如何慢下来呢？（中英双译版）

如何慢下来呢？（中英双译版）

问：钟爱的师父，要如何慢下来呢？
师父：
阿南达·索们：生活既没有任何目标，也没有任何目的地，它哪里也不去，生活就是生活，它没有目的地。除非你能打从心底穿透这份了解，否则你将无法慢下来。
慢下来无关任何的“如何”，它无关任何技巧和方法。我们总是把一切事情变成“如何”的一个问题。

目前全世界都弥漫着伟大的“如何主义”，而每个人——特别是属于当代头脑的人——都变成了“如何之人”……如何做这个？如何做那个？如何致富？如何成功？如何影响他人？如何羸取朋友？如何静心？甚至如何爱？不久之后的某一天，一定有个笨蛋会问要如何呼吸。

这一切根本无关“如何”，绝不要把生活降低至技巧的层面，生活如果沦为只是技巧的话，它就失去了喜悦的兴味。

我曾经看过一本书，它的书名实在是太精彩了——《你必须放松》。

这个“必须”就是个问题，因为它，所以无人得以放松。而现在——你必须放松加诸在你生活所有其他的“必须”上面，你的生活一定会更加地紧张。如果你尝试要让自己放松，将会发现自己比先前更紧张，而如果你更是努力要让自己放松，你也就会感觉到愈来愈紧张。

放松不是结果，它不是你从事某些活动之后的后果；它是了解的光辉。

这是我想要传达给你们的第一个讯息：生活本身并无目的。这令人们非常难以接受，为什么呢？

因为人们若生活没有目标，自我就无法生存。

人们之所以无法想像生活没有任何目标和目地是因为，如果生活真是如此，那我们的头脑和自我的存在将不具任何意义。
自我能存在于目标取向的视野里，头脑则只能存在于未来。

设定一个目标，未来就出现了，目标创造思考和欲望能存活的空间。于是很自然地，你会开始很着急，因为生命非常短暂。

今天我们活着，明天我们很有可能就离开了——甚至很有可能下一刻就离去。
生命非常短暂。因此如果你有任何目标要达成，你就必须赶快才行，因此你也就一定会时常担心：我是不是有办法成功？你将会一直处于内心在地震的状态——一颗颤动不已的心和时时摇晃的生命，你会总是处于濒临精神崩溃的边缘。设定一个目标，不久之后，你的生命会在心理分析学家的躺椅上完结。
我对生命的洞见是无目地的生活方式。这也是所有悟道的佛陀的洞见——万事万物不为任何理由而存在。

一切的一切是那么地荒谬，如果你能了解这一点，那又何必着急呢？为何要着急呢？于是你就可以一个片刻接着一个片刻地生活，存在给予你这一片刻，它是来自于神、真理、达摩、道或圣灵的一项珍贵的礼物。
你拥有当前的这一刻：唱一首歌、全然地活，绝不要因为即将到来的未来而牺牲当下这一刻，单纯地活出每一个片刻。
人们说艺术是为艺术而艺术，它或许是如此，也或许不是，我不是艺术家，我并不知道。

但我要告诉你，生活是为生活而生活，每一个片刻的意义就在每个片刻中，你若因为任何理由而牺牲掉它是很不明智的。

因此，你若一旦有了牺牲、延缓的习惯，你会开始因为下一个目标而牺牲现在，然后又因为下下一个目标而牺牲下一个片刻……如此不断地牺牲下去——为明年而暂时牺牲今年，为下辈子而暂时牺牲这辈子！这是非常简单的逻辑过程：一旦你开始第一步骤，然后整个旅程就会开始发生，它将会带领你至虚耗的国度，它让你的生活就像沙漠，整个过程是不断地自我毁灭的自杀之旅。

