第十三章 · 想法总是旧的

LET US NOW go into the question of what is thinking, the significance of that thought which must be exercised with care, logic and sanity (for our daily work) and that which has no significance at all. Unless we know the two kinds, we cannot possibly understand something much deeper which thought cannot touch. So let us try to understand this whole complex structure of what is thinking, what is memory, how thought originates, how thought conditions all our actions; and in understanding all this we shall perhaps come across something which thought has never discovered, which thought cannot open the door to.

现在咱们一起去探究什么是想，想法的意义——一种是我们需要用心、用逻辑和理智来运用的想法（为了我们的日常工作），另一种是毫无意义的想法。如果我们不能清晰地理解这两大类想法，我们不可能去理解一些更深层次、想法不能触及的东西。所以让我们尝试去理解这整个复杂的构架：什么是想，什么是记忆，想法是怎么产生的，想法是如何框限了我们所有的行动，理解所有这些，我们将或许能发现那些想法从未发现的东西，想法无法企及的东西。

Why has thought become so important in all our lives - thought being ideas, being the response to the accumulated memories in the brain cells? Perhaps many of you have not even asked such a question before, or if you have you may have said, `It's of very little importance - what is important is emotion.' But I don't see how you can separate the two. If thought doesn't give continuity to feeling, feeling dies very quickly. So why in our daily lives, in our grinding, boring, frightened lives, has thought taken on such inordinate importance? Ask yourself as I am asking myself - why is one a slave to thought - cunning, clever, thought which can organize, which can start things, which has invented so much, bred so many wars, created so much fear, so much anxiety, which is forever making images and chasing its own tail - thought which has enjoyed the pleasure of yesterday and given that pleasure continuity in the present and also in the future - thought which is always active, chattering, moving, constructing, taking away, adding, supposing?

为什么在我们的生活中想法变得如此的重要——想法作为理念，作为对脑细胞中积累的记忆的响应？或许你们中的很多人还不曾问过这样一个问题，或者如果你已经问过了，你可能会说：“想法不重要，重要的是情绪。”但是我不明白的是你是如何把二者分开的。要不是想法让情绪持续，情绪很快就消失了。所以为什么在我们的日常生活中，在这种令人煎熬、无聊、恐惧的生活里，想法占据了如此不成比例的重要位置？像我问自己一样，问你自己——为什么一个人被想法奴役——狡猾、聪明的想法能够组织，开始事情，发明了很多东西，酝酿了许多的战争，制造了这么多的恐惧，这么多的焦虑，永远在制造画面并追逐自己的尾巴——想法享受了昨天的愉悦并在此刻和未来让愉悦延续——想法总是活跃的，喋喋不休的，在移动，在构建，做减法，做加法，做假设？

Ideas have become far more important to us than action - ideas so cleverly expressed in books by the intellectuals in every field. The more cunning, the more subtle, those ideas are the more we worship them and the books that contain them. We are those books, we are those ideas, so heavily conditioned are we by them. We are forever discussing ideas and ideals and dialectically offering opinions. Every religion has its dogma, its formula, its own scaffold to reach the gods, and when inquiring into the beginning of thought we are questioning the importance of this whole edifice of ideas. We have separated ideas from action because ideas are always of the past and action is always the present - that is, living is always the present. We are afraid of living and therefore the past, as ideas, has become so important to us.

对我们来说，理念（ideas）变得远远比行动更重要——理念被各行各业的知识分子们巧妙地表达在各种书籍中 。越是狡猾，越是细微的理念，我们越崇拜它们和装载它们的书籍。我们就是这些书，这些理念，如此严重地被它们框限着。我们永无休止地在谈论理念和理想，辩证地发表观点。每一种宗教都有它自己的教条、自己的框架来接触上帝，当探寻想法的开端的时候，我们在质疑这整个想法体系的重要性。我们已经从行动中把想法剥离，因为想法总是属于过去，行动总是在此刻——也就是说，活着总是在此时此刻。我们害怕活着所以过去——也就是想法——变得如此的重要。

It is really extraordinarily interesting to watch the operation of one's own thinking, just to observe how one thinks, where that reaction we call thinking, springs from. Obviously from memory. Is there a beginning to thought at all? If there is, can we find out its beginning - that is, the beginning of memory, because if we had no memory we would have no thought?

观察一个人自己想法的运作是极其有意思的，只是去观察一个人如何想，我们称之为想的反应来自那里。很显然，来自记忆。真的存在想法的开端吗？如果存在，我们能找到它的开端吗？也就是说，记忆的开端，因为如果我们没有记忆，我们就没有想法。

We have seen how thought sustains and gives continuity to a pleasure that we had yesterday and how thought also sustains the reverse of pleasure which is fear and pain, so the experiencer, who is the thinker, is the pleasure and the pain and also the entity who gives nourishment to the pleasure and pain. The thinker separates pleasure from pain. He doesn't see that in the very demand for pleasure he is inviting pain and fear. Thought in human relationships is always demanding pleasure which it covers by different words like loyalty,  helping, giving, sustaining, serving. I wonder why we want to serve? The petrol station offers good service. What do those words mean, to help, to give, to serve? What is it all about? Does a flower full of beauty, light and loveliness say,`I am giving, helping, serving'? It is! And because it is not trying to do anything it covers the earth.

