宁静在说话（第十章：痛苦与痛苦的止息）

第十章：痛苦与痛苦的止息

Suffering and the End of
Suffering

 

The interconnectedness of all things: Buddhists have always
known it and physicists now confirm it. Nothing that happens is an isolated
event, it only appears to be. The more we judge and label it, the more we
isolate it. The wholeness of life becomes fragmented through our thinking. Yet
the totality of life has brought this event about. It is part of the web of
interconnectedness that is the cosmos.

佛教徒早已知晓万事万物是互相依存的，科学家也已证实了这点。世上没有任何一件事的发生是独立的，它们只是表面上看起来好像是独立存在而已。我们越是用思维去论断分别它，为它贴上标签，便越孤立了那事件。生命的整体性因这许许多多的思维而变得片段破碎，其实，是生命整体的因缘和合让那事件发生，它是宇宙相互依存网络的一部分。

  

This means: whatever is could not be otherwise. 

这也意味着：万物本来是什么就是什么，不可能是别的。

 

In most cases, we cannot begin to understand what role a
seemingly senseless event may have within the totality of the cosmos but
recognizing its inevitability within the vastness of the whole can be the
beginning of an inner acceptance of what is and thus a realignment with the
wholeness of life.

一般来说，我们无法去了解那些看似毫无意义的事件，可能在宇宙整体中扮演怎样的角色，除非你认出它在广袤的整体中的必然存在性，你才有可能打心底开始去接纳这事件的本来面貌，于是，你与生命整体重新结盟。

  

True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a
way as if you had

completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this
moment.

把当下的感受或经验完全都当成好像是自己选择的，这样地过活就是真正的自由与痛苦的止息。

 

This inner alignment with Now is the end of suffering.   

在心中与当下结盟，就是痛苦的止息。

 

Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no.  

受苦真的是必要的吗？是，也不是。

 

If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no
depths to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be
listening to this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego. And then comes a
point where it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize
that it is unnecessary.  

如果你未曾经历你所经历的痛苦，那么你将不具备身为一个人的深度，不会懂得谦虚，不懂得慈悲，你也不会现在听着这些话了。痛苦将小我的硬壳敲破，这时它的目的也就达到了。痛苦是必要的，直到你明白了它并非必要为止。

 

Unhappiness needs a mind-made me with a story, the
conceptual identity. It needs time, past and future. When you remove time from
your unhappiness, what is it that remains? The “suchness” of this moment
remains.  

“不快乐”需要一个由心智所打造的“我”的故事，一个概念上的身份；“不快乐”还需要时间--过去与未来。当你将时间从“不快乐”当中抽离了，还剩下什么？那就是此刻的“实际状况”。

 

It may be a feeling of heaviness of heaviness, agitation,
tightness, anger

or even nausea. That is not unhappiness and it is not a
personal problem. There is nothing personal in human pain. It is simply an
intense pressure or an intense energy you feel somewhere in the body. By giving
it attention, the feeling doesn't turn into thinking and thus activate the
unhappy me.

它也许是一种沉重、不安、压迫、生气或极端憎恶的感觉，却不是不快乐，也不是个人的问题。人类的痛苦皆非个人的，那只是一种于你体内某处感受到的强烈压力或能量，你只要注意它，不让那感觉转化为念头想法，不快乐的“我”就无法恢复动力。

 

See what happens when you just allow a feeling to be.  

留心观察，如果你让感觉就是感觉，会发生什么事？

 

Much suffering, much unhappiness arises when you take each
thought that comes into your head for the truth. Situations don't make you
unhappy. They may cause you physical pain, but they don't make you unhappy.
Your thoughts make you unhappy. Your interpretations, the stories you tell
yourself make you unhappy. 

那么多的痛苦与不快乐，都是因为你将每个进到大脑里的想法都当真了。事情的状况不会让你不快乐，它们顶多引起一些生理上的不舒服，但不会让你不快乐，是你的想法造成你的不快乐，是那些你对状况的看法，你说给自己听的故事，让你不快乐。

 

“The
thoughts I'm thinking right now make me unhappy.” This realization breaks you
unconscious identification with those thoughts. 

“是我此刻的想法，让我不快乐”，有了这点醒悟，你就摆脱了自己不自觉中对那些想法的认同。

 

What a miserable day. 

真是糟透了的一天！

 

He didn't have the decency to return my call. 

他真没礼貌，竟然不回我电话。

 

She let me down. 