纯然喜悦地活在当下这个片刻，那每个片刻就会有高潮的品质——是的，就是高潮。这就是我的门徒在生活的方式……没有应该、没有必须、没有戒律。

你们不是来这里陪我殉道的，你们来这里是要和我一起享受生命、庆祝生命到生命的最极致。

忘掉未来是唯一通往爱、生活和享受的道路。未来是不存在的。
因此，如果你能忘掉未来，如果你能看见未来并不存在，你也就不需要不断地准备就诸。

当你放下未来，过去也就很自然地变的无关紧要，我们携带着过去是以防未来万一有需要，否则谁要携带着过去呢？这一切都是不必要的，因此，如果没有未来，携带着过去累积的知识又有何意义呢？它是个负担，它将会破坏你生命旅程的喜悦。
让我再次地提醒你，生命是很纯粹的旅程：它是一趟此时此刻的朝圣之旅——它从此时此刻到此时此刻，而在二个此时此刻之间是此时—此刻（here-now），此时此刻包含两个字母：现在、这里。
所以，慢下来与你遵循任何技巧无关，因为如果你面对生命的基本态度保持不变——目标取向——你或许可以试着让自己慢下来，甚至很有可能成功地让自己缓慢下来，但你却又开始了另一趟紧张之旅，因为你必须不断地小心戒备、不断地提醒自己要慢慢来，你必须经常抑制自己好让自己慢下来。

你将无法拥有自然流动的能量，你将会很害怕，如果你忘记了那个技巧，你老旧的习惯很快地将会再次出现，它将会再次地控制住你。

因为你的习惯已是生命中根深蒂固的哲学信念——你被教导成为有成就的人，你一定要有所成就。

我们打从小孩子一出生就开始喂养他很多毒药：野心、成就、成功、富有、名声。

我们开始毒害他生命的根源，给予大量的关注……我们浪费二十五年的时间给孩子有毒的教育。

二十五年是三分之一的人生岁月，它是人生最黄金的三分之一，因为当一个人到达二十五岁的年龄后就会开始渐渐地衰老 ——七岁半至十八岁是一个人性发展阶段的高峰期，等到他到达二十五岁的年龄时，他就已经错过了，他已经变老。

二十五年的时光岁月浪费在创造一个成就取向的头脑……冲突、竞争。在生活的各个层面到处都充斥着政治，它甚至也存在私人的亲密关系中：老公想要控制老婆，老婆想要控制老公；

孩子想要控制父母，父母想要控制小孩——在这样的关系中谈不上一点亲密，因为对一个成就取向的头脑而言，亲密是不可能的。

他只知道如何利用他人，他无法尊敬他人，他在剥削他人，他和生活的关系就如同马丁.鲍伯所说的：“我——它”关系——一切相对于他的事物都沦为只是商品而已。
你爱上一位女人，你很快地就会想要把她变成一项商品，你希望她成为你的老婆，而她也希望把你从一个男人变成是她的老公。

做为一个男人是很美的，做为一个女人是很神圣的，但做为老公或老婆却是很丑陋的，这时候爱就已经不存在了，剩下的只是法律，亲密消失，剩下协议和交易；

到这个时候，诗已死亡。两者都在政治权力中，谁主宰谁呢？
从最亲密的关系到最不具人格性的各种关系中，同样都只是“我——它”的故事，那也就是为什么我们创造出很丑陋的世界。

因此，索们，当你周遭有那么多的竞争和竞争者时，你要如何慢下来呢？如果你慢下来，你就失败了，如果你慢下来你将永远无法成功，如果你慢下来你就输了！

如果你慢下来你就会没没无名，你将无法名垂青史，如果你慢下来，你是谁呢？因为你看不见有任何其他人慢下来。

这就很像你参加奥林匹克的竞赛，而你却问我说要如何慢下来？如果你慢下来，你就半途而废，你就退出竞赛了。

而现在，整个人类的生活都变成了奥林匹克的竞赛，每个人都在竞赛，每个人都发挥到最佳状况，因为最后的结果攸关生死。

有数不尽的敌人……我们活在一个大家都是敌人的世界里，因为你和每个人都在竞争，他们是你的敌人，他们摧毁你成功的机会，你也破坏他们成功的可能性。
在这个充满野心的世界里，友谊无法开花，爱几乎是不可能的事，慈悲也无法存在，我们创造出丑陋不堪的混乱而其根源就在于我们认为我们必须达成某些事情，必须有所成就。
有位人物跑来找我要学习静心，我问他为什么呢？他说：为什么？因为静心让人平静、安静，而我想要安静和平静，所以我才想要学习静心。

