We all want experiences of some kind - the mystical experience, the religious experience, the sexual experience, the experience of having a great deal of money, power, position, domination.
我们都想要某种体验 —— 神秘的宗教体验、性体验， 拥有巨大的财富、权力、地位、支配权的体验。
As we grow older, we may have finished with the demands of our physical appetites. But then we demand wider, deeper and more significant experiences. And we try various means to obtain them - expanding our consciousness, for instance, which is quite an art, or taking various kinds of drugs. This is an old trick which has existed from time immemorial, chewing a piece of leaf or experimenting with the latest chemical to bring about a temporary alteration in the structure of the brain cells, a greater sensitivity and heightened perception which give a semblance of reality.
随着我们年龄增长，我们可能已经满足了肉体欲望的要求。 随后，我们要求更广泛、更深刻、更重要的体验。 我们尝试各种方法来获得它们 —— 例如，扩展我们的意识，这相当有技巧， 或者服用各种药物，这是远古时期就有的把戏， 咀嚼一片叶子或试验最新的化学药物， 以引起脑细胞结构的暂时改变， 获得更大的敏感度和增强的感知力，从而窥探真实的外表。
This demand for more and more experiences shows the inward poverty of man. We think that through experiences we can escape from ourselves, but these experiences are conditioned by what we are.
这种对更多体验的要求，显示出人内在的贫乏。 我们以为通过体验，就可以逃避我们自己， 但这些体验受限于我们自身。
If the mind is petty, jealous, anxious, it may take the very latest form of drug, but it will still see only its own little creation, its own little projections from its own conditioned background.
如果这颗头脑是琐碎的、猜忌的、焦虑的， 它或许能服用最新型的药物， 却仍然只会看到自己小小的自制物，某种从局限的背景中投射出来的小影子。
Most of us demand completely satisfying, lasting experiences which cannot be destroyed by thought. So behind this demand for experience is the desire for satisfaction, and the demand for satisfaction dictates the experience, and therefore we have not only to understand this whole business of satisfaction but also the thing that is experienced.
我们很多人都要求彻底的满足，持久的、不会被思想破坏的体验。 所以，这种对体验的要求，是出于想要满足的欲望， 想要满足的要求决定着体验， 因此我们不仅要充分地理解满足， 还要理解被体验到的东西。
To have some great satisfaction is a great pleasure, the more lasting, deep and wide the experience, the more pleasurable it is. So pleasure dictates the form of experience we demand, and pleasure is the measure by which we measure the experience.
拥有某种巨大的满足是一种巨大的快乐， 体验越持久、越深刻、越宽广，它就越快乐。 所以快乐决定了我们所要求的体验形式， 而快乐是我们衡量体验的尺度。
Anything measurable is within the limits of thought and is apt to create illusion. You can have marvellous experiences and yet be completely deluded. You will inevitably see visions according to your conditioning, you will see Christ or Buddha or whoever you happen to believe in. And the greater a believer you are, the stronger will be your visions, the projections of your own demands and urges.
任何可衡量的东西都受思想的界定，并且容易制造幻觉。 你可以拥有奇妙的体验，却完全蒙在鼓里。 你必然会根据你的制约看到幻象， 你会看到基督、佛陀或任何你恰好相信的人。 你越是虔信，你的幻象就越强烈，它是你的要求和冲动的投射物。
So if in seeking something fundamental, such as what is truth, pleasure is the measure, you have already projected what that experience will be, and therefore it is no longer valid.
因此，如果以快乐为尺度，去追寻某种基本的东西，比如什么是真理， 你就已经投射出那种体验将会是什么，因此它不再有效。
What do we mean by experience? Is there anything new or original in experience? Experience is a bundle of memories responding to a challenge, and it can respond only according to its background, and the cleverer you are at interpreting the experience the more it responds.