她太让我失望了。

 

Little stores we tell ourselves and others, often in the
form of complaints. They are unconsciously designed to enhance our always
deficient sense of self through being right and making something or someone
wrong. Being right places us in a position of imagined superiority and so
strengthens our false sense of self, the ego. This also creates some kind of
enemy. Yes, the ego needs enemies to define its boundary. And even the weather
can serve that function.  

通常，我们都是用抱怨的方式，述说这些小故事给自己或别人听。我们不自觉地将这些故事设计成自己是“对”的，别人或事情是“错”的，藉此加强我们那总觉得匮乏的自我感。“我是对的”，让我们置身于一个想象的优越感之中，因而巩固了虚假的自我--小我；这同时也塑造了某些做“错”了的敌人，没错，小我是需要敌人来划定自己的界限，就算拿天气出气也可以。

 

Through habitual mental judgment and emotional contraction
you have a personalized reactive relationship to people and events in your
life. These are all forms of selfcreated suffering but are not recognized as
such because to the ego they are satisfying. The ego enhances itself through
reactivity and conflict.  

因为惯于在心智上做论断分别，因为情绪紧绷，你生命中出现的人或事，与你形成了一种个人化的惯性反应式关系，这些全是自寻苦恼，但因为它可以满足了小我，所以人们并不觉得是苦恼。小我透过惯性反应与冲突分歧，巩固了它自己。

 

How simple life would be without those stories. 

如果没有这些故事，生命会是多么简单啊！

 

It is raining.  

下雨了。

 

He did not call. 

他没打电话来。

 

I was there, she was not.  

我到了那里，但她没来。

 

When you are suffering, when you are unhappy, stay totally
with what is now. Unhappiness or problems cannot survive in the Now.  

当你痛苦时，当你感到不快乐时，请全然临于当下。所有不快乐或苦恼，都难以在当下活存。

 

Suffering begins when you mentally name or label a
situation in some way as undesirable or bad. You resent a situation and that
resentment personalizes it and brings in the reactive “me”. 

当你内心认定某件事是讨厌的或不好的时候，痛苦便产生了。你厌恶某种处境，这厌恶被个人化，并带来惯性的“我”。

 

Naming and labeling are habitual but that habit can be
broken. Start practicing not naming with small things. If you miss the plane,
drop and break a cup, or slip and fall in the mud, can you refrain from naming
the experience as bad or painful? Can you immediately accept the “isness” of
that moment? 

我们总是习惯去认定事情的好坏，但这习惯是可以破除的。一开始，你可以利用一些小事，练习“不去贴标签”。如你错过班机、滑落或打破杯子，或是在泥泞中滑到、摔跤，你可以试着克制自己不给这些事贴上“讨厌”或“糟糕”的标签吗？你可以立即接纳那一刻的“本来如此”吗？

 

Naming something as bad causes an emotional contraction
within you. When you let it be without naming it, enormous power is suddenly
available to you. 

认定某件事是不好的，将让你陷入情绪紧绷的状态。一旦顺其自然，不再为事情贴上好或坏的标签，你将发现一股极为强大的力量突然涌现。

 

The contraction cuts you off from that power, the power of
life itself.  

情绪紧绷让你自绝于那力量之外，那生命本身的力量之外。

 

They ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil.  

他们吃下了善恶知识树上的果实。

 

Go beyond good and bad by refraining from mentally naming
anything as good or bad. When you go beyond the habitual naming, the power of
the universe moves through you. When you are in a nonreactive relationship to
experiences, what you would have called “bad” before often turns around
quickly, if not immediately through the power of life itself.  

只要不再于心里为任何事情贴上好或坏的标签，便超越了好与坏。一旦超越自己对事情好坏的惯性认定，宇宙的力量将透过你开始运行。由于你可以对自己所经历的各种情况，保持一种“不起情绪反应”的关系，那些曾经被你认为是“坏”的经验，通常会透过生命本身的力量，如果不是立即地改变，也会迅速地有所转变。

 

Watch what happens when you don't name an experience as
“bad” and instead bring an inner acceptance, an inner “yes” to it, and so let
it be as it is.  

注意观察当你不再认为某个经验是“坏”的，而以一种接纳，打心底接纳的态度去面对它并顺其自然时，事情将会发生什么变化？

 

Whatever your life situation is, how would you feel if you
completely accepted it as it is, right Now?  

不管你的人生处境为何，如果你当下能完整地接纳它的真实状况，你会有何感受呢？

 

There are many subtle and not so subtle forms of suffering
that are so normal, they are usually not recognized as suffering and may even
feel satisfying to the ego. Irritation, impatience, anger, having an issue with
something or someone, resentment, complaining.  