我问他：“你真的想要安静和平静吗？” 他说：“是的，这就是为什么我大老远跑来找你的原因。”

我说：“那你第一件要了解的事是——的头脑是绝不可能安静和平静的。所以你必须做个选择；

如果你真的想要进入静心的世界，你就必须要离开的世界。

你不能同时骑两匹马，因为两匹马一定会朝两个完全不同的方向前进。”

他说：“这太严重了吧！事实上，我是因为上的工作才来找你的，我太紧张了，满脑子都不停地在想事情，晚上既睡不着也无法休息，我翻来覆去，整个白天和黑夜总是因为政治而焦虑不堪。

因此我来找你是希望你能教导我一些静心的技巧，让我可以更放轻松，让我能更有效率的在这个世界竞争。

我并没有准备要为静心付出那么多，只是希望静心可以辅佐我在*上的竞争。因为我从已有二十年的时间，但却还未成为我所属省分的主要首长。”
这个人无法静心。静心并非是可以在土壤里面成长的任何东西，它需要有基本的了解，它的改变必须从非常根本的地方着手，它需要全新的土壤和背景。
一位静心的人不需费力就可以让自己慢下来，他不需要练习技巧，任何技巧的练习都不真实，它是非常人为和随意的行为。

避免需要技巧练习的事情——它顶多可以是演技的演出，但却非真实。然而，只有真理会让人自由。
一位静心的人很自然地就会慢下来——并非他试着让自己慢下来，而是因为他没有任何需要达成的目标，他不急着要去哪里或要成为什么，“成为”什么的心理已经停止了。当他停止要成为什么的时候，他就“在”了。而“在”本身就是慢慢的、没有攻击性，也就一点也不匆忙。
然后，你就可以全然地品尝每一个片刻的当下，你可以片刻接着片刻地生活。

否则的话，你就会因为注视着远方的目标、远方的星星而匆忙不已，以致于你根本没有时间看清楚事情真实的面貌。
我曾听说过一则古老的希腊故事。有一位希腊当代最伟大的占星学家：一天夜晚，当他在走路时，因为抬着头研究天上的星星而忘了附近有一口井的存在，于是他不小心就掉到井里面。
他掉下去的声音以及他从井里边传出来的呼喊声，被一位住在附近茅屋里的老太太听跑出来救他，帮助他离开那口井。

他非常高兴，说：“你救了我的命！你知道我是谁吗？我是皇家专属的占星学家。我的收费非常昂贵，甚至连国王也都要等待好几个月才能有机会与我晤谈，但你救了我的命，我可以帮你预测你的未来，你可以明天来找我，我不收取你的费用。”
这老妇人笑一笑说：“少来了！不要开玩笑了！你连前二尺的井都看不见，又怎么能够看见我的未来呢？”
这就是地球上人类的生活状况，人们看不见真实的一切，人们心中总是在盘算着事情应该要如何才对。

