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第十章
痛苦和痛苦的终结
万事万物都是互相关联的：佛教徒已经了解这一点，物理学家们现在也证实了这一点。没有什么事情是独立发生的，只是看上去如此罢了。我们越是下判断、贴标签，我们就越是将它孤立起来。
由于我们的思考，生命的合一变得支离破碎。然而，这件事正是生命的整体所带来的。它是这个联结之网也就是宇宙秩序的一部分。这意味着无论当下发生什么，就是什么，它不可能是其他的样子。
绝大多数情况下，我们无法开始了解，一个看上去毫无意义的事件在整个宇宙秩序中可能会扮演什么角色，但如果我们对这件事情在浩瀚无垠的整体中的必然性有所体认，就开启了对当下如是的内在的接纳，于是，我们开始与生命的整体协调一致。
***
以这样的方式生活，就是真正的自由和痛苦的终结：无论在这一刻你感受到什么，经验到什么，将它完全看作是你自己的选择。与当下达成内在的协调一致，就是痛苦的终结。
***
痛苦真的是必要的吗。是，也不是。如果你不曾像过去那样痛苦过，你就没有作为人的深度 –
没有谦逊，没有同情。你现在就不会在听这个教导了。痛苦的伤痕撬开了自我的壳。然后它就完成使命了。
痛苦是必要的，直到你明白痛苦是不必要的为止。
***
不愉快的感受需要一个由头脑制造的我，和一个故事，它需要这个概念性的身份。它还需要时间，过去和未来。当你将时间从你的不愉快上移除，剩下的是什么呢？是此时此刻的“如是”。那一刻，你也许感到沉重、焦虑、紧张、愤怒，甚至恶心。这并不是不愉快，这也不是个人的问题。
在人类的痛苦中，没有什么是属于个人的。它只是你在身体的某处感受到的一种巨大的压力或能量。藉着给予它注意力，这个感受没有转化为思考，也没有激活那个不快乐的我。如果你只是允许一个感受存在，看看会发生什么。
***
如果你将进入你的头脑里的每一个念头当真，就会引发很多痛苦和不愉快。情境不会使你不愉快。他们也许会带来身体上的疼痛，但是他们不会使你感到不愉快。是你的念头令你不愉快。你的解读，那个你告诉自己的故事令你不快乐。“是我此刻的一些念头，令我不快乐。”这个领悟打破了你对那些念头的无意识的认同。
***
“多么糟糕的一天。”“他没回我电话，真没礼貌。”“她太让我失望了。”
通常，我们都是以抱怨的形式，对自己和别人述说这些小故事。我们无意识地设计了这些抱怨，通过使自己是正确的，使其他人或其他事是错误的，来加强我们那匮乏的自我感。“我是对的”将我们置身于一种想象的优越感之中，从而强化了这个虚假的自我，这个小我。这同时也制造了某个敌人。是的，小我需要敌人来定义它的边界。甚至是天气也能服务于这个功能。经由习惯性的头脑上的判断和情绪上的紧缩，你对生命中的人或事有一个个人化的反应模式。这都是自己制造的各种形式的痛苦，但是人们意识不到，因为它们令小我感到满足。经由习性反应和冲突，小我强化了它自己。如果没有那些故事，生活会是多么简单啊。“下雨了。”“他没回电。”“我去了，她没去。”
***
当你痛苦的时候，不开心的时候，全然地与那一刻在一起。
不愉快或是烦恼，都无法在当下存活。
***
当你在头脑中给一个情境命名或贴标签，认为它是烦人的或糟糕的，痛苦就开始了。你讨厌一个情境，这个抵触情绪使这个情境个人化，并且带来了这个起习性反应的我。命名或贴标签是习惯性的，但这个习惯可以被打破。开始利用一些小事来练习不命名。如果你错过了班机、摔坏了一个杯子，或在泥泞中滑倒了，你能不能克制住自己，不给这个经验贴上糟糕或令人痛苦的标签？你能否立即接纳当下的这个“如是”。
将某事标注为糟糕的会在你的身体里引发一种情绪上的紧缩，当你不给它贴标签，只是顺其自然，突然，你会感到一股巨大的力量。这个紧缩切断了你与这力量，这生命自身的力量的联结。
***
他们偷食了这关于善与恶的知识之树的果实。克制住自己不要总在头脑里给事物贴上好与坏的标签，你就超越了善恶的二元对立。当你超越了这命名的习惯，宇宙的力量就会穿过你。当你对一个经验不再产生习性反应，那些你过去称为坏的经验，会经由生命本身的力量发生转变，这改变就算不是立即发生，常常也会比较快到来。当你不再将一个经验命名为坏的，而是对这经验给予一个内在的接纳，一个内在的“是”，允许它顺其自然，看看会发生什么吧。
***
无论你的生活情境如何，如果，就在现在，你彻底接纳它本来的样子，你的感受如何？
***
痛苦有很多不同的形式，微妙的，或是不那么微妙的，它们如此稀松平常，常常不被人们看作是痛苦，甚至还有可能令小我感到满足。
厌恶、焦躁、怒火、对某事或某人看不顺眼、憎恨、抱怨。当它们发生的时候，你可以学会认出这些痛苦的形式，并且意识到，在这一刻，我正在给自己制造痛苦。
如果你正习惯性地给自己制造痛苦，你也很可能正在给别人带来痛苦。只要在它们发生的时候认出它们，使它们变得有意识，这些无意识的头脑的喋喋不休就会慢慢停止。
你不可能同时是有意识的，而又在给自己制造痛苦。
***
这就是那个奇迹。在每个看似“坏的”或“邪恶的”事件、个人，或情境的背后，都隐藏着一个更深的“善”。通过你对当下所是的内在接纳，这个更深的“善”由内到外地向你揭露出它自己。“不要抗拒邪恶”是人类最高真理之一。
***
一段对话：
“接纳事情的本来面目。”
“我真的做不到。我对这事感到激动和愤怒。”
“那就接纳你现在的状况。”
“接纳我现在感到激动和愤怒？接纳我的无法接纳？”
“是的。将接纳带入你的不接纳。将臣服带入你的不臣服。
然后看看会发生什么。”
