给学校的信，1982年11月15日 - 教师
教师与人类的绽放息息相关We seem to think that education stops when we leave school or college. We don't seem to treat the whole of human existence as a process of self-education which is constant and perhaps neverending. So most of us limit education to a very short period and for the rest of our lives carry on in rather a muddle, learning only a few things that are absolutely necessary, falling into a routine and of course there is always death waiting. This is really our life marriage, children, work, passing pleasures, pain and death. If this is all our life, which apparently it is, then what really is the meaning of education?
我们似乎认为，当我们离开学校的时候教育就停止了。我们似乎不把整个人生当作一个持续的、永无止境的自我教育过程来看待。我们大多数人把教育限定在一个非常短暂的时期，而在生命的其余部分则在糊涂中度过，只学习很少一点绝对必要的东西，并陷入例行公事当中——当然了，死亡一直在等待着你。这些就是我们真正的生活：婚姻、孩子、工作、短暂的满足、痛苦和死亡。如果这些就是我们的全部生活，看上去似乎就是如此，那么教育的真正意义是什么呢？
We never ask these fundamental questions; probably they are too disturbing. But as we are teachers in colleges and schools we must ask what is the purpose of education and learning. We know it gives us some sort of job but apart from the physical occupation with its responsibilities, what do we mean by teaching and the teacher?
As it is generally understood, a teacher, having already studied certain subjects, informs the student about them. Does this constitute being a teacher just to pass on knowledge? So we are enquiring into the nature of the teacher and the taught. Who is a teacher? What are the implications of teaching apart from the curricula? Very few are dedicated teachers. They are dedicated to helping the students in their studies, but surely a teacher has far greater significance.
我们从来不问这些基本的问题，或许它们太令人不安了。但因为我们是学校教师，我们必须要问，教育和学习的目的是什么。我们知道，它是为了让我们为某种职业或责任做准备，但除了这种准备之外，我们还打算通过教学做些什么呢？教师又是什么呢？按照一般的理解，教师学习了某些科目，再把它们教授给学生。仅仅传递知识就能成为教师吗？我们是在探究教育者和被教育者的本质。教师是谁？除了遵守课程安排之外，教学还意味着什么？有奉献精神的教师非常少，他们致力于帮助学生学习，但是教师一定具有比那更为重要的意义。
Knowledge must inevitably be superficial. It is the cultivation of memory and employing that memory efficiently and so on. Knowledge being always limited, is it the function of the teacher to help the student to live all his life only within the limitations of knowledge? We must first realize that knowledge is always limited, as are all experiences. This employment of knowledge with its limitations can be very destructive. It is destructive in human relationships. In relationship knowledge, which is the accumulation of various incidents, experiences, reactions, cultivates the image of the other person and obscures the reality of that person and the relationship.
When there is a continuity, a tradition, put together by knowledge and handed down from generation to generation, then the past, which is the accumulation of knowledge, obscures the actual living present. When knowledge becomes routine, mechanical, it makes the brain limited, rigid and insensitive. When knowledge is used for the support of nationalism through wars, then it becomes bestial, appallingly cruel and utterly immoral. Knowledge is not beauty, but knowledge is necessary to bore a well. The whole technological world is based on knowledge and that world is taking over our lives. If we allow knowledge to be the sole authority, and hope through knowledge to ascend, then we are living in a fatal illusion. We are saying that knowledge has its place in everyday life but when knowledge is the only substance of our life, then our life must be confined to mechanical activity.