整个人类最大的执着妄想是事情应该要如何才对。这是很痴狂的。
一个真正健康的人不会执着于事情未来的发展，他所有的注意力都集中在当下立即的实相。

而如果你能进入立即的当下这一刻，你也就会发现那最终的，如果你能进入近处的事物，你就会在里面发现远方的星辰，如果你能进入当下，那整个永恒都在你的手中，如果你知道你自己的存在本质，你就无需“成为”。所有一切你想像要成为的，你其实已经就是了。
你是神，但你却忘了自己是谁，你是一位掉入睡梦中的国王，在梦中，国王梦见他们变成了乞丐，现在这些乞丐尽一切的努力要变成国王，他唯一需要做的一件事就是清醒过来。
当我说清醒过来时，你想你要在哪里清醒呢？在未来？还是在过去？过去的已成为过去，而未来尚未来到，所以你要在哪里清醒呢？你只能在现在清醒，只能在这里清醒。当下是唯一的一个片刻，也是唯一的实相，而这实相也是唯一一直都存在且会永久存在的现象。
改变你那要达成目标的人生哲学吧！放松！不要有任何理想，不要试着让自己变的不一样，也不要试着证明自己具有神性，你就如你自己一般地完美。有着不完美的你是完美的，如果你并不完美，那你将是很完美的不完美，但却仍是很完美的。
一且你能够了解的话，何来的着急和担心呢？此时，你很自然地就会慢下来。此时，你就会好像散步在早晨的微曦中，没有任何目标，你很享受每一颗树、每一道阳光、每一只小鸟和每个过往的人们。
Question -Beloved Buddha, How to Slow Down?
Buddha：
Anand Somen, life is not going anywhere; there is no goal to it, no destination. Life is non-purposive, it simply is. Unless this understanding penetrates your heart, you cannot slow down.
Slowing down is not a question of any how; it is not a question of technique, method. We reduce everything into a how. There is a great how-to-ism all over the world, and every person, particularly the modern contemporary mind, has become a how-to-er: how to do this, how to do that, how to grow rich, how to be successful, how to influence people and win friends, how to meditate, even how to love. The day is not far off when some stupid guy is going to ask how to breathe. It is not a question of how at all. Don’t reduce life into technology. Life reduced into technology loses all flavor of joy.
I have come across a book; the name of the book is hilarious. The name is You Must Relax. Now the “must” is the problem, but it is there. It is because of the must that nobody is able to relax. Now another must on top of all other musts — You Must Relax — is going to create more tension in your life. Try to relax, and you will find out that you feel more tense than ever. Try harder and you will feel more tense and more tense.
Relaxation is not a consequence, is not a result of some activity; it is the glow of understanding.
This is the first thing I would like to relate to you: life is purposeless. It is very hard to accept it. And why is it so hard to accept that life is purposeless? It is hard because without purpose the ego cannot exist. It is hard to conceive that life has no goal because without any goal being there, there is no point in having a mind, in having an ego. The ego can exist only in a goal-oriented vision; the mind can exist only in the future. The purpose brings future in; the goal creates the space for thoughts to move, desires to arise. And then naturally there is hurry, because life is short. Today we are here and tomorrow we are gone — maybe the next moment.
Life is very short. If there is a goal to be achieved, there is bound to be hurry. And there is bound to be worry, a constant worry “whether I am going to make it or not” — a trembling heart, a shaking of the foundations. You will remain almost always in an inner earthquake, you will be always on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Have a goal, and sooner or later you will end up on the psychoanalyst’s couch.
My vision is that of a goalless life. That is the vision of all the buddhas. Everything simply is, for no reason at all. Everything simply is utterly absurd. If this is understood, then where is the hurry, and for what? Then you start living moment to moment. Then this moment is given to you, a gracious gift from God or the whole or whatsoever you want to call it — Tao, dhamma, logos. This moment is available to you: sing a song, live it in its totality. And don’t try to sacrifice it for any other moment that is going to come in the future. Live it for its own sake.
They say art is for art’s sake. It may be so, it may not be so — I am not an artist. But I can say to you: Life is for life’s sake. Each moment is utterly for its own sake. To sacrifice it for anything else is to be unintelligent. And once the habit of sacrificing settles, then this moment you will sacrifice for the next, and the next for the next, and so on, so forth — this year for the next year, and this life for the next life! Then it is a simple logical process: once you have taken the first step, then the whole journey starts — the journey that leads you into the wasteland, the journey that makes your life a desert, the journey that is self-destructive, suicidal.
Live in the moment for the sheer joy of living it. Then each moment has the quality of an orgasm. Yes, it is orgasmic. This is how my sannyasins have to live, with no should, with no ought, with no must, with no commandment. You are not here to be with me to become martyrs, you are here to be with me to enjoy life to its fullness. And the only way to live, love, enjoy, is to forget the future. It exists not.
And if you can forget the future, if you can see that it is not there, there is no point in constantly getting ready for it. The moment future is dropped, past becomes irrelevant on its own accord. We carry the past so that we can use it in the future. Otherwise who will carry the past? It is unnecessary. If there is no future, what is the point of carrying the knowledge that the past has given to you? It is a burden which will destroy the joy of the journey.
