WALKING DOWN THE straight road on a lovely morning, it was spring, and the sky was extraordinarily blue; there wasn't a cloud in it, and the sun was just warm, not too hot. It felt nice. And the leaves were shining and a sparkle was in the air. It was really a most extraordinarily beautiful morning. The high mountain was there, impenetrable, and the hills below were green and lovely.
一个可爱的早晨，沿着笔直的道路散步， 正值春天，天空格外湛蓝； 万里无云，阳光温暖宜人，不太热。 感觉真好。树叶明晰，空气中闪烁着光芒。 那真是一个极其美丽的早晨。 高山矗立，坚不可摧，下面的山丘青翠可爱。
And as you walked along quietly, without much thought, you saw a dead leaf, yellow and bright red, a leaf from the autumn. How beautiful that leaf was, so simple in its death, so lively, full of the beauty and vitality of the whole tree and the summer. Strange that it had not withered. Looking at it more closely, one saw all the veins and the stem and the shape of that leaf. That leaf was all the tree.
当你安静地走着，不经意间， 你看见一片落叶，黄色和亮红色，一片秋叶。 那叶子多么美，死得如此简单、生动， 洋溢着整棵树和夏天的美与生气。 奇怪，它并未枯萎。再仔细地看它， 就见到整个叶脉、叶柄和叶子的轮廓 —— 那片叶子就是整棵树。
Why do human beings die so miserably, so unhappily, with a disease, old age, senility, the body shrunk, ugly? Why can't they die naturally and as beautifully as this leaf? What is wrong with us? In spite of all the doctors, medicines and hospitals, operations and all the agony of life, and the pleasures too, we don't seem able to die with dignity, simplicity, and with a smile.
为什么人类死得如此凄惨、如此不快乐， 带着疾病、老迈、衰颓、抽搐和丑陋？ 为什么他们不能自然地、如这叶片一般优美地死去？ 我们出了什么问题？ 尽管有所有的医生、药物和医院， 手术和生活中的所有痛苦，以及乐趣， 我们似乎无法带着尊严、简单和微笑死去。
Once, walking along a lane, one heard behind one a chant, melodious, rhythmic, with the ancient strength of Sanskrit. One stopped and looked round. An oldest son, naked to his waist, was carrying a terracotta pot with a fire burning in it. He was holding it in another vessel and behind him were two men carrying his dead father, covered with a white cloth, and they were all chanting.
有一次，沿着一条小巷走着，人听到身后传来吟唱声， 旋律优美，富有节奏，带着梵语的古老力量。 我停下来环顾四周。 一个大儿子，赤裸着上身，端着一个陶罐，里面燃烧着火。 他用另一个容器托着它， 身后有两个男人抬着他死去的父亲，身上盖着白布，他们都在吟唱。
One knew what that chant was, one almost joined in. They went past and one followed them. They were going down the road chanting, and the eldest son was in tears. They carried the father to the beach where they had already collected a great pile of wood and they laid the body on top of that heap of wood and set it on fire.
人知道那吟唱是什么，几乎要加入其中。他们走过去，人跟在后面。 他们一边吟唱一边沿着路走，大儿子流着泪。 他们把父亲抬到海滩， 那里已经堆了一大堆木柴， 他们把尸体放在木柴堆上，点燃了它。
It was all so natural, so extraordinarily simple: there were no flowers, there was no hearse, there were no black carriages with black horses. It was all very quiet and utterly dignified. And one looked at that leaf, and a thousand leaves of the tree. The winter brought that leaf from its mother on to that path and it would presently dry out completely and wither, be gone, carried away by the winds and lost.
一切都是那么自然，极其简单： 没有鲜花，没有灵车，没有黑马拉的黑马车。 一切非常安静，极其庄严。 人看着那片叶子，还有树上的千万片叶子。 冬天把这片叶子从它的母亲那里带到小路上， 它很快会完全干枯、萎缩、离开，随风而逝。
As you teach children mathematics, writing, reading and all the business of acquiring knowledge, they should also be taught the great dignity of death, not as a morbid, unhappy thing that one has to face eventually, but as something of daily life - the daily life of looking at the blue sky and the grasshopper on a leaf. it is part of learning, as you grow teeth and have all the discomfort of childish illnesses.
当你教孩子们数学、写作、阅读以及所有获取各种知识时， 也应该教他们死亡的的庄严， 不是作为一种最终必须面对的、病态的、不快乐的东西，而是作为日常生活的一部分 —— 如同仰望蓝天、俯察叶片上的蚱蜢。 这是学习的一部分，就像你经历了长牙和童年成长中的所有不适一样。
Children have extraordinary curiosity. If you see the nature of death, you don't explain that everything dies, dust to dust and so on, but without any fear you explain it to them gently and make them feel that the living and the dying are one - not at the end of one's life after fifty, sixty or ninety years, but that death is like that leaf.
