常仔细地观察它，它的图案，它的三角形头部和它的黑色舌头进进出出地闪动。 你们互相观察对方。它不移动，你也不动。 但现在，它的头和尾巴朝向你，它向后滑行，你向前走。 它再次盘绕起来，沙沙作响，你们互相观察对方。 再一次，它的头和尾巴朝向你，它开始向后移动，你又向前移动; 它再次盘绕和沙沙作响。你这样做了几分钟，也许是十分钟或更长时间；然后它累了。 你看到它一动不动，等待着，但当你接近它时，它不会沙沙作响。 它暂时失去了它的能量。你离它很近。 与站起来攻击的眼镜蛇不同，这种蛇向前冲刺。 但这时没有动静。它太累了，所以你离开了它。 这真的是一条非常有毒、危险的东西。也许你可以触摸它，但你不愿意，虽然不害怕。 你觉得你宁愿不碰它，你就不管它了。
And as you come further down you almost step on a quail with about a dozen or more babies. They scatter into the nearby bushes, and the mother too disappears into a bush and they all call to each other. You go down and wait, and if you have the patience to watch, you presently see them all come together under the mother's wing. It is cool up there and they are waiting for the sun to warm the air and the earth.
当你再往下走，你几乎踩到了一只鹌鹑，带着十几个或更多的小孩儿。 他们散落在附近的灌木丛中，母亲也消失在灌木丛中，他们都互相呼唤。 你向下走过，并停下，如果你有耐心去观察，你现在看到他们都聚集在母亲的翅膀下。 那里很凉爽，他们正在等待太阳去暖和空气和土地。
You come down across the little stream, past a meadow which is almost losing its green, and return to your room rather tired but exhilarated by the walk and by the morning sun. You see the orange trees with their bright yellow oranges, the rose bushes and the myrtle, and the tall eucalyptus trees. It is all very peaceful in the house.
你穿过小溪，经过一片几乎失去绿色的草地， 回到你的房间，相当疲惫，但散步和清晨的太阳让你兴奋不已。 你看见橙子树和他们亮黄色的橙子、玫瑰花丛和桃金娘，以及高大的桉树。 在房间里，一切都非常宁静。
It was a pleasant morning, full of strange activities on the earth. All those little things alive, rushing about, seeking their morning food - the squirrel, the gopher. They eat the tender roots of plants and are quite destructive. A dog can kill them so quickly with a snap. It is very dry, the rains are over and gone, to return again perhaps in four months or more. AIl the valley below is still glistening. It is strange how there is a brooding silence over the whole earth. In spite of the noise of towns and the traffic, there is something almost palpable, something holy. If you are in harmony with nature, with all the things around you, then you are in harmony with all human beings. If you have lost your relationship with nature you will inevitably lose your relationship with human beings.
那是一个愉快的早晨，地球上充满了奇怪的活动。 所有这些小东西都是活泼的，匆匆忙忙地四处走动，寻找他们的早餐 —— 松鼠，地鼠。 它们吃植物的嫩根，具有很强的破坏性。一只狗可以猛地一口咬死它们。 天气非常干燥，雨水已经结束而消失，也许在四个月或更长时间后会再次返回。 下面的山谷仍然闪闪发光。奇怪的是，整片土地都弥漫着深沉的寂静。 尽管有城镇和交通的喧嚣，但这里有某些东西，它几乎是显而易见的，某些神圣的东西。 如果你与自然和谐相处，与你周围的一切和谐相处，那么你就在与全人类和谐相处。 如果你失去了与自然的关系，你将不可避免地失去与人类的关系。
A whole group of us sitting at table towards the end of the meal began a serious conversation as has happened several times before. It was about the meaning of words, the weight of the word, the content of the word, not merely the superficial meaning of the word but the depth of it, the quality of it, the feeling of it. Of course the word is never the actual thing. The description, the explanation, is not that which is described, nor that about which there is an explanation. The word the phrase, the explanation are not the actuality. But the word is used as a communication of one's thought, one's feeling, and the word, though it is not communicated to another, holds the feeling inside oneself. The actual never conditions the brain, but the theory, the conclusion, the description, the abstraction, do condition it. The table never conditions the brain but god does, whether it is the god of the Hindus, Christians or Muslims. The concept, the image, conditions the brain, not that which is actually happening, taking place.
