If you think it is important to know about yourself only because I or someone else has told you it is important, then I am afraid all communication between us comes to an end. But if we agree that it is vital that we understand ourselves completely, then you and I have quite a different relationship, then we can explore together with a happy, careful and intelligent enquiry.
如果你只是因为我或别人曾经告诉过你，认识自己很重要，你就认为重要，那么，我恐怕我们之间的所有沟通都就此结束了。但是，如果我们一致认为，完全了解自己至关重要，那么你我就会有一段（相比前者）截然不同的相互关系，那么我们就可以通过开心、仔细、明智的质询（enquiry）一起探索。
I do not demand your faith; I am not setting myself up as an authority. I have nothing to teach you - no new philosophy, no new system, no new path to reality; there is no path to reality any more than to truth. All authority of any kind, especially in the field of thought and understanding, is the most destructive, evil thing. Leaders destroy the followers and followers destroy the leaders. You have to be your own teacher and your own disciple. You have to question everything that man has accepted as valuable, as necessary.
我不要求你信仰我，也不会将自己当做是权威。我没有任何东西要教给你 －－ 新哲学、新系统、新的通往实相的道路；除了面对事实，没有任何通往实相的道路。任何种类的权威都是毁灭性的、邪恶的，尤其是那些在思想和悟性方面的权威，最具毁灭性。带领者毁灭追随者，追随者也毁灭带领者。你得做自己的老师，做自己的门徒。你得去质疑人们已接受为有价值、必要的任何东西。
If you do not follow somebody you feel very lonely. Be lonely then. Why are you frightened of being alone? Because you are faced with yourself as you are and you find that you are empty, dull, stupid, ugly, guilty and anxious - a petty, shoddy, secondhand entity. Face the fact; look at it, do not run away from it. The moment you run away fear begins.
如果你不跟随任何人，你会感到很孤独。那就孤独吧。为什么你会被孤独吓怕呢？因为你面对自己的本来面目时，会发现你空洞、迟钝、愚蠢、丑陋、罪恶和焦躁 －－ 一个狭隘的、劣质的、二手的东西。面对这个事实，看着它，不要逃避。你逃避的那一刻，恐惧就开始了。
In enquiring into ourselves we are not isolating ourselves from the rest of the world. It is not an unhealthy process. Man throughout the world is caught up in the same daily problems as ourselves, so in enquiring into ourselves we are not being in the least neurotic because there is no difference between the individual and the collective. That is an actual fact. I have created the world as I am. So don't let us get lost in this battle between the part and the whole.
在质询我们自己的时候，我们不是在将自己从外部世界中隔离出来。质询自己并不是一个不健康的过程。整个世界的人都和我们一样被同样的日常问题所困扰，因此质询自己丝毫不会让我们变成神经病，因为个体与整个人类并不存在差别。这是事实。我是什么样的，我就创造了什么样的世界。故而我们不要迷失在这个部分和整体的战斗中。
I must become aware of the total field of my own self, which is the consciousness of the individual and of society. It is only then, when the mind goes beyond this individual and social consciousness, that I can become a light to myself that never goes out.
我必须了解关于我自己的的整个领域，即个体和社会意识的整个领域。唯有此时，在心智超越了个体和社会意识的时候，我才能够成为照亮自己的永不熄灭的光。
Now where do we begin to understand ourselves? Here am I, and how am I to study myself, observe myself, see what is actually taking place inside myself? I can observe myself only in relationship because all life is relationship. It is no use sitting in a corner meditating about myself. I cannot exist by myself. I exist only in relationship to people, things and ideas, and in studying my relationship to outward things and people, as well as to inward things, I begin to understand myself. Every other form of understanding is merely an abstraction and I cannot study myself in abstraction; I am not an abstract entity; therefore I have to study myself in actuality - as I am, not as I wish to be.