And let me remind you, it is a pure journey. Life is a pilgrimage to nowhere, from nowhere to nowhere. And between these two nowheres is the now-here. Nowhere consists of two words: now, here. Between these two nowheres is the now-here. It is not a question of following a certain technique to slow down, because if your basic approach towards life remains the same — goal-oriented — you may try to slow down, and you may even succeed in slowing down, but now you have started another tension in your life. You have to be constantly on guard so that you remain slow; you have to hold yourself continuously so that you remain slow.
You cannot have a free flow of your energies. You will be constantly afraid, because if you forget the technique, immediately the old habit will take possession of you. And the habit is there, because in fact the habit is rooted in the philosophy of your life. You have been taught to become achievers: Achieve something!
From the very first moment a child is born, we start feeding him poisons: ambition, achievement, success, richness, name, fame. We start poisoning his sources of being; we give great attention… twenty-five years are wasted in giving a poisonous education to children. It is one-third of life; it seems to be a wastage. And it is the most important one-third, because by the time a person is twenty-five he has already started declining in many ways. The highest peak of his sexuality is no longer there, it was nearabout when he was seventeen and a half; nearabout eighteen he had the highest sexual peak. By the time he is twenty-five he is already getting old.
Twenty-five years wasted in creating an achiever’s mind…. And then there is competition, conflict. On each level of life, everywhere there is politics. Even in private intimate relationship there is politics: the husband trying to control the wife, the wife trying to control the husband, the children trying to control the parents, the parents trying to control the children. There is no intimacy left, because for the achieving mind intimacy is not possible. He only knows how to use the other; he cannot be respectful to the other. He is exploitative. His relationship with life is what Martin Buber calls the “I-it” relationship: everything is reduced into a commodity.
You love a woman: immediately you start reducing her into a commodity, reducing her into being a wife, and she is trying to reduce you from a man into a husband. To be a man is something beautiful, to be a woman is something divine, but to be a wife or to be a husband is simply ugly. Love is no more there, it is law. Intimacy is gone; now it is bargain, business. Now the poetry is dead. And both are in politics now: who dominates whom?
From the most intimate relationship to the most impersonal relationship, it is the same story. The story is that of I-it. That’s why we have created an ugly world. And naturally, when there is so much competition and so many competitors, Somen, how can you slow down? If you slow down you will be a failure, if you slow down you will never be able to succeed, if you slow down you are lost! If you slow down you will be anonymous, you will not be able to leave your signature in the world. Who will you be if you slow down? Everybody else is not slowing down.
It is almost as if you are in an Olympic race and you ask me, “How to slow down?” If you slow down, you are a drop-out! Then you are no more in the Olympic race. And this whole life has been turned into an Olympic race. Everybody is racing, and everybody has to race to the optimum, because it is a question of life and death. Millions of enemies… we are living in a world where everybody is your enemy, because with whomsoever you are in competition, they are your enemies. They are destroying your possibilities of success, you are destroying their possibilities of success.
In this ambitious world, friendship cannot bloom, love is almost impossible, compassion cannot exist. We have created such an ugly mess, and the root is that we think that there is something to achieve.
There is no difference between a capitalist country or a communist country, it is the same philosophy. Communism is a by-product of capitalism, just as Christianity is a by-product of Judaism. There is not much difference; only words change. The game remains the same — translated into another language, certainly, but the game is the same.
Power politics is as great in a communist country — in fact there is more than there is in a capitalist country — because we never change the foundation, we only go on whitewashing the walls. You can whitewash them, you can change the color; that is not going to make any real difference. And that’s what we go on doing in our individual lives too.
One politician came to me and he wanted to learn how to meditate. I asked why. He said “Why? Meditation gives peace, silence, and I want to be silent, I want to be peaceful.”
