给学校的信，1983年1月15日- 远见
理想滋生冲突Our brains are very old. They have evolved through countless experiences, accidents, death, and the continuity of the flowering of the brain has been going on for millennia. It has varieties of capacities, is ever active, moving and living in its own memories and anxieties, full of fear, uncertainty and sorrow. This is the everlasting cycle it has lived the passing pleasures and incessant activity. In this long process it has been conditioning itself, shaping its own way of life, adjusting itself to its own environment as few species have, combining hatred and affection, killing others and at the same time trying to find a peaceful life. It is shaped by the infinite activity of the past, always modifying itself, but the basic structure of reward and pain remains almost the same. This conditioning attempts to shape the outward world but inwardly it is following the same pattern, always dividing the me and the you, we and they, being hurt and trying to hurt: a pattern in which passing affection and its pleasure is the way of our life.
我们的大脑是非常的古老的。它们通过无数的经验、事件和死亡得以进化。人类大脑的发达已经持续了数千年了。它多才多艺，永不停歇，生活并运转在它自己的记忆和焦虑里，充满了恐惧、不定和悲伤。这是个周而复始的循环，它活在其中，相伴着短暂的快感和不停的活动。在这个漫长的过程中，它一直在制约着自己，形成自己的生存方式，调整自己以适应环境，只有极少数物种能做到这一点，混杂着仇恨和友爱，杀戮别人的同时试图寻找一种和平的生活。它被过去的无数行为所塑造，并永远在修正自己。但是，这个回报与痛苦的基本运行结构却几乎没变。这个制约的大脑试图塑造外部的世界，但内在地，它一直延续着同样的模式，即总在区分“我”和“你”、“我们”和“他们”、被伤害和去伤害，在这个模式里，短暂的友爱和欢愉便是我们的生活方式。
To observe all this without value judgement it becomes necessary, if there is to be any deep, living change, to perceive the complexity of our life without choice: just to see exactly what is.`What is' is far more important than what should be. There is only what is and never what should be. What is can only end. It cannot become something else. The ending has greater significance than what is beyond ending. To search for what is beyond is to cultivate fear; to search for what lies beyond is to avoid, to turn away from what is. We are always chasing that which is not, something other than the actual. If we could see this and remain with what is, however unpleasant or fearful it may be, or however pleasurable, then observation which is pure attention, dissipates that which is. One of our difficulties is that we want to get on and one says to oneself,`I understand this then what?' The `what' is slipping away from what is. The 'what is' is the movement of thought. If it is painful, thought tries to avoid it, but if it is pleasurable, thought holds it and prolongs it, so this is one of the aspects of conflict.
如果要有一种深刻和真切的变化的话，我们需要不带价值判断地去观察所有这一切，不带选择地去感知我们生活的这种复杂性，只是准确地去看“事实”。“事实”远比“应然”重要得多。只有“事实”而根本没有“应然”。“事实”只能结束，它不可能变成其他。这个结束本身，而不是结束之外的什么，具有非凡的意义。寻求结束之外是什么，不过是培育恐惧；寻求结束之外的东西，不过是对“事实”的逃避。我们总是在追逐那不存在的，不同于真实的东西。如果我们能看到这一点并保持和“事实”在一起，不论它怎样令人不快和恐惧，或者怎样令人愉悦，那么这个观察，也就是纯粹的关注，将驱散那个“事实”。
我们的困难之一是我们想要尽快走到下一步，你对自己说，“这个我懂了，然后是什么呢？”这个“什么呢”使得我们从“事实”滑走，而这个“什么呢”是思想的运动。如果某事让人感到痛苦，思想就试图避开它；但如果令人愉悦，思想就会去抓住它，去延长它。这就是冲突的一个方面。
There is no opposite but only what actually is. As there is no opposite in the psychological sense, the observation of what is does not entail conflict. But our brains are conditioned to the illusion of the opposite. Of course there are opposites: light and dark, man and woman, black and white, tall and short and so on. But here we are trying to study the psychological field of conflict. The ideal breeds conflict. But we are conditioned by centuries of idealism, the ideal state, the ideal man, the prototype, the god. It is this division between the prototype and the actual which breeds conflict. To see the truth of this is not a judgemental evaluation.