孩子们有着非凡的好奇心。 如果你看到了死亡的本质，就不会说一切都会死，尘归尘土归土等等， 而是毫无恐惧地、温柔地向他们解释， 让他们觉得生与死是一体的 —— 而非在五六十或九十年后的生命尽头， 而是像那片叶子一样死亡。
Look at the old men and women, how decrepit, how lost, how unhappy and how ugly they look. Is it because they have not really understood either the living or the dying? They have used life, they waste away their life with incessant conflict which only exercises and gives strength to the self, the `me', the ego. We spend our days in such varieties of conflict and unhappiness, with some joy and pleasure drinking, smoking, late nights and work, work, work. And at the end of one's life one faces that thing called death and is frightened of it.
看看那些老男人和老女人，他们看起来多么衰老、多么迷失、多么不快乐、多么丑陋。 是因为他们没有真正理解生或死吗？ 他们习惯了生活，生命被浪费在无休止的冲突， 这些冲突只是锻炼并增强了自我、“我”、自己。 我们在各种冲突和不快乐中度日， 带着一些快乐和愉悦：喝酒、抽烟、熬夜和工作、工作、工作。 走到生命的尽头，面对着那个叫做死亡的东西，就害怕了。
One thinks it can always be understood, felt deeply. The child with his curiosity can be helped to understand that death is not merely the wasting of the body through disease, old age and some unexpected accident, but that the ending of every day is also the ending of oneself every day.
人认为它总是可以被理解、被深刻感受的。 可以利用孩子的好奇心帮助他们理解： 死亡不仅仅是身体因疾病、年老和一些意外事故而衰亡， 还有每一天的结束即是自己每天的结束。
There is no resurrection, that is superstition, a dogmatic belief. Everything on earth, on this beautiful earth, lives, dies, comes into being and withers away. To grasp this whole movement of life requires intelligence, not the intelligence of thought, or books, or knowledge, but the intelligence of love and compassion with its sensitivity.
没有复活，那是迷信，是教条式的信仰。 地球上的一切，在这美丽的地球上，都在发芽、死亡，生长和枯萎。 要把握生命的这整个运动，需要智慧， 不是思想的智慧，也不是书籍或知识的智慧， 而是爱与慈悲的智慧及其灵动。
One is very certain that if the educator understands the significance of death and the dignity of it, the extraordinary simplicity of dying - understands it not intellectually but deeply - then he may be able to convey to the student, to the child, that dying, the ending, is not to be avoided, is not something to be frightened of, for it is part of one's whole life, so that as the student, the child, grows up he will never be frightened of the ending. If all the human beings who have lived before us, past generations upon generations, still lived on this earth how terrible it would be. The beginning is not the ending.
我非常确信，如果教育者理解了死亡的意义和庄严， 理解了死亡那种非凡的简单 —— 不是智识上而是深刻地理解 —— 那么他也许能够向学生、向孩子传达： 死亡、终结，不是一件要去避免，令人害怕的事情， 因为它是一个人完整生命的一部分，这样当学生、孩子长大后， 就永远不会害怕终结。 如果所有在我们之前生活过的人，一代又一代的人， 仍然生活在这个地球上，那该有多么可怕。 开始不是终结。
And one would like to help - no, that's the wrong word - one would like in education to bring death into some kind of reality, actuality, not of someone else dying but of each one of us, however old or young, having inevitably to face that thing. It is not a sad affair of tears, of loneliness, of separation.
而人想要帮助 —— 不，这个词不对 —— 人希望在教育中让死亡进入某种真实、现实之中， 不是别人的死亡，而是我们每一个人， 无论年老或年轻，都不可避免地要面对那件事情。 它不是一场充满泪水、孤独、分离的悲伤事件。
We kill so easily, not only the animals for one's food but the vast unnecessary killing for amusement, called sport - killing a deer because that is the season. Killing a deer is like killing your neighbour. You kill animals because you have lost touch with nature, with all the living things on this earth. You kill in wars for so many romantic, nationalistic, political, ideologies. In the name of God you have killed people. Violence and killing go together.
我们轻而易举地杀戮，不仅是为了食物而杀动物， 还有大量为了娱乐而进行的不必要杀戮，称为运动 —— 杀鹿，因为那是狩猎季节。 杀鹿就像杀你的邻居。 你杀动物，是因为你与自然、与地球上所有生物失去了联系。 你在战争中为了那么多浪漫的、民族主义的、政治的、意识形态的理由而杀戮。 你以上帝的名义杀人。暴力和杀戮是并肩而行的。
As one looked at that dead leaf with all its beauty and colour, maybe one would very deeply comprehend, be aware of, what one's own death must be, not at the very end but at the very beginning. Death isn't some horrific thing, something to be avoided, something to be postponed, but rather something to be with day in and day out. And out of that comes an extraordinary sense of immensity.
当人看见那片拥有所有美丽和色彩的枯叶时， 也许会非常深刻地理解、意识到，自己的死亡必定是 —— 不是在最后时刻，而是在最开始的时候。 死亡不是某种可怕的、要避免的、要推迟的事情， 而是相伴于日升日落。 由此便会产生一种非凡的浩瀚感。