对于婚姻,不要期待太多,也不要太少。水不能升越它自己的位置。你们两人的结合所产生的回报,不会超出你们的付出。假如你满脑子劣根性、不能容忍他人、缺乏耐性、苛求、专横、多疑、暴躁、自私,别奢想这些德性会使你的婚姻快乐,或换一个伴侣搞个新的结合就能使它变得成功!婚姻,恰似我们人生中的一切人际关系,是一个过程,这过程会把人的棱角磨得平滑。磨平棱角往往很痛,要适应一个人的性格也诚非易事,尤其在开始的时候,这便是为何婚姻比任何人际关系都更加需要爱。爱从本质上来说是一种神性力量,具有结合人心的效力;它像火花,能跃过不同思想和互相矛盾的意愿,以及大相径庭的脾性之间的缝隙。爱,医治我们无意中,或因一时动怒,或因妒忌和积怨,在彼此身上留下的伤。在婚姻中,除了爱的作用,还会产生一种强力的催化剂——习惯。由这共同的家,这日日的交往,培养出一个共同的观念框架,而习惯——这个生活中最强大的力量之一——则把夫妻联结在一起。这是一个奇妙的稳定剂,要是爱不幸走了样,单单靠习惯的力量,可以维持那个联结。 摘自鲁希叶·拉巴尼之语,转引自《地球乃一国》。www.datongbooks.com
Do not expect too much of marriage, or too little. Water cannot rise above its own level. The union cannot produce more than you two contribute to it. If you are full of imperfections, intolerant, impatient, exacting, dictatorial, suspicious, short-tempered, selfish, do not imagine that these characteristics are going to make your marriage happy or that by changing your partner a new union will be more successful! Marriage, like all our other relationships in life, is a process which, among other things, serves to grind the sharp edges off us. The grinding often hurts, the adjustment to another person’s character is difficult at first, that is why love is needed here more than in any other relationship. Love, being essentially a divine force, binds; it leaps like a spark the gap between people’s thoughts and conflicting desires, between perhaps widely different temperaments. It heals the wounds we all inflict on each other whether inadvertently or in moments of rage, jealousy or spite. To the influence of love in marriage is gradually added another powerful catalyst: habit. The common home, the daily association, produces a common framework, and habit, one of the most powerful forces in life, begins to knit husband and wife together. It acts as a wonderful stabilizer; if love is allowed to fail, habit itself may be strong enough to preserve the union. From Rú?íyyih Rabbání,quoted in 'The Earth is But One Country'.www.datongbooks.com
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