我们一大群人在用餐结束时坐在桌子旁， 开始了一场严肃的谈话，就像以前发生过几次一样。 它是关于言词的含义，言词的重量，言词的内容， 不仅仅是言词的表面含义，而是它的深度，它的质量，它的感觉。 当然，词语从来都是不真实的东西。 描述和解释，并非被描述的东西，也不是对它的阐释。 词语、短句、解释，都不是真实。 但是，词语当成一种交流方式，交流一个人的思想，一个人的感受， 而这个词语，虽然没有传达给另一个人，它却在自己的心中拥有着一种的感觉。 真实从不限制大脑，但理论、结论、描述、抽象，确实在限制它。 这张桌子从不限制大脑，但神在限制它，无论是印度教徒、基督徒还是穆斯林的神。 概念、形象，限制着大脑，而不是真实发生的、正在发生的。
To the Christian, the word Jesus or Christ has great significance, great meaning, it evokes a deep sentiment, a sensation. Those words have no meaning to the Hindu, to the Buddhist, or to the Muslim. Those words are not the actual. So those words, which have been used for two thousand years, have conditioned the brain. The Hindu has his own gods, his own divinities. Those divinities, as the Christians', are the projections of thought, out of fear, out of pleasure and so on.
对基督徒来说，耶稣或基督这个词有着伟大的含义，伟大的意思， 它引起一种深刻的情感，一种感觉。 那些词语对印度教徒、佛教徒或穆斯林来说，都没有意义。那些词语是不真实的。 因此，那些已经使用了两千年的言词已经限制着大脑。 印度教徒有自己的神，他自己的神性。 那些神性，就像基督徒一样，是思想的投影，出于恐惧，出于快乐等等。
It seems that language really doesn't condition the brain; what does is the theory of the language, the abstraction of a certain feeling and the abstraction taking the form of an idea, a symbol, a person - not the actual person but a person imagined, or hoped for, or projected by thought. All those abstractions, those ideas, conclusions, however strong, condition the brain. But the actual, like the table, never does.
似乎语言真的没有限制大脑； 那限制大脑的是语言中形成的理论，某种对感觉的抽象 而抽象演化成一个观念、一个符号、一个人 —— 不是真实的人，而是一个描绘的、期盼的或通过思想影射出来的人。 所有那些抽象，那些想法，结论，无论多么强大，都在限制这个大脑。 但真实的东西，就像桌子一样，永远没有限制。
Take a word like `suffering'. That word has a different meaning for the Hindu and the Christian. But suffering, however described by words, is shared by all of us. Suffering is the fact, the actual. But when we try to escape from it through some theory, or through some idealized person, or through a symbol, those forms of escape mould the brain. Suffering as a fact doesn't and this is important to realize.
拿 ‘受苦’ 这个的词来说。那个词对印度教徒和基督徒有不同的含义。 但是受苦，不管用言语去如何描述，是我们所有人所共有的。受苦是事实，是真实的。 但是，当我们试图通过某个理论，或者通过某些理想化的人，或者通过一个符号来逃避它的时候， 那些逃避方式塑造了大脑。受苦作为一个事实不这样做，意识到一点很重要。
Like the word 'attachment; to see the word, to hold it as if in your hand and watch it, feel the depth of it, the whole content of it, the consequences of it, the fact that we are attached - the fact, not the word; that feeling doesn't shape the brain, put it into a mould, but the moment one moves away from it, that is, when thought moves away from the fact, that very movement away, movement of escape, is not only a time factor, but the beginning of shaping the brain in a certain mould.