***
身体上的慢性疼痛是你能遇到的最严厉的老师之一。它要教导你的就是：抗拒是徒劳的。再也没有什么比“不情愿受苦”更常见的了。然而，如果你可以放下这个不情愿，而是允许那痛苦存在，你也许会留意到你与这痛苦微妙地分离开来，你与它之间有了一个空隙，这个空隙一直都存在。这意味着有意识地、心甘情愿地受苦。当你有意识地承受痛苦，肉体上的疼痛可以迅速将你的小我燃烧殆尽，因为小我很大程度上是由抗拒所组成的。对于严重的身体上的残疾来说，这也是真的。“将你的痛苦献给上帝”是对这一真理的另一种说法。
***
要理解十字架这个象征符号所包含的深刻的宇宙真理，你并不一定非得是基督徒。这个十字架是一个刑具。它代表了一个人所能遭遇到的最大的痛苦、限制和无助。然后，突然，这个人带着全然的意识，心甘情愿地承受痛苦，他通过这样的话语表达了这一点：“不是我的意志，而是你的意志会被完成。”在那一刻，这个十字架，这个施加酷刑的工具，显露了它隐藏的面目。
同时，它也是一个神圣的符号，是神性的象征。这个十字架，看上去似乎否定了生命中有任何超越的层面存在，然而，经由臣服，它成为了通往那个层面的入口。
（全书完）
翻译：游由
~~~原文如下~~~
Chapter 10
Suffering and the End of Suffering
The interconnectedness of all things: Buddhists have always known
it and
physicists now confirm it. Nothing that happens is an isolated
event, it only appears
to be. The more we judge and label it, the more we isolate
it.
The wholeness of life becomes fragmented through our thinking. Yet
the totality of
life has brought this event about. It is part of the web of
interconnectedness that is
the cosmos. This means whatever is could not be otherwise.
In most cases, we cannot begin to understand what role a seemingly
senseless
event may have within the totality of the cosmos but recognizing
its inevitability
within the vastness of the whole can be the beginning of an inner
acceptance of
what is and thus a realignment with the wholeness of life.
***
True freedom and the end of suffering is living in such a way as if
you had
completely chosen whatever you feel or experience at this moment.
This inner
alignment with Now is the end of suffering.
***
Is suffering really necessary. Yes and no. If you had not suffered
as you have, there
would be no depths to you as a human being–no humility, no
compassion. You
would not be listening to this now. Suffering cracks open the shell
of ego. And then
comes a point where it has served its purpose.
Suffering is necessary until you realize that it is
unnecessary.
***
Unhappiness needs a mind-made me with a story, the conceptual
identity. It needs
time, past and future. When you remove time from your unhappiness,
what is it that
remains? The “suchness” of this moment remains. It may be a feeling
of heaviness
of heaviness, agitation, tightness, anger or even nausea. That is
not unhappiness
and it is not a personal problem.
There is nothing personal in human pain. It is simply an intense
pressure or an
intense energy you feel somewhere in the body. By giving it
attention, the feeling
doesn't turn into thinking and thus activate the unhappy me. See
what happens
when you just allow a feeling to be.