I asked him, “Do you really want to be silent and peaceful?”
He said, “Yes, that’s why I have come from so long a distance.”
“Then,” I said, “the first thing you will have to understand is that the political mind can never be silent and can never be peaceful. You will have to choose. If you want really to enter into the world of meditation, you will have to get out of the world of politics. You cannot ride on two horses, and two horses which are going in diametrically opposite directions.”
He said, “That is too much! In fact I had come to you because of my political work. There is so much tension in the mind, I cannot sleep in the night, I cannot rest, I toss and turn, and the whole day and the night too, the same political anxiety continues. I had come to you so that you can teach me a technique of meditation that can help me to relax and compete more efficiently in the world. I am not ready to pay that much for meditation. I want meditation to serve me in my political competition. Twenty years I have been in politics, and yet I have not become the chief minister of my state.”
Now, this man cannot meditate. Meditation is not something that can grow in any soil. It needs a basic understanding; the change has to be very fundamental. It needs a new soil to grow in; it needs a new gestalt. A meditator naturally slows down with no effort. He does not practice it. A practiced thing is never true; it is artificial, arbitrary. Avoid practiced things — at the most they can be actings, they are not true. And only truth liberates.
A meditator is naturally slow — not because he is trying to be slow but just because there is nowhere to go. There is nothing to achieve, there is nothing to become, the becoming has ceased. When becoming ceases, being is. And being is slow, non-aggressive, unhurried. Then you can savor the taste of each moment with total presence, you can be present to the present; otherwise you are in such a hurry that it is impossible to have any look at that which is. Your eyes are focused on a faraway distant goal, a faraway distant star; you are looking there.
I have heard an ancient story, it happened in Greece. A great astrologer, the most famous of those days, fell into a well. Because in the night he was studying the stars, walking on the road he forgot that there was a well by the side and fell into it. The sound of his falling and his crying…. An old woman who lived in a hut by the side came out, helped him to get out of the well. He was very happy. He said, “You have saved my life! Do you know who I am? I am the royal astrologer. My fee is very great — even kings have to wait for months to consult me — but for you I will predict your future. You come tomorrow morning to my house, and I will not take any fee.”
The old woman laughed and she said, “Forget all about it! You cannot see even two feet ahead — how can you see my future?”
This is the situation of millions of people on this earth. They cannot see that which is, they are obsessed with that which should be. The greatest obsession that humanity suffers is of “that which should be.” It is a kind of madness. The really healthy person has no concern with that which should be. His whole concern is the immediate, that which is. And you will be surprised: if you enter into the immediate, you will find the ultimate in it. If you move into that which is close by, you will find all the distant stars in it. If you move in the present moment, the whole eternity is in your hands. If you know your being, there is no question of becoming. All that you could have ever imagined to become you already are.
You are gods who have forgotten who they are. You are emperors who have fallen asleep and are dreaming that they have become beggars. Now beggars are trying to become emperors — in dreams they are making great efforts to become emperors, and all that is needed is to wake up! And when I say wake up, where can you wake up? In the future? In the past? The past is no more, the future not yet — where you can wake up? You can wake up only now, and you can wake up only here. This is the only moment there is, and this is the only reality there is, and this is the only reality that has always been and will always be.
Change your basic philosophy of that of an achiever. Relax into your being. Don’t have any ideals, don’t try to make something out of yourself, don’t try to improve upon God. You are perfect as you are. With all your imperfections you are perfect. If you are imperfect, you are perfectly imperfect — but perfection is there. Once this is understood, where is the hurry? Where is the worry? You have already slowed down. And then it is a morning walk with no destination, going nowhere. You can enjoy each tree and each sunray and each bird and each person that passes by.Source The Book of Wisdom
??延伸阅读OBuddha??
@吃饭或喝水的时候，变成食物或饮品的味道，被那个味道填满
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