我们所说的体验是什么？在体验中，有新的或原创的东西吗？ 体验是一堆记忆对挑战的回应， 它只能根据其背景做出回应， 你越擅长解释体验，它的回应就越高明。
So you have to question not only the experience of another, but your own experience. If you don't recognize an experience, it isn't an experience at all. Every experience has already been experienced, or you wouldn't recognize it.
所以，你不仅要质疑他人的体验，也要质疑你自己的体验。 如果你无法识别某个体验，那么它根本就不是体验。 每一种体验都必定被体验过，否则你不会认出它。
You recognize an experience as being good, bad, beautiful, holy and so on according to your conditioning. And therefore the recognition of an experience must inevitably be old.
你根据你的局限把一种体验认作好的、坏的、美的、神圣的等等。 因此，对体验的识别必定是旧的。
When we demand an experience of reality - as we all do, don't we? To experience it we must know it. And the moment we recognise it, we have already projected it, and therefore it is not real, because it is still within the field of thought and time.
当我们要求体验真实时 —— 我们大家都有这么做，不是吗？ 要体验它，我们必须认识它。 而我们认出它的那一刻，就已经投影出它， 因此它不是真的，因为它仍然在思想和时间的领域里。
If thought can think about reality, it cannot be reality. We cannot recognize a new experience. It is impossible. We recognize only something we have already known.
如果思想能够思考真实，那就不可能是真实。 我们无法认出新的体验。这是不可能的。 我们只能认出我们早已认识的东西。
And therefore when we say we have had a new experience, it is not new at all. To seek further experience through expansion of consciousness, as is being done through various psychedelic drugs, is still within the field of consciousness, and therefore very limited.
因此当我们说我们有一个新的体验时，那它根本不是新的。 通过扩展意识来寻求进一步的体验，就像通过各种迷幻药那样， 仍然在意识领域之内，因此非常有限。
So we have discovered a fundamental truth, which is that a mind that is seeking, craving, for wider and deeper experience is a very shallow and dull mind, because it lives always with its memories.
所以我们发现了一个根本性的真理， 那就是一颗追寻、渴望更宽广、更深刻体验的头脑，是非常浅薄和迟钝的头脑， 因为它总是与它的记忆相伴。
Now if we didn't have any experience at all, what would happen to us? We depend on experiences, on challenges, to keep us awake. If there were no conflicts within ourselves, no changes, no disturbances, we would all be fast asleep.
如果我们根本没有任何体验，我们会怎样？ 为了保持清醒，我们依靠体验和挑战。 如果我们内心没有冲突、没有变化、没有扰动，我们都会很快睡着。
So challenges are necessary for most of us. We think that without them our minds will become stupid and heavy, and therefore we depend on a challenge, an experience, to give us more excitement, more intensity, to make our minds sharper.
所以，对我们很多人而言，挑战是必要的。 我们以为缺了它们，我们的头脑会变得愚蠢和迟钝， 因此我们依靠某个挑战、某种体验 以带给我们更多兴奋、更强烈的刺激，让我们的头脑更敏锐。
But in fact, this dependence on challenges and experiences to keep us awake, only makes our minds duller, it doesn't really keep us awake at all. So I ask myself, is it possible to keep awake totally, not peripherally at a few points of my being, but totally awake without any challenge or any experience?
可事实上，这种依靠挑战和体验来保持清醒的方式， 只会让我们的头脑更迟钝，它根本不可能让我们保持清醒。 所以我问自己，能完全地保持清醒吗？ 不是在外围的几个点上， 而是在没有任何挑战或体验的情况下，完全地清醒。
This implies a great sensitivity, both physical and psychological. It means I have to be free of all demands, for the moment I demand, I will experience. And to be free of demand and satisfaction necessitates investigation into myself and an understanding of the whole nature of demand.