思想就会去抓住它，去延长它。这就是冲突的一个方面。
没有对立面，只有实际上是什么。从心理意义上来说是没有对立面的，因此对“事实”的观察便不会引发冲突。但是我们的大脑习惯于对立面这个幻象。当然对立面是存在的：光明与黑暗，男人和女人，黑的和白的，高的和矮的，等等，但这里，我们正试图了解的是心理领域的冲突。理想滋生了冲突；我们被多少世纪以来的理想主义制约着：理想的国家、理想的人、榜样、上帝。正是这个在榜样和真实之间的界分，滋生了冲突。看清这个真相，这不是一种评判。
I have studied carefully what has been said in this letter. I understand the logic of it, the common sense of it, but the weight of the past is so heavy that the persistent, constant intrusion of cultivated illusion, of the ideal of what should be, is always interfering. I am asking myself whether this illusion can be totally dispelled, or should I accept it as an illusion and let it wither away? I can see that the more I struggle against it, the more I am giving life to it, and it is very difficult to remain with what is.
Now as an educator, as both parent and teacher, can I convey this subtle and complex problem of conflict in human beings? What a wonderful life it would be without conflict, without problems. Or rather, as problems arise which seems to be inevitable to deal with them immediately and not live with them.
我已经仔细地学习了这封信里所说的。从逻辑，常识的角度，我已经明白了，只是过去的惯性是那么的大，以至于被培养起来的幻想，对于“应然”的理想，它们持续不断的侵入，一直在妨碍着我。我问自己，幻想是否能够被彻底地消除，还是我应该接受它，再等它枯萎。我能看到我越反抗它，就给了它越多的生命力，而与“事实”共处是那么的难。现在，作为一个教育者，既是父母也是老师，我能否把在人类中所存在的冲突，这个既微妙又复杂的问题传达出来呢？如果没有冲突，没有问题，这个世界将会多么美好！或者说当问题出现时，这看起来是不可避免的，就立刻解决而不是放任它。
The way of education so far has been to cultivate competition and thereby sustain conflict. So I see one problem after another piling up in my responsibility to the student. The difficulties drown me and so I begin to lose the vision of a good human being. I am using the word `vision' not as some ideal, not a goal in the future, but as the actual deep reality of goodness and beauty. It is not some fanciful dream, a thing to be achieved, but the very truth of it is a liberating factor. This perception is logical, reasonable and utterly sane. It has no overtones of sentimentality or romantic froth.
迄今为止教育一直在培养竞争，也就维系着冲突。我看到问题一个接一个，不断堆积在我对学生的责任里。重重困难吞没了我，我开始丧失了对美好人类的远见。我用“远见”一词，不是作为某种理想，不是作为一个未来的目标，而是善与美的至深的真实。它不是一个空幻的梦想，不是一个去成就的东西；而是说这个真理本身就是解脱的因素。这样的理解是合乎逻辑的，理智的和完全健全的。它没有丝毫的多愁善感，浪漫的花言巧语。
Now I am faced with the total acceptance of what is and I see my students caught in the avoidance of the actual. So there is a contradiction here and if I am not careful and watchful in my relation with them I will bring about conflict, a struggle between them and me. I see, but they do not which is a fact. I want to help them to see. It is not my perception of truth, but for each one of them to see the truth which belongs to nobody. Any form of pressure is a distorting factor, as in giving or being an example, so I have to go at this very gently and interest them in investigating the ending of conflict whether it is possible or not. It has now taken me perhaps a week or more to understand this, to grasp the significance of it. I may not actually be living this but I have grasped the delicate device of it and it must not slip away from me. If they grasp even the perfume of this, it is as a living seed.
现在，我面临对“事实”的全部接受，我看到我的学生们还陷在对现实的逃避里。于是这里就有了矛盾。如果我对和他们的关系不够小心，不够警觉，我会带来我与他们之间争斗的冲突。我看到了，但是他们没有，这是个事实。我想帮助他们看到。它不是我的真理，而是他们每一个人要去看到的真理，真理不属于任何人。何形式的压力都是对事实的歪曲，例如在“给予”和“做榜样”的时候就是如此。所以我必须非常小心地进行这件事，让他们有兴趣去调查发现，看看结束这个冲突是否可能。
理解这一切并领会其意义，也许已经花费了我一星期或更多的时间。我或许没有实际地活在其中，但是我已经领会到了它的精微之处，它一定不能从我这里溜走。如果能让学生们领会到哪怕其中的一丝芳香，它便会成为一颗活的种子。
I am discovering that patience has no element of time, whereas impatience is in the nature of time.I am not trying to achieve a result or come to a certain conclusion. I am not engulfed by all this; there is a regenerating factor.
我还发现，耐心是没有时间成分的，急躁反而落入时间之流。我不试图去成就一个结果，或带来某个结论。我不被所有这些所吞噬；这里就有了一种新生的力量。
绿草园翻译工作室
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