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给学校的信,1979年3月1日 - 习惯

习惯使心灵麻木

These letters are written in a friendly spirit. They are not intended to dominate your way of thinking or to persuade you to conform to the way the writer thinks or feels. They are not propaganda. It is really a dialogue between you and the writer, two friends talking over their problems, and in good friendship there is never any sense of competition or domination. You too must have observed the state of the world and our society, and that there must be a radical transformation in the way human beings live,their relation to each other, their relation with the world as a whole and in every way possible. We are talking to each other, both being deeply concerned, not only with our own particular selves, but also with the students for whom you are wholly responsible.

这些信是以一种友好的态度写的。它们无意支配你的思维方式,或劝告你遵循作者的思想或感受。它们不是宣传。它事实上是你和作者之间的一次对话,像是两个朋友在非常友好的气氛中探讨他们的问题,不会有任何竞争或控制的感觉。你一定也曾观察过世界以及我们社会的状况,并且理解到,人类的生活方式,人们彼此间的关系,人和世界的关系,无论是从整体或每一个可能的方面来说,都必须有一种根本的转变。我们正在彼此交谈,不仅在深切地关心着我们特定的自我,而且关心着那些你负有完全责任的学生们。

The teacher is the most important person in a school, for on her or him depends the future welfare of mankind. This is not a mere verbal statement. This is an absolute and irrevocable fact. Only when the educator himself feels the dignity and the respect implicit in his work,will he be aware that teaching is the highest calling, greater than that of the politician, greater than the princes of the world. The writer means every word of this and so please do not brush it aside as exaggeration or an attempt to make you feel a false importance. You and the students must flower together in goodness.

在学校里,教师是最重要的人,因为他们担负着人类未来的幸福。这不只是一个口头上的陈述。这是一个绝对的、不可改变的事实。只有当教育者确定无疑地感到自己工作的高尚和可敬时,他才会知道,教育是最崇高的事业,比政治家伟大,比世界上的王子们伟大。笔者对他说的每一个字都是认真的,请不要将它看作夸大之词,或想让你感受到一种虚假重要性的企图,因而弃之不顾。你和学生们必须在善中共同绽放。

     We have been pointing out the corrupting or the degenerating factors of the mind. As the society is disintegrating, these schools must be centres for the regeneration of the mind. Not of thought. Thought can never be regenerated for thought is always limited, but the regeneration of the totality of the mind is possible. This possibility is not conceptual but actual when one has examined deeply the ways of the degeneration. In the previous letters we have explored some of these ways.

我们已经指出心灵腐化或衰退的因素。因为社会正处在分裂之中,这些学校必须成为心灵再生的中心。不是思想的再生,思想永远也不可能再生,因为思想总是有限的,但是心灵整体的再生是可能的。如果你深入地审视了退化的方式的话,那么这种可能性就不是观念上的,而是实际的。在以前的信中,我们探究过这些方式中的一部分。

     We must now investigate also the destructive nature of tradition, of habit and the repetitive ways of thought. To follow, accepting tradition, seems to give a certain security to one's life, the outer as well as the inner.The search for security in every possible way has been the motive,the driving power of most of our actions. The demand for psychological security overshadows the physical security and so makes physical security uncertain. This psychological security is the basis of tradition passed on from one generation to another through words, through rituals, beliefs - whether religious, political or sociological. We seldom question the accepted norm but when we do question we invariably fall into a trap in a new pattern. This has been our way of life: reject one and accept another. The new is more enticing and the old is left to the passing generation. But both generations are caught in patterns, in systems and this is the movement of tradition. The very word implies conformity, whether modern or ancient. There is no good or bad tradition: there is only tradition, the vain repetition of ritual in all the churches, temples and mosques.They are utterly meaningless, but emotion, sentiment, romanticism, imagination lend them colour and illusion. This is the nature of superstition and every priest in the world encourages it. This process of indulging in things that have no meaning or investing in things without significance is a wastage of energy which degenerates the mind. One has to be deeply aware of these facts and that very attention dissolves all illusions.