我们已经发现想法是如何让昨天的愉悦持续，以及想法是如何让愉悦的反面持续，也就是恐惧和痛苦，所以这个体验者，也就是思考者，就是愉悦和痛苦本身，跟孕育愉悦和痛苦的也是同一个实体。思考者划分了愉悦和痛苦。他没有发现在追求愉悦中，他引来了痛苦和恐惧。在人类关系中的想法总是寻求愉悦，这被各种的词语掩饰着，比如忠诚、帮助、给与、维系、服务。我想知道为什么我们想服务？加油站提供好的服务。这些词语的意思是什么？帮助？给与？服务？指的是什么？一朵美丽、光鲜、可爱的花会说：“我在给与、帮助和服务”吗？它本身在绽放着，跟给与、帮助和服务无关！因为它没有努着去做任何事情，所以它能覆盖大地。

Thought is so cunning, so clever, that it distorts everything for its own convenience. Thought in its demand for pleasure brings its own bondage. Thought is the breeder of duality in all our relationships: there is violence in us which gives us pleasure but there is also the desire for peace, the desire to be kind and gentle. This is what is going on all the time in all our lives. Thought not only breeds this duality in us, this contradiction, but it also accumulates the innumerable memories we have had of pleasure and pain, and from these memories it is reborn. So thought is the past, thought is always old, as I have already said.

想法是如此的狡猾，如此的聪明，以至于它会扭曲一切来图自己方便。想法在寻求愉悦中带来了对自己的束缚。想法滋生了我们关系中的对立面：我们内心充满暴力，这带来愉悦；但同时也有对和平的渴望，对温柔和友善的渴望。这就是在我们的内心里面总是发生的事情。想法不仅在我们心里带来这种对立面，这种矛盾，而且还积攒了我们体验过的愉悦和痛苦的无数记忆，从这些记忆中，想法又重生了。所以想法就是过去，想法总是旧的，正如我一直所说的。

As every challenge is met in terms of the past - a challenge being always new - our meeting of the challenge will always be totally inadequate, hence contradiction, conflict and all the misery and sorrow we are heir to. Our little brain is in conflict whatever it does. Whether it aspires, imitates, conforms, suppresses, sublimates, takes drugs to expand itself - whatever it does - it is in a state of conflict and will produce conflict.

因为每一次挑战都通过过去来应对——而挑战总是新的——我们应对挑战总是不充分的，也不可能充分，因此总是充满矛盾、冲突、各种的痛苦和伤悲。我们这小小的大脑无论做什么都充满冲突。无论是它渴望、模仿、遵循、压制、升华、嗑药来扩大它自己（扩大意识）—— 无论它做什么——大脑处于一种冲突的状态而且总会产生冲突。

Those who think a great deal are very materialistic because thought is matter. Thought is matter as much as the floor, the wall, the telephone, are matter. Energy functioning in a pattern becomes matter. There is energy and there is matter. That is all life is. We may think thought is not matter but it is. Thought is matter as an ideology. Where there is energy it becomes matter. Matter and energy are interrelated. The one cannot exist without the other, and the more harmony there is between the two, the more balance, the more active the brain cells are. Thought has set up this pattern of pleasure, pain, fear, and has been functioning inside it for thousands of years and cannot break the pattern because it has created it.

那些想了很多的人其实是很物质主义的，因为想法是物质。想法是物质，就好比说地板、墙、电话是物质一样。能量以某种模式运转的时候就变成了物质。哪里有能量，哪里就有物质。这就是关于生命的一切。我们可能认为想法不是物质，但想法的确是物质。想法作为一种意识形态是物质。能量出现的地方，就出现了物质。物质和能量是相互关联的，彼此都必不可少。两者之间越是和谐，脑细胞就越是平衡和活跃。想法已经建立了这种愉悦、痛苦、恐惧的模式，并在这些模式中运行了数千年，而且不能打破这些模式，因为想法创造了这些模式。

A new fact cannot be seen by thought. It can be understood later by thought, verbally, but the understanding of a new fact is not reality to thought. Thought can never solve any psychological problem. However clever, however cunning, however erudite, whatever the structure thought creates through science, through an electronic brain, through compulsion or necessity, thought is never new and therefore it can never answer any tremendous question. The old brain cannot solve the enormous problem of living.

一个崭新的事实是无法被想法看到的。尽管这个事实可以在之后被想法口头上理解，但理解一个新的事实不属于想法的现实。想法无法解决任何的心理问题。无论想法多么聪明、狡猾、博学，无论它通过科学，通过一个电脑，或者出于强迫和必要，创造了怎样的构架，想法从来不是新的，因此也不能会回答任何重大的问题。旧的大脑无法解决人生这个巨大的问题。

Thought is crooked because it can invent anything and see things that are not there. It can perform the most extraordinary tricks, and therefore it cannot be depended upon. But if you understand the whole structure of how you think, why you think, the words you use, the way you behave in your daily life, the way you talk to people, the way you treat people, the way you walk, the way you eat - if you are aware of all these things then your mind will not deceive you, then there is nothing to be deceived. The mind then is not something that demands, that subjugates; it becomes extraordinarily quiet, pliable, sensitive, alone, and in that state there is no deception whatsoever.