恼怒、不耐烦、生气、对某人或某事有意见、愤慨、抱怨等小痛苦，或者也不那么小，它们看起来如此“正常”，以致一般都不被认为是痛苦，甚至对小我来说，还觉得是满意的。

 

You can learn to recognize all those forms of suffering as
they happen and know at this moment I am creating suffering for myself. 

你可以学着在那些痛苦发生时认出它，并且在心里明白：此时此刻，我正在为自己制造痛苦。

 

If you are in the habit of creating suffering for yourself,
you are probably

creating suffering for others too. These unconscious mind
patters tend to come to an end simply by making them conscious, by becoming
aware of them as they happen. 

假如你习于为自己制造痛苦，你很可能也会为他人制造痛苦。若想中止这些无觉识的心智模式，很简单，只要让它们变得是有觉知的，在它们发生时觉察到它们就行了。

 

You cannot be conscious and create suffering for
yourself.  

你不可能在觉察到痛苦时，同时为自己制造痛苦。

 

This is the miracle: behind every condition, person or
situation that appears “bad” or “evil” lies concealed a deeper good. That
deeper good reveals itself to you, both within and without through inner
acceptance of what is.  

每个看似“坏”的或“恶”的人、事或际遇的背后，都隐藏了一个更深沉的“善”。那深沉的“善”，在你打心底接纳事情本来的状况时，便会由内到外地向你揭示它自己。这真是奇迹啊！

 

“Resist
not evil” is one of the highest truths of humanity.  

“不要抗拒不幸”是人类至高真理之一。

 

A dialogue: 

一段对白：

 

Accept what is. 

接纳事情的本来状况。

 

I truly cannot. I am agitated and angry about this. 

我真的没办法。我对这既激动又生气。

 

Then accept what is. 

那就接纳你现在的状况。

 

Accept that I am agitated and angry? Accept that I cannot
accept? 

接受我既激动又生气？接受那难以接受的事？

 

Yes. Bring acceptance into your non-acceptance. Bring
surrender into your nonsurrender. Then see what happens.  

是的。将接纳带入你的不接纳之中；将臣服带入你的不臣服之中。看看会发生什么？

 

Chronic physical pain is one of the harshest teachers you
can have. Resistance is futile is its teaching. 

慢性的身体疼痛是最严厉的人生导师，“抗拒无用”是它所要教导的。

 

Nothing could be more normal than an unwillingness to
suffer. Yet, if you can let go of that unwillingness, and instead allow the
pain to be there, you may notice a subtle inner separation from the pain, a
space between you and the pain, as it were. This means to suffer consciously,
willingly. When you suffer consciously, physical pain can quickly burn up the
ego in you since ego consists largely of resistance. The same is true of
extreme physical disability. 

没有什么比“不情愿受苦”更正常了。然而，如果你可以放下那个“不情愿”，容许痛苦存在，你可能会在痛苦之间，留意到有个细微的内在分界，有个介于你与痛苦之间的空隙一直都在那里。这意味着你是有觉识的，是心甘情愿去受苦的。那么，身体的疼痛将很快地耗尽你的内在小我，因为小我主要是由抗拒所形构的。这对重度的身体残障而言，也是真的。

 

You “offer up your suffering to God” is another way of
saying this.  

“将你的痛苦献给上帝”，是从痛苦解脱的另一种说法。

 

You don't need to be a Christian to understand the deep
universal truth that is contained in symbolic form in the image of the
cross.  

即使不是基督徒，也可以理解十字架这个象征符号之中所包含的宇宙真理。

 

The cross is a torture instrument. It stands for the most
extreme suffering, limitation, and helplessness a human being can encounter.
Then suddenly that human being suffers willingly, consciously, expressed
through the words, “not my will, but thy will be done.” At that moment, the
cross, the torture instrument shows its hidden face. It is also a sacred
symbol, a symbol for the divine.  

十字架是古代的一种刑具，它代表了一个人所能遭遇到的最大痛苦，一种全然的无力与无助，接着突然之间，那个受苦的人臣服了，他心甘情愿地、有意识地接受了那个苦，他说出：“不要从我的意思，只要从你的意思”。就在这一刻这刑具的十字架，揭开了它隐藏的面目，告诸世人：十字架也是神圣的象征，它是神性的象征。

 

That which seemed to deny the existence of any
transcendental dimension to life, through surrender becomes an opening into
that dimension.  

那原本似乎否定生命中有任何超越层面存在的十字架，透过臣服，变成了通往超越的入口。