***
Much suffering, much unhappiness arises when you take each thought
that comes
into your head for the truth. Situations don't make you unhappy.
They may cause
you physical pain, but they don't make you unhappy. Your thoughts
make you
unhappy. Your interpretations, the stories you tell yourself make
you unhappy.
“The thoughts I'm thinking right now make me unhappy.” This
realization breaks
you unconscious identification with those thoughts.
***
“What a miserable day.” “He didn't have the decency to return my
call.” “She let
me down.” Little stores we tell ourselves and others, often in the
form of
complaints. They are unconsciously designed to enhance our always
deficient sense
of self through being right and making something or someone wrong.
Being right
places us in a position of imagined superiority and so strengthens
our false sense of
self, the ego. This also creates some kind of enemy. Yes, the ego
needs enemies to
define its boundary. And even the weather can serve that function.
Through
habitual mental judgment and emotional contraction you have a
personalized
reactive relationship to people and events in your life. These are
all forms of selfcreated
suffering but are not recognized as such because to the ego they
are
satisfying. The ego enhances itself through reactivity and
conflict. How simple life
would be without those stories. “It is raining.” “He did not call.”
“I was there, she
was not.”
***
When you are suffering, when you are unhappy, stay totally with
what is now.
Unhappiness or problems cannot survive in the Now.
***
Suffering begins when you mentally name or label a situation in
some way as
undesirable or bad. You resent a situation and that resentment
personalizes it and
brings in the reactive me. Naming and labeling are habitual but
that habit can be
broken. Start practicing not naming with small things. If you miss
the plane, drop
and break a cup, or slip and fall in the mud, can you refrain from
naming the
experience as bad or painful? Can you immediately accept the
“isness” of that
moment.
Naming something as bad causes an emotional contraction within you.
when you
let it be without naming it, enormous power is suddenly available
to you. The
contraction cuts you off from that power, the power of life
itself.
***
They ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Go beyond good
and bad by refraining from mentally naming anything as good or bad.
When you go
beyond the habitual naming, the power of the universe moves through
you. When
you are in a nonreactive relationship to experiences, what you
would have called
bad before, often turns around quickly, if not immediately through
the power of life
itself. Watch what happens when you don't name an experience as bad
and instead
bring an inner acceptance, an inner “yes” to it, and so let it be
as it is.
***
Whatever your life situation is, how would you feel if you
completely accepted it as
it is, right now?
***
There are many subtle and not so subtle forms of suffering that are
so normal, they
are usually not recognized as suffering and may even feel
satisfying to the ego.
Irritation, impatience, anger, having an issue with something or
someone,
resentment, complaining. You can learn to recognize all those forms
of suffering as
they happen and know at this moment I am creating suffering for
myself.
If you are in the habit of creating suffering for yourself, you are
probably creating
suffering for others too. These unconscious mind patters tend to
come to an end
simply by making them conscious, by becoming aware of them as they
happen.
You cannot be conscious and create suffering for yourself.
***
This is the miracle. behind every condition, person or situation
that appears bad or
evil, lies concealed a deeper good. That deeper good reveals itself
to you, both
within and without through inner acceptance of what is. “Resist not
evil” is one of
the highest truths of humanity.
***
A dialog:
"Accept what is."
"I truly cannot. I am agitated and angry about this."
"Then accept what is."
"Accept that I am agitated and angry? Accept that I cannot
accept?"
"Yes. Bring acceptance into your non-acceptance. Bring surrender
into your nonsurrender.
Then see what happens."
***
Chronic physical pain is one of the harshest teachers you can have.
Resistance is
futile is its teaching. Nothing could be more normal than an
unwillingness to suffer.
Yet, if you can let go of that unwillingness, and instead allow the
pain to be there,
you may notice a subtle inner separation from the pain, a space
between you and
the pain, as it were. This means to suffer consciously, willingly.
When you suffer
consciously, physical pain can quickly burn up the ego in you since
ego consists
largely of resistance. The same is true of extreme physical
disability. “You offer up
your suffering to God,” is another way of saying this.
***
You don't need to be a Christian to understand the deep universal
truth that is
contained in symbolic form in the image of the cross. The cross is
a torture
instrument. It stands for the most extreme suffering, limitation,
and helplessness a
human being can encounter. Then suddenly that human being suffers
willingly,
consciously, expressed through the words, “not my will, but thy
will be done.” At
that moment, the cross, the torture instrument shows its hidden
face.
It is also a sacred symbol, a symbol for the divine. That which
seemed to deny the
existence of any transcendental dimension to life, through
surrender becomes an
opening into that dimension.
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