THE URGENCY OF CHANGE - 'TRADITION'/《转变的紧迫性》之“传统”

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THE URGENCY OF CHANGE - 'TRADITION'
《转变的紧迫性》之“传统”

     Questioner: Can one really be free of tradition? Can one be free of anything at all? Or is it a matter of sidestepping it and not being concerned with any of it? You talk a great deal about the past and its conditioning - but can I be really free of this whole background of my life? Or can I merely modify the background according to the various outward demands and challenges, adjust myself to it rather than become free of it? It seems to me that this is one of the most important things, and I'd like to understand it because I always feel that I am carrying a burden, the weight of the past. I would like to put it down and walk away from it, never come back to it. Is that possible?

发问者：一个人能真的摆脱传统吗？一个人究竟能摆脱任何事情吗？还是一个回避并且不再参与其中的问题？关于过去及其局限性，你讲了很多——但是我真的能摆脱我生活的这整个背景吗？还是我只能根据各种外部的需求和挑战来调整这个背景，调整我自己，而不是从中解脱？这对我来说似乎是最重要的事情之一，我很想了解这点，因为我总是觉得自己在背负着一个重担，过去的重负。我想把它放下，离开它，永远不再回去。这可能吗？

     Krishnamurti: Doesn't tradition mean carrying the past over to the present? The past is not only one's particular set of inheritances but also the weight of all the collective thought of a particular group of people who have lived in a particular culture and tradition. One carries the accumulated knowledge and experience of the race and the family. All this is the past - the carrying over from the known to the present - which shapes the future. Is not the teaching of all history a form of tradition? You are asking if one can be free of all this. First of all, why does one want to be free? Why does one want to put down this burden? Why?

克：传统不正是意味着把过去背负到现在吗？过去不只是一个人自己特定的一系列遗传，而且也是一个特定人群所有集体思想的重负，这群人一直生活在某种特定的文化和传统中。人背负着种族和家庭积累下来的知识和经验。这一切都是过去——从已知中传承到现在的东西——而这些又塑造了未来。教授所有的历史，这难道不是传统的一种形式吗？你问一个人能不能从这一切中解脱出来。首先，一个人为什么想要解脱出来？他为什么想要放下这个负担？为什么？

     Questioner: I think it's fairly simple. I don't want to be the past - I want to be myself; I want to be cleansed of this whole tradition so that I can be a new human being. I think in most of us there is this feeling of wanting to be born anew.
     Krishnamurti: You cannot possibly be the new just by wishing for it. Or by struggling to be new. You have not only to understand the past but also you have to find out who you are. Are you not the past? Are you not the continuation of what has been, modified by the present?

发问者：我想这很简单。我不想成为过去——我想做我自己；我想清除掉这整个传统，这样我就能成为一个新人类。我想我们大部分人都有这种想要新生的感觉。
克：你不可能单凭有这么个愿望就能变成新人类。奋力求新也不行。你不仅仅需要了解过去，而且要明白你是谁。你不就是过去吗？你不就是经过现在修改的过去的延续吗？

     Questioner: My actions and my thoughts are, but my existence isn't.
     Krishnamurti: Can you separate the two, action and thought, from existence? Are not thought, action, existence, living and relationship all one? This fragmentation into "me" and "not-me" is part of this tradition.
     Questioner: Do you mean that when I am not thinking, when the past is not operating, I am obliterated, that I have ceased to exist?

发问者：我的行为和我的思想是这样的，但是我的存在不是。
克：你能把行为和思想这两者与存在分开吗？思想、行为、存在、生活和关系不都是一体的吗？这种对“我”和“非我”的划分，就是这传统的一部分。
发问者：你的意思是不是，当我不思考，当过去不运作了，我就被消灭掉了，我就停止生存了？

     Krishnamurti: Don't let us ask too many questions, but consider what we began with. Can one be free of the past - not only the recent but the immemorial, the collective, the racial, the human, the animal? You are all that, you are not separate from that. And you are asking whether you can put all that aside and be born anew. The "you" is that, and when you wish to be reborn as a new entity, the new entity you imagine is a projection of the old, covered over with the word "new". But underneath, you are the past. So the question is, can the past be put aside or does a modified form of tradition continue for ever, changing, accumulating, discarding, but always the past in different combinations? The past is the cause and the present is the effect, and today, which is the effect of yesterday, becomes the cause of tomorrow. This chain is the way of thought, for thought is the past. You are asking whether one can stop this movement of yesterday into today. Can one look at the past to examine it, or is that not possible at all? To look at it the observer must be outside it - and he isn't. So here arises another issue. If the observer himself is the past then how can the past be isolated for observation?

克：我们不要一下子问那么多问题，而是要想一下从哪里开始。一个人能否摆脱过去——不只是最近的过去，而且是远古的，集体的，种族的，作为人类和动物的整个过去？你就是那一切，你与那些是分不开的。而你问你能否把这一切放在一边，获得新生。“你”就是那一切，当你希望作为一个新实体获得新生时，那个你想象出来的新实体只是来自过去的一种投射，冠以了一个“新”的名词而已。然而掩藏其下的，你就是过去。所以问题是，能否把过去放在一边，还是传统以某种修整过的形式永远持续下去，改动，积累，丢弃，但永远是那个以不同形式组合着的过去？过去是因，现在是果，今天是昨天的果，又会变成明天的因。这个链条就是思想的运作方式，因为思想就是过去。你问一个人能否停止从昨天到今天的这种运动。一个人能否观察过去，审视过去，还是这根本就不可能？要观察这点，观察者必须置身事外——而实际上他并不是存在于其外的。所以这里就产生了另一个问题。如果观察者本身就是过去，那么过去怎么能从观察中孤立出来？

     Questioner: I can look at something objectively....
     Krishnamurti: But you, who are the observer, are the past trying to look at itself. You can objectify yourself only as an image which you have put together through the years in every form of relationship, and so the "you" which you objectify is memory and imagination, the past. You are trying to look at yourself as though you were a different entity from the one who is looking, but you are the past, with its old judgements, evaluations and so on. The action of the past is looking at the memory of the past. Therefore there is never relief from the past. The continuous examination of the past by the past perpetuates the past; this is the very action of the past, and this is the very essence of tradition.