就像 ‘依恋’ 这个词；看这个词，握在它，如同在你的手中，观察它， 感受它的深度，它的全部内容，它的后续，那个我们在依恋的事实 —— 事实，而不是词语；那种感觉不会塑造大脑，把它扔进一个模具中， 但是一个人离开它的那一刻，那就是说， 当思想远离事实，那个远离的行动，逃跑的行动， 不仅是一个时间因素，而且是以某种模式来塑造大脑的开端。
To the Buddhist the word Buddha, the impression, the image, creates great reverence, great feeling, devotion; he seeks refuge in the image which thought has created. And as the thought is limited, because all knowledge is always limited, that very image brings about conflict - the feeling of reverence to a person, or to a symbol, or to a certain long-established tradition - but the feeling of reverence itself, divorced from all the external images, symbols and so on, is not a factor of conditioning the brain.
对佛教徒来说，佛陀那个词，那个印象，那个形象，创造出极大的敬畏，伟大的感情，奉献； 他在思想所创造的形象中寻求庇护。 由于思想是有限的，因为所有的知识总是有限的，那种形象本身就带来了冲突 —— 那种对某个人、某个符号、或对某种长期建立的传统的敬畏感 —— 但敬畏感本身，脱离了所有外部的形象、符号等等，并不是限制大脑的因素。
There, sitting in the next chair, was a modified Christian. And when across the table one mentioned Christ one could immediately feel the restrictive, reverential reserve. That word has conditioned the brain. It is quite extraordinary to watch this whole phenomenon of communication with words, each race giving different significance and meaning to the word and thereby creating a division, a limitation, to the feeling which mankind suffers. The suffering of mankind is common, is shared by all human beings. The Russian may express it in one way, the Hindu, the Christian in another and so on, but the fact of suffering, the actual feeling of pain, grief, loneliness, that feeling never shapes or conditions the brain. So one becomes very attentive to, aware of, the subtleties of the word, the meaning, the weight of it.
那儿，坐在旁边的椅子上的那位，是一个改良派的基督徒。 当桌子对面有人提到基督时，一个人可以立即感受到那种受约束的、敬畏的含蓄之情。 那个词已经限制了那个大脑。 观察这种用言词交流的整个现象，是相当不寻常的， 每个种族都给那个词赋予了不同的含义和意思，从而制造出一种分裂，一种限制， 人类受苦的这个感觉。这个属于人类的苦难是共通的，是全人类共有的。 俄罗斯人可能用一种方式表达它，印度教徒，基督徒使用另一种方式等等， 但受苦的这个事实，这种痛苦、悲伤、孤独的真实的感受， 这种感觉永远不会塑造或限制大脑。 因此，一个人变得非常地关切，觉察那个词的微妙之处，它的意义，它的质量。
The universal, the global feeling of all human beings and their interrelationship, can only come into being when the words `nation', `tribe', `religion', have all disappeared. Either the word has depth, significance, or none at all. For most of us words have very little depth, they have lost their weight. A river is not a particular river. The rivers of America or England or Europe or India are all rivers. but the moment there is identification through a word, there is division. And this division is an abstraction of the river, the quality of water, the depth of the water, the volume, the flow, the beauty of the river.
这种属于全人类及其相互关系的通用性的、全球性的感觉， 只有当‘国家’、‘部落’、‘宗教’等词语全部消失的时候，才能存在。 那个词要么有深度和意义，要么根本没有。 对于我们大多数人来说，词语的深度很浅，它们已经失去了重量。 河流不是特定的河流。美洲的、英国的、欧洲的或印度的河流，都是河流。 但是，一旦存在一个词语，通过它来进行识别，就有了分裂。 这个分裂是对河流的一个抽象：水的品质、水的深度、体积、流量、河流的美丽。