想法是扭曲的，因为它能创造任何事情，能看到那些不存在的东西，它能使用最无与伦比的花招，因此无法指望想法。但是如果你理解了你如何想、为什么想的整个构架，理解了你使用的言语，在日常生活中你的行为方式，你对人说话的方式，你对待人的方式，你走路的方式，你吃饭的方式——如果你能觉察到所有这些事情，那么你的内心将不再欺骗你，那么也就没什么可欺骗的了。那么内心也就不再是那个在强烈要求和压制的东西了，内心变得极其得安静、柔韧、敏感、独立，在那种状态里， 压根就不存在欺骗。

Have you ever noticed that when you are in a state of complete attention the observer, the thinker, the centre, the 'me', comes to an end? In that state of attention thought begins to wither away. If one wants to see a thing very clearly, one's mind must be very quiet, without all the prejudices, the chattering, the dialogue, the images, the pictures - all that must be put aside to look. And it is only in silence that you can observe the beginning of thought - not when you are searching, asking questions, waiting for a reply. So it is only when you are completely quiet, right through your being, having put that question, `What is the beginning of thought?', that you will begin to see, out of that silence, how thought takes shape.

你可曾注意过当你处于一种全然关注的状态时，观察者、思考者、中心、“自我”就息止了吗？在那种全然的状态，想法开始息止。如果一个人想要非常清楚地看清一件事情，ta的内心必须非常的安静，没有任何的偏见、碎碎念、对话、画面和图片——所有那些必须搁置一边来观察。而且只有在那种寂静中，你才可以观察想法的开端——不是当你开始搜寻、问问题和等待一个答案。所以只有当你完全寂静的时候，透彻到你的内心深处，提出那个问题：“想法的开端是什么”，你将会开始看到，出于那种寂静，想法是如何成型的。

If there is an awareness of how thought begins then there is no need to control thought. We spend a great deal of time and waste a great deal of energy all through our lives, not only at school, trying to control our thoughts - `This is a good thought, I must think about it a lot. This is an ugly thought, I must suppress it.' There is a battle going on all the time between one thought and another, one desire and another, one pleasure dominating all other pleasures. But if there is an awareness of the beginning of thought, then there is no contradiction in thought.

如果能够觉察想法是如何开始的，那么就没有必要来控制想法。我们在一生中花了大量的时间，浪费了大量的能量，不仅在学校里面，来努力控制我们的想法——“这是一个好的想法，我得多想想它，这是一个丑陋的想法，我必须压制它”。斗争总是存在于一个想法和另外一个想法之间，一个欲望和另外一个之间，一种愉悦主导其它所有的愉悦。但如果能够觉察到想法的开端，那么想法里就没有任何的矛盾。

Now when you hear a statement like 'Thought is always old' or `Time is sorrow', thought begins to translate it and interpret it. But the translation and interpretation are based on yesterday's knowledge and experience, so you will invariably translate according to your conditioning. But if you look at the statements and do not interpret them all but just give them your complete attention (not concentration) you will find there is neither the observer nor the observed, neither the thinker nor the thought. Don't say, `Which began first?' That is a clever argument which leads nowhere. You can observe in yourself that as long as there is no thought - which doesn't mean a state of amnesia, of blankness - as long as there is no thought derived from memory, experience or knowledge, which are all of the past, there is no thinker at all. This is not a philosophical or mystical affair. We are dealing with actual facts, and you will see, if you have gone this far in the journey, that you will respond to a challenge, not with the old brain, but totally anew.

那么当你听到这样一个阐述“想法总是旧的”或者“时间就是伤悲”，想法便开始转译和解读它。但转译和解读是基于昨天的知识和经验，所以你将一贯地根据你的局限来转译。但是如果你能去直面这些阐述，不去解读它们，只是给予它们完全的关注（不是集中注意力），你就会发现既不存在观者，也不存在被观者，既不存在思考者，也不存在想法。不要说：“哪个先开始的？”那只是一个诡辩，什么问题也解决不了。（译注：一切都是循环，这都是来源于神经回路，循环意味着没有头，也没有尾，任何一个地方都是头，任何一个地方都是尾，这就是内心规律的一部分。）

你可以在你自己身上观察到那些，只要没有想法——这不意味着是一种健忘症的状态，空白的状态——只要没有从记忆、经验或知识中衍生的想法（译注：这些想法都是自我的内容，唤起“我”的感觉。大脑全然观察，看到这些想法，这本身已经无为，不追逐，让其自生自灭），这些都是过去，那么思考者不存在。这不是一个哲学的或者神秘的事情。我们在应对事实，你会看到，如果你已经在这条路上走到如此之远，你会用全新的大脑，而不是陈旧的大脑，来应对每一个挑战。