发问者：我能客观地看待某些事情....
克：但是，你作为观察者，你就是那个试图去观察自身的过去。你只能把自己客观化为一个意象，这个意象是你多年来在各种形式的关系中形成的，所以这个你客观化了的“你”只是记忆和想象，也就是过去。你试图观察自己，就好像你是某个不同的存在体，不同于正在观察着的那个人，但你就是过去，带着它旧有的判断、评估等等。看着过去的记忆的，正是过去的行为。所以永远不会从过去中解脱出来。过去不停地检视着过去，这使过去得以永续；这正是过去的行为，这正是传统的核心。

     Questioner: Then what action is possible? If I am the past - and I can see that I am - then whatever I do to chisel away the past is adding to it. So I am left helpless! What can I do? I can't pray because the invention of a god is again the action of the past. I can't look to another, for the other is also the creation of my despair. I can't run away from it all because at the end of it I am still there with my past. I can't identify myself with some image which is not of the past because that image is my own projection too. Seeing all this, I am really left helpless, and in despair.

发问者：那么什么样的行为才是可能的？如果我就是过去——我看到自己确实如此——那么无论我做什么去除过去的事情，都只是在加强过去。所以我完全无助了！我能怎么办？我不能祈祷，因为捏造出一个神来又是过去的行为。我不能求助于另一个神，因为那个神也是我绝望的产物。我不能从这一切中逃避，因为逃到最后，我还是和我的过去待在一起。我无法把自己等同于某个不属于过去的意象，因为那意象也是我自己的投射。看到了这一切，我真的无助了，绝望了。

     Krishnamurti: Why do you call it helplessness and despair? Aren't you translating what you see as the past into an emotional anxiety because you cannot achieve a certain result? in so doing you are again making the past act. Now, can you look at all this movement of the past, with all its traditions, without wanting to be free of it, change it, modify it or run away from it - simply observe it without any reaction?

克：你为什么把它叫做无助和绝望？你难道不是在把你所看到的过去诠释成了一种感情上的焦虑，因为你无法实现某个结果？你这么做，就又是让过去在运作了。现在，你能不能看着过去的这整个运动，及其所有的传统，而不想从中解脱，不想改变它、调整它或者逃避它——只是观察它而没有任何反应？

     Questioner: But as we have been saying all through this conversation, how can I observe the past if I am the past? I can't look at it at all!
     Krishnamurti: Can you look at yourself, who are the past, without any movement of thought, which is the past? If you can look without thinking, evaluating, liking, disliking, judging, then there is a looking with eyes that are not touched by the past. It is to look in silence, without the noise of thought. In this silence there is neither the observer nor the thing which he is looking at as the past.

发问者：但是正如我们在这次谈话中一直在说的，如果我就是过去，我要如何观察过去？我根本没法看！
克：你能不能看着自己，也就是过去，而没有任何思想活动，也就是没有过去？如果你能不思考、不评估、无好恶、不评判地看着，那么就有一双没有被过去污染的眼睛在看。那是寂静中的观察，没有思想的噪音。在这寂静中，既没有观察者，也没有他作为过去在观察着的东西。

     Questioner: Are you saying that when you look without evaluation or judgement the past has disappeared? But it hasn't - there are still the thousands of thoughts and actions and all the pettiness which were rampant only a moment ago. I look at them and they are still there. How can you say that the past has disappeared? It may momentarily have stopped acting....

发问者：你是不是说，当你不评估、不判断地看时，过去就消失了？但是它没有——片刻之前猖獗着的成千上万的想法和行为，以及所有的琐碎卑微都在还。我看着它们，可它们还在。你怎么能说过去消失了呢？它或许可以暂时地停止运作....

     Krishnamurti: When the mind is silent that silence is a new dimension, and when there is any rampant pettiness it is instantly dissolved, because the mind has now a different quality of energy which is not the energy engendered by the past. This is what matters: to have that energy that dispels the carrying over of the past. The carrying over of the past is a different kind of energy. The silence wipes the other out, the greater absorbs the lesser and remains untouched. It is like the sea, receiving the dirty river and remaining pure. This is what matters. It is only this energy that can wipe away the past. Either there is silence or the noise of the past. In this silence the noise ceases and the new is this silence. It is not that you are made new. This silence is infinite and the past is limited. The conditioning of the past breaks down in the fullness of silence.

克：当头脑安静了，那寂静就是一种新的空间，而当有任何猖獗的卑微琐碎时，那空间立刻就消失了，因为头脑现在拥有了一种不同品质的能量，这能量不是过去产生的。这是真正重要的事情：拥有能驱散过去的重负的能量。过去的重负是另一种能量。寂静清除了这另一种能量，更大的能量吸收了较小的能量，同时保持原样。就像大海，接纳浑浊的河流，同时保持清澈。这是真正重要的事情。只有这种能量能够消除过去。要么有寂静，要么有过去的噪音。在这寂静中，噪音止息了，新生的是这种寂静。不是你被新生了。这寂静是无限的，而过去是有限的。这完满的寂静打破了过去的局限。