宁静在说话（第三章：小我）

第三章：小我

The Egoic Self

 

The mind is incessantly looking not only for food for
thought; it is looking for food for its identity, its sense of self. This is
how the ego comes into existence and continuously re-creates itself.  

心智不停地寻找思维的粮食，也不停地寻找自我认同的粮食，“小我”因而诞生，并不断地再创自己。

 

When you think or speak about yourself, when you say, “I,”
what you usually refer to is “me and my story.” This is the “I” of your likes
and dislikes, fears and desires, the “I” that is never satisfied for long. It
is a mind-made sense of who you are, conditioned by the past and seeking to
find its fulfillment in the future.

当你想到或谈到自己，说到“我”这个字时，通常你说的是“我和我的故事”。这个以你自己的好恶、恐惧与欲望为中心的“我”，是永远无法真正被满足的。这个由心智所打造所谓的“我”，受到过去的制约，并企求在未来得到满足。

 

Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary
formation like a wave pattern on the surface of the water? 

你能明白这个“我”是飞逝的，是一个暂时的构成状态，就像水面掀起的波纹吗？

 

Who is it that sees this? Who is it that is aware of the
fleetingness of your physical and psychological form? I am. This is the deeper
“I” that has nothing to do with past and future.  

那个能看明此事的人是谁？那个能觉察到肉体与心理的存在形式是暂时性的人是谁？是“我本是”，它才是更深处那个与过去或未来无关的“我”。

 

What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated
with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your
attention? A dash–one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of
death on your gravestone. 

人生充满困境，它耗去了我们绝大部分的关注，请问除了经常伴随在困境里的恐惧与欲望外，你的人生还剩下什么？一个破折号，一个只有一、两英寸长的破折号，刻在你的墓碑上生年与死期之间。

 

To the egoic self, this is a depressing thought. To you, it
is liberating.  

对小我而言，这听来沮丧，但对你来说，却是种释放。

 

When each thought absorbs your attention completely, it
means you identify with the voice in your head. Thought then becomes invested
with a sense of self. This is the ego, the mind-made “me.” That mentally
constructed self feels incomplete and precarious. That’s why fearing and
wanting are its predominant emotions and motivating forces. 

当每个念头都能完全地抓住你的注意时，便意味着你向脑海中浮现的那个声音认同了，于是这些念头将充满自我感，这就是小我，一个由心智所打造的“我”。这个由心智所建构的自我，感觉上并不完整也不稳定，因此，恐惧与欲望才成了它最主要的情绪与驱动力量。

 

When you recognize that there is a voice in your head that
pretends to be you and never stops speaking, you are awakening out of your
unconscious identification with the stream of thinking. When you notice that
voice, you realize that who you are is not the voice–the thinker–but the one
who is aware of it. 

当你认出脑海中有个声音假装是你，叨叨絮絮地说个不停，你便已然从自己无意识下所认同的思绪之流里醒过来了。当你注意到那声音，你就会明白真正的你并非那声音（思考者），而是觉察那声音的人。

 

Knowing yourself as the awareness behind the voice is
freedom.  

知道你自己就是那隐于声音之后的觉性，那就是自由。

 

The egoic self is always engaged in seeking. It is seeking
more of this or that to add to itself, to make itself feel more complete. This
explains the ego’s compulsive preoccupation with future. 

小我总是寻寻觅觅着，希望找到更多的这个、那个，来为自己增添份量，让自己感觉更为完整；也因此，小我总是强迫性地被未来所占满。

 

Whenever you become aware of yourself “living for the next
moment,” you have already stepped out of that egoic mind pattern, and the
possibility of choosing to give your full attention to this moment arises
simultaneously. 

无论何时，只要您能察觉到自己正在“为下一刻而活”，你便已跨越了小我心智的模式，同时间，你想把全部注意力投注在当下的可能性也出现了。

 

By giving your full attention to this moment, an
intelligence far greater than the egoic mind enters your life.  

只要你把全部的注意力投注在此时此刻，一个远比小我心智更为宽广宏大的本初智性，便进入了你的生命。

 

When you live through the ego, you always reduce the
present moment to a means to an end. You live for the future, and when you
achieve your goals, they don’t satisfy you, at least not for long. 