知识必然是肤浅的，它是对记忆的培养和有效运用，等等。既然知识总是有限的，教师的职责就是帮助学生在有限的知识中度过他的整个人生吗？我们必须首先认识到，知识和所有的经验一样总是有限的。这种对有限知识的运用可能是极具破坏性的。它破坏人与人之间的关系。在关系中，知识——它是各种事件、经验、反应的累积——培植了对别人的形象，模糊了真实的人和关系。当存在连续性，一个由知识所制造并代代相传的传统时，过去（知识的积累）就使得实际的、活生生的现在变得模糊不清。当知识变得习以为常和机械，它就会使头脑局限、僵化和迟钝。当知识通过战争被用来支持民族主义的时候，它就变得野蛮、骇人地残忍和彻底的邪恶。知识并不是美，但对钻井来说，知识是必要的。整个技术世界都建立在知识的基础上，那个世界正在主导我们的生命。如果我们把知识当作唯一的权威，并希望通过知识获得进步，那么我们就活在致命的幻觉中了。我们要说的是，知识在日常生活中有它的位置，但是如果知识成了生活中唯一重要的东西，那么我们的生活必定会被限制在机械的活动中。
Is the communication of knowledge the only function of the teacher as it is now passing on information, ideas, theories and expanding these theories, discussing various aspects of them? Is this the only function of a teacher? If this is all a teacher is concerned with, then he is merely a living computer. But surely a teacher has far greater responsibility than this. He must be concerned with behaviour, with the human complexity of action, with a way of life which is the flowering of goodness. Surely he must be concerned with the future of his students and what is the future for these students? What is the future of man? What is the future of our consciousness which is so confused, disturbed, messy, in conflict? Must we perpetually live in conflict, sorrow and pain? When the teacher is not in communication with the student about all these matters, then he is merely a lively, clever machine perpetuating other machines.
教师的唯一职责就是交流知识吗——传递信息、思想、理论，通过对理论的多方探讨来阐述它们？这就是教师的唯一职责？如果这就是教师关注的一切，那么他就只是一台活的计算机。教师一定拥有比这远为重大的责任。他必须关心品行，关心人类行为的复杂性，关心一种生活方式——善的绽放。他必须关心自己学生的未来，以及这些学生的未来会是怎样的。人类的未来会是怎样的？我们的意识是如此的困惑、不安、凌乱、充满冲突，它的未来会是怎样的？我们必须永远生活在冲突、悲伤和痛苦中吗？如果教师不和学生交流这些问题，他就只是一台活的、精致的机器——在通过别的机器延续。
So we are asking a very fundamental question which is: what is a teacher? It is the greatest profession in the world, though the least respected, for if he is deeply and seriously concerned, the teacher is bringing about the unconditioning of the human brain not only his own but that of the student. He is conditioned and the student is conditioned. Whether he admits it or not this is a fact, and in relationship with the student he is helping both the student and himself to free consciousness from limitation.
因此，我们是在问一个非常根本的问题：教师是什么？教育是世界上最伟大的职业，尽管是最不受尊重的，因为如果教师拥有深刻而真切的关怀，他就是在解除人们头脑的局限——不仅是他自己的头脑，还有学生的头脑。他是受限的，学生也是受限的，无论他是否承认，那都是一个事实。在他们的关系中，他是在帮助学生和自己从意识的局限中解脱出来。
A relationship is a process of learning. A relationship is not a static affair but a living movement and so it is never the same. What it was yesterday it is not today. When yesterday dominates in relationship, then relationship is what it was, not a living thing. Love is not what it was. When the relationship between the teacher and the student has this element of companionship, of mutual unconditioning and humility, sensitivity and affection are natural. A teacher might say all this is impossible. When school authorities demand that there be fifty students in a class of every kind of idiocy, then what is a teacher to do? Obviously he cannot do anything. But we are talking about schools where this does not take place. There the teacher can establish this relationship and there he is deeply involved with the flowering of human beings.
关系是一个学习的过程。它不是静止的东西，而是鲜活的运动，因此从来都不是相同的，昨天的它不是今天的它。当昨天在支配着关系，那么关系就是陈旧的，而不是一个活的东西。爱不是陈旧的。当教师和学生的关系具有这样的要素：友好、不相互限制、谦逊，它就自然会展现敏感与热情。
教师也许会说，当学校当局要求把五十个学生编成一个班，并实行各种愚蠢措施的时候，这一切都是不可能的。那教师能做什么呢？显然，在这种情况下他什么也做不了。但我们说的是不存在这种情况的学校，在那里教师能够建立这样的关系，在那里他在深深地关注着人类的绽放。
绿草园翻译工作室
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