这意味着巨大的灵敏，包括身体和心灵的。 这意味着我必须摆脱所有要求，因为一旦我要求，我就会体验。 而要摆脱要求和满足， 就必须深入调查我自己，理解要求的全部性质。
Demand is born out of duality: `I am unhappy and I must be happy`. In that very demand that I must be happy is unhappiness. When one makes an effort to be good, in that very goodness is its opposite, evil. Everything affirmed contains its own opposite, and effort to overcome strengthens that against which it strives.
要求出于二：“我不快乐，我必须快乐”。 在“我必须快乐”这个要求本身中，就有不快乐。 当一个人努力变好时，在那种好里，就暗藏着它的对方 —— 坏。 任何被肯定的东西都包含它的对方，而克服的努力反而加强了与之相对的东西。
When you demand an experience of truth or reality, that very demand is born out of your discontent with what is, and therefore the demand creates the opposite. And in the opposite there is what has been. So one must be free of this incessant demand, otherwise there will be no end to the corridor of duality. This means knowing yourself so completely that the mind is no longer seeking.
当你要求对真理或真实的体验时， 那个要求本身就诞生于你对真实的不满， 因此要求创造出对方。 而对方的本质，是已经发生的事物。 所以一个人必须摆脱这种无休止的要求，否则，相对的回廊将永无尽头。 这意味着要如此彻底地认识你自己，以至于头脑不再追寻。
Such a mind does not demand experience. It cannot ask for a challenge or know a challenge, it does not say, `I am asleep' or `I am awake'. It is completely what it is. Only the frustrated, narrow, shallow mind, the conditioned mind, is always seeking the more. Is it possible then to live in this world without the more, without this everlasting comparison? Surely it is? But one has to find out for oneself.
这样的头脑不要求体验。 它无法要求一个挑战或认出一个挑战， 它不说“我睡着了”或“我醒着”。 它完全就是它本来的样子。 只有受挫的、狭隘的、浅薄的、受制的头脑，才去追寻“更多”。 那么，能活在这个世界上而没有“更多”，没有这种无休止的比较吗？ 当然可能，但必须亲自发现。
Investigation into this whole question is meditation. That word had been used both in the East and the West in a most unfortunate way. There are different schools of meditation, different methods and systems. There are systems which say, `Watch the movement of your big toe, watch it, watch it, watch it.` There are other systems which advocate sitting in a certain posture, breathing regularly or practising awareness. All this is utterly mechanical. The other method gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it, you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense.
调查这整个问题，即是冥想。 这个词在东方和西方都以最不幸的方式被使用。 有不同的流派、方法和体系的冥想。 有的体系说： “注视你大脚趾的活动，注视它，注视它，注视它。” 其他体系提倡以某种姿势坐着、有规律的呼吸或练习觉察。 所有这些都完全是机械的。 另一种方法给你一个特定的词，告诉你如果不断重复它， 你就会获得某种非凡的超级的体验。 这纯粹是无稽之谈。
It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely, you will obviously have a certain experience, because by repetition the mind becomes quiet. It is a well known phenomenon which has been practised for thousands of years in India - Mantra Yoga it is called. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle and soft, but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind.
这是一种自我催眠。 通过无限重复“阿门”或“唵”或“可口可乐”，你显然会有某种体验， 因为通过重复，头脑变得安静。 这是一个众所周知的现象，在印度已经实践了几千年 —— 叫做曼陀罗瑜伽。 通过重复，你可以使头脑变得温和柔软， 可它还是一颗琐碎的、粗劣的、小小的头脑。
You might as well put a piece of stick you have picked up in the garden on the mantelpiece and give it a flower every day, in a month you will be worshipping it, and not to put a flower in front of it will become a sin.
你还不如在花园里捡一根小棍，把它放在壁架上， 每天给它一朵花，一个月后你就会崇拜它； 不在它前面放一朵花，就会变成一种罪过。
Meditation is not following any system, it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration. It is one of the favourite gambits of some teachers of meditation to insist on their pupils learning concentration. That is, fixing the mind on one thought and driving out all other thoughts. This is a most stupid, ugly thing, which any schoolboy can do because he is forced to.