现在，我们从哪里开始了解自己？我就在这里，那么我该怎样研究自己、观察自己，看到自己内在实际在发生什么？我只能在关系中观察我自己，因为所有的生活都是关系。坐在角落里冥想自己是没有用的。我不能独自生存。我只能在人、物、观念的关系中生存。在研究我与外在的物与人的关系、我与内心活动的关系的过程中，我开始了解了我自己。任何其他形式的了解，都只是抽象的，而我不能抽象地研究自己；我不是一个抽象的实体；因而，我必须在现实存在中了解我自己 －－ 研究我的真实样子，不是我想成为的样子。
Understanding is not an intellectual process. Accumulating knowledge about yourself and learning about yourself are two different things, for the knowledge you accumulate about yourself is always of the past and a mind that is burdened with the past is a sorrowful mind. Learning about yourself is not like learning a language or a technology or in the present and knowledge is always in the past, and as most of us live in the past and are satisfied with the past, knowledge becomes extraordinarily important to us. That is why we worship the erudite, the clever, the cunning. But if you are learning all the time, learning every minute, learning by watching and istening, learning by seeing and doing, then you will find that learning is a constant movement without the past.
了解，不是一种理性活动的过程。积累关于你自己的知识，与了解你自己，是两件不同的事情，因为你积累的关于你自己的知识总是关于过去的，而一个担负着过去的心智，是伤心难过的。了解你自己是了解你的现在，这不像学习语言或技术，因为知识总是在过去；而由于我们大多数人活在过去，并且满足于过去，知识对我们来说就变得特别重要。这就是我们崇拜博学、聪明、狡猾的原因所在。但是，如果我们时时刻刻都在了解，了解每一分钟，通过注视（watch）和倾听来了解，通过看（see）和做来了解，那么，你就会发现，了解是永恒的运动，了解中是没有过去的。
If you say you will learn gradually about yourself, adding more and more, little by little, you are not studying yourself now as you are but through acquired knowledge. Learning implies a great sensitivity. There is no sensitivity if there is an idea, which is of the past, dominating the present. Then the mind is no longer quick, pliable, alert. Most of us are not sensitive even physically. We overeat, we do not bother about the right diet, we oversmoke and drink so that our bodies become gross and insensitive; the quality of attention in the organism itself is made dull. How can there be a very alert, sensitive, clear mind if the organism itself is dull and heavy? We may be sensitive about certain things that touch us personally but to be completely sensitive to all the implications of life demand that there be no separation between the organism and the psyche. It is a total movement.
如果你说你会逐渐地了解你自己，一点一点地累积，越积越多，你就不是在当下研究你自己的真实样子，而是通过已获得的知识来研究自己。学习意味着非常敏感。如果当下被观念 －－ 观念总是来自于过去 －－ 所主宰，就没有敏感性可言。那么心智就不再迅速、柔软、警觉。我们大多数人即使在身体上也都不敏感了。我们饮食过量，我们嫌正确饮食太麻烦，我们烟酒过量，以至于我们的身体变得沉重和不敏感；就连机体自身的注意力（attention）都已毫无质量、变得麻木。机体自身都麻木、沉重，我们又如何能拥有警觉、敏感、清晰的心智？我们可能会对某些触动我们个人的特定的东西敏感，但要对生命需求的所有暗示敏感，就没有身体和精神之分。生命是一个整体在运动。
To understand anything you must live with it, you must observe it, you must know all its content, its nature, its structure, its movement. Have you ever tried living with yourself? If so, you will begin to see that yourself is not a static state, it is a fresh living thing. And to live with a living thing your mind must also be alive. And it cannot be alive if it is caught in opinions, judgements and values.
要了解任何东西，你都必须与之共处，你必须观察它，了解它的内容、本质、结构和运动。你曾经试过与你自己共处吗？如果试过，你会开始发现，你不是一个静止状态，而是一个新鲜的、活着的东西。要与活着的东西共处，你的心智也必须是活着的。陷于观点、判断、价值的心智，不可能是活着的。
In order to observe the movement of your own mind and heart, of your whole being, you must have a free mind, not a mind that agrees and disagrees, taking