我们现在必须审视传统、习惯以及思想重复模式的破坏性本质。追随和接受传统,似乎会给你外在和内在的生活带来某种安全感。以任何可能的方式寻求安全感,一直是我们大多数行为的动机和驱动力量。对心理安全的需求妨碍了对身体安全的需求,使得身体的安全变得不确定。传统,通过文字、仪式、信仰(无论是宗教的、政治的或社会的)代代相传,它的基础就是这种心理上的安全感。我们很少质疑公认的准则,但当我们真的去质疑时,我们总是掉进一种新的模式的陷阱。拒绝一个事物,而接受另一个,一直是我们的生活方式。新的更有吸引力,而旧的被留给了上一代。但是两代人都陷入了模式和体系。这就是传统的运动。传统这个词本身就意味着依循,无论这个传统是现代的还是古代的。没有好的传统或坏的传统,只有传统,只有在所有教堂、寺庙和清真寺里徒劳重复的仪式。它们完全没有意义,但是情绪、感情、浪漫和想象为它们增添了色彩和幻觉。这是迷信的本质,世界上的每个牧师都鼓励它。这种沉溺或投入那些毫无意义的事物的过程是能量的浪费,它使心灵退化。你必须深入地觉知到这个事实。正是那份专注结束了所有的幻觉。

     Then there is habit. There are no good habits or bad; only habit. Habit implies a repetitive action which arises from not being aware. One falls into habits deliberately or is persuaded through propaganda; or, being afraid, one falls into self-protective reflexes. It is the same with pleasure. This following of a routine, however effective or necessary in daily life, can lead, and generally does, to a mechanistic way of living. One can do the same thing at the same hour every day without it becoming a habit when there is an awareness of what is being done. Attention dispels habit. It is only when there is no attention that habits are formed. You can get up at the same time every morning and you know why you are getting up. This awareness may appear to another as a habit, good or bad, but actually for the one who is aware, is attentive, there is no habit at all. We fall into psychological habits or routine because we think it is the most comfortable way of living,and when you observe closely even with the habits formed in relationship,personal or other,there is a certain quality of indolence, carelessness and disregard. All this gives a false sense of intimacy, security and facile cruelty.

还有习惯。没有好的习惯或坏的习惯,只有习惯。习惯是指由于没有意识而产生的重复行为。一个人可能故意陷入习惯,或被宣传说服,或由于恐惧而陷入自我保护的反应。快感也是这样。例行公事,无论在日常生活中多么有效或必要,通常都会导致一种机械的生活方式。在对正在做的事情有觉知的时候,你就能够在每天的同一时间做相同的事情而不形成习惯。专注驱散了习惯,只有在不专注的时候习惯才会形成。你可以在每天早上同一时间起床,而你知道你为什么会起床。这种觉知对另一个人来说或许显得象个习惯,或好或坏,但实际上对于那个有意识的、警觉的人来说,根本就没有习惯。我们陷入心理习惯或惯例,因为我们认为那是最舒服的生活方式。当你仔细观察在关系中形成的习惯——自己的或别人的,你就会发现,它有一种懒散、草率和漠视的特质。所有这些引起一种虚假的亲密感和安全感,并导致狡猾的冷酷。

There is every danger in habit:the habit of smoking, the repetitive action, the employment of words, thought or behaviour. This makes the mind utterly insensitive and the degenerating process is to find some form of illusory security such as a nation, a belief or an ideal and cling to it. All these factors are very destructive to real security. We live in a make-believe world which has become a reality. To question this illusion is to become either a revolutionary or to embrace permissiveness. Both these are factors of degeneration.

每一种习惯中都存在危险:抽烟,重复活动,词语的使用、思想或行为。这些使心灵彻底麻木。退化的过程就是找到一些虚幻的安全感,例如国家、信仰或理想,并抓紧它们。所有这些因素对于真正的安全都极具破坏性。我们生活在伪装的世界里,而它已经变成了现实。而质疑这个假象的人,要么成为一个革命者,要么信仰放纵主义,而两者都是退化的因素。

     After all, the brain with its extraordinary capacities has been conditioned from generation to generation into accepting this fallacious security, which has now become a deep-rooted habit. To break down this habit we go through various forms of torture, multiple escapes, or throw ourselves into some idealistic utopia and so on. It is the problem of the educator to investigate,and his creative capacity lies in observing very closely his deep-rooted conditioning and that of the student. This is a mutual process: not that you investigate your conditioning first and then inform the other of your discoveries, but explore together and find the truth of the matter. This demands a certain quality of patience; not the patience of time but perseverance and the diligent care of total responsibility.

毕竟,经过世世代代的制约,具有非凡能力的大脑已经接受了这种虚假的安全,它现在已经成了一个根深蒂固的习惯。为了打破这个习惯,我们经受各种形式的折磨,种种的逃避,或者投身于某种理想的乌托邦。这是教师要去检查的问题,他的创造能力就在于非常仔细地去观察自身和学生根深蒂固的制约。这是一个共同的过程,不是你先检查你的制约,然后告诉别人你的发现,而是你们共同去探究和发现事情的真相。这需要一种耐心的品质,不是时间性的耐心,而是一种恒心,和出于完全的责任感的勤勉关怀。

                                                             绿草园翻译工作室

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