只要你活在小我之中，便总会将当下此刻矮化为达成目标的工具。你为了未来而活，然而即使你达成了目标，它们却依然无法满足你，至少撑不了太久。

 

When you give more attention to the doing than to the
future result that you want to achieve through it, you break the old egoic
conditioning. Your doing then becomes not only a great deal more effective, but
infinitely more fulfilling and joyful.

当你专注于手上的事情，而不是花心思去想它未来可以达到怎样的成果，你便已摆脱了旧有的小我制约模式。于是，手上的这件工作，不但会进行的更有效率，还会带给你极大的满足与喜悦。 

 

Almost every ego contains at least an element of what we
might call “victim identity.” Some people have such a strong victim image of
themselves that it becomes the central core of their ego. Resentment and
grievances form an essential part of their sense of self. 

几乎所有的小我，至少都包含了一个所谓“自居受害者”的成分。有些人对于自己抱着极为强烈的受害者形象，这形象变成了他们小我的核心，愤恨与牢骚成了他们自我感的主要成分。

 

Even if your grievances are completely “justified,” you
have constructed an identity for yourself that is much like a prison whose bars
are made of thought forms. See what you are doing to yourself, or rather what
your mind is doing to you. Feel the emotional attachment you have to your
victim story and become aware of the compulsion to think or talk about it. Be
there as the witnessing presence of your inner state. You don’t have to do
anything. With the awareness comes transformation and freedom.  

即使你的牢骚不满听来完全“合理”，你已在为自己建筑一个牢笼般的身份，你种种的念头就是这牢笼的栅栏。与其说“看看你把自己怎么了！”还不如说“看看你的心智把你怎么了！”试着去感受自己在情绪上对于受害者故事的执着，试着在自己强迫性地想到它、谈论它时，开始去觉察它，有如现场目击证人般地觉察着你的内在状态，你不需要有任何作为，因为觉性会带来转化与自由。

 

Complaining and reactivity are favorite mind patterns
through which the ego strengthens itself. For many people, a large part of
their mental-emotional activity consists of complaining and reacting against
this or that. By doing this, you make others or a situation “wrong” and
yourself “right.” Through being “right,” you feel superior, and through feeling
superior, you strengthen your sense of self. In reality, of course, you are
only strengthening the illusion of ego. 

抱怨与唱反调，是小我最常用来巩固自身的心智模式。对多数人来说，他们经常有的情绪行为就是抱怨与反抗这个或那个。他们用这样的动作，来标举出别人或某一情况是“错”的，以彰显自己是“对”的，并因为自己是“对”的，而感觉高人一等，从而加强了自我感。实际上，这只是徒然强化小我的假象罢了。

 

Can you observe those patterns within yourself and
recognize the complaining voice in your head for what it is?  

你能观察自己内在的这些心智模式吗？你能认清脑海中浮现的种种抱怨之声究竟是什么吗？

 

The egoic sense of self needs conflict because its sense of
a separate identity gets strengthened in fighting against this or that, and in
demonstrating that this is “me” and that is not “me." 

小我的自我感需要冲突，因为透过对抗，以及强调“这是我”与“这不是我”的分别，小我得以强化自己的个别性身份。

 

Not infrequently, tribes, nations, and religions derive a
strengthened sense of collective identity from having enemies. Who would the
“believer” be without the “unbeliever”? 

部落、国家与宗教之间，藉由敌人的存在，形成一巩固的集体认同，这样的情形并非罕见。试问如果没有“非信徒”，又怎能标举出“信徒”呢？

 

In your dealings with people, can you detect subtle
feelings of either superiority or inferiority toward them? You are looking at
the ego, which lives through comparison. 

与人相处时，你能觉察自己内在的微妙感受吗？它可能是优越感，或者是自卑感。你看见的正是“小我”，它藉由比较而生存。

 

Envy is a by-product of the ego, which feels diminished if
something good happens to someone else, or someone has more, knows more, or can
do more than you. The ego’s identity depends on comparison and feeds on more.
It will grasp at anything. If all else fails, you can strengthen your
fictitious sense of self through seeing yourself as more unfairly treated by
life or more ill than someone else.