冥想不是遵循任何体系，不是不断的重复和模仿。 冥想不是专注。 这是某些冥想老师最喜欢用的一种策略：坚持让他们的学生学习专注。 也就是，把头脑固定在一个想法上，驱赶其余的一切想法。 这是一件最愚蠢、最丑陋的事情，任何一个学生都能做到，因为他是被强迫的。
It means that all the time you are having a battle between the insistence that you must concentrate on the one hand and your mind on the other which wanders away to all sorts of other things, whereas, you should be attentive to every movement of the mind wherever it wanders. When your mind wanders off, it means you are interested in something else.
这意味着你一直在挣扎， 一方面是你必须专注， 另一方面是你的头脑游荡到各种其他的事物， 然而，你应该留意头脑的每一个动静，无论它游荡到哪里。 当你的头脑游荡开去，那意味着你对别的东西感兴趣。
Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind. Meditation is the understanding of the totality of life, in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind.
冥想需要一个极其警觉的头脑。 冥想是理解生命的整体，其中任何形式的碎片都已消逝。 冥想不是对思想的控制，当思想受制时，会滋生冲突。
But when you understand the structure and origin of thought, which we have already been into, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline, which is meditation.
但是当你理解思想的结构和起源，我们已经深入过了， 那么思想就不会干扰。 对思想结构的理解，有它自己的纪律，即冥想。
Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong, but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching, you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling.
冥想是觉察每一个思想、每一种感觉， 绝不说它是对是错，只是看它并与之移动。 在观察中，你开始理解思想和感觉的整个动静。
And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead. But the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old. This silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past.
从这种觉察中产生出安静。 由思想拼凑起来的安静是停滞的、死的。 但是当思想理解到它的起源、它的本性， 理解到一切思都是不自由的、总是旧的， 这时产生的安静，是冥想，其中冥想者完全消失， 因为头脑已经清空了里面的过去。
If you have read this book for a whole hour attentively, that is meditation. If you have merely taken away a few words and gathered a few ideas to think about later, then it is no longer meditation.
如果你全然注意地读这本书整整一个小时，那就是冥想。 如果你只是拿走几个词，收集了几个想法以备思考，那就不再是冥想。
Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system and that is not attention.
冥想是一种头脑状态，它以全然的注意力整体地、完全地、而非部分地看一切。 没人能教你如何注意。 如果有任何体系教你如何注意， 那么你只是在留意这个体系，那可不是注意。
Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life, perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority.
冥想是生活中最伟大的艺术之一，也许是最伟大的， 而且你不可能从任何人那里学会它，这正是它的美。 它没有技巧，因此，也没有权威。
When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.
当你认识自己、观察自己， 观察你走路的方式、你怎么吃饭、在说些什么、你的闲聊、仇恨、嫉妒， 如果你觉察到自身的一切，不带任何挑剔，那么，是冥想的一部分。
So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
所以冥想可以发生于 你坐在公交车上、或走在充满光影的树林里、 或听着鸟儿歌唱、或看着你妻子或孩子的脸的时候。
In the understanding of meditation there is love. And love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought. Love can perhaps come into being when there is complete silence, a silence in which the mediator is entirely absent.
在理解冥想中，有爱。 爱不是某某体系、习惯或方法的产物。 爱无法通过思想培养。 或许，当完全安静的时候 —— 一种冥想者完全消失的安静 —— 爱才能来临。
And the mind can be silent only when it understands its own movement as thought and feeling. To understand this movement of thought and feeling, there can be no condemnation in observing it. To observe in such a way is the discipline, and that kind of discipline is fluid, free, not the discipline of conformity.
要让这颗头脑安静，除非它理解自身的运动 —— 思想和感觉的动静。 要理解思想和感觉运动，在观察时就不能有谴责。 以这种方式观察即是纪律， 那种纪律是流动的、自由的，而非服从的纪律。