嫉妒是小我的副产品， 如果某些好事降临到别人身上，或是某人比你拥有更多、知道更多，或是能力更好时，小我便感觉自己被消弱了。小我是透过比较来建立自我的认同，并以比别人“更多”来壮大自己。它不断地与任何东西、任何事情进行比较，如果都比输了，便会藉认定自己遭受了“更多”不公平的对待，或比别人有“更多”的不幸，来强化那虚假的自我感。

 

What are the stories, the fictions from which you derive
your sense of self? 

你的自我感来自什么样的虚构的情节，它的故事内容究竟是什么？

 

Built into the very structure of the egoic self is a need
to oppose, resist, and exclude to maintain the sense of separateness on which
its continued survival depends. So there is “me” against the “other,” “us”
against “them." 

小我本身有个十分明显的特色，就是它需要去反对、抗拒、排外，以维持那人、我有别的分离感，因为这感受，小我得以继续生存。所以，是“我”在对抗“其他人”，是“我们”在对抗“他们”。

 

The ego needs to be in conflict with something or someone.
That explains why you are looking for peace and joy and love but cannot
tolerate them for very long. You say you want happiness but are addicted to
your unhappiness. 

小我需要和某人、某事维持对立、冲突，这就解释了为何你总在寻求和平、喜悦与爱，但又无法忍受它们太久。你说你想要快乐，却又对你的不快乐上了瘾。

 

Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the
circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind. 

你的不快乐不是因为你的生存处境，而是因为你心智的制约反应。

 

Do you carry feelings of guilt about something you did–or
failed to do–in

the past? This much is certain: you acted according to your
level of consciousness or rather unconsciousness at that time. If you had been
more aware, more conscious, you would have acted differently. 

你是否对于自己过去曾经做过或没能去做的某件事感到内疚？可以确定的是，你在做的当下，是依据当时内在意识的清醒程度，或甚至根本是无意识而这么行事的。如果你当时更为觉察，更有觉识，你的行事就会有所不同。

 

Guilt is another attempt by the ego to create an identity,
a sense of self. To the ego, it doesn’t matter whether that self is positive or
negative. What you did or failed to do was a manifestation of
unconsciousness–human unconsciousness. The ego, however, personalizes it and
says, “I did that,” and so you carry a mental image of yourself as
“bad." 

内疚是小我建立自我感与自我身份的另一种方式。对小我而言，自我是正面的抑或是负面的，根本不重要。你过去所做的或没能做成的某件事，皆只是人类集体无觉识状态的外在显化。然而，小我却将它个人化，说：“是我做的。”于是你就认为自己是“不好的”。

 

Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent,
cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to
be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of
unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of? 

纵观历史，人类加诸彼此身上的暴虐、残忍与伤害难以计数，而且还在持续进行中。这些人难道全部该遭受谴责？他们全都有罪吗？或者，这些行为仅只是无觉识的表现，仅只是当今人类都必须成长经历的一个进化阶段？

 

Jesus’ words, “Forgive them for they know not what they
do,” also apply to yourself. 

耶稣说过：“天父啊！原谅他们，因为他们不知道自己在做什么。”这句话同样也适用于你自己身上。

 

If you set egoic goals for the purpose of freeing yourself,
enhancing yourself or your sense of importance, even if you achieve them, they
will

not satisfy you. 

假若你为了解放自己、强固自己或增加自己的重要性，而设定小我的目标，即使你达成了这样的目标，它们终究无法使你得到满足。

 

Set goals, but know that the arriving is not all that
important. When anything arises out of presence, it means this moment is not a
means to an end: the doing is fulfilling in itself every moment. You are no
longer reducing the Now to a means to an end, which is the egoic consciousness.  

你可以设定目标，但要知道，达成目标并非那么重要。于“临在”中不论生起什么，都说明着“此时此刻”不是前往目的地的工具而已--你的“做”已然在它自身得到满足，你不会再矮化当下，把它当成达到目标的工具，只有小我才会这么认为。

 

"No self, no problem,” said the Buddhist master when
asked to explain the deeper meaning of Buddhism. 

有人请问佛教大师关于佛教更深层的意义时，大师道：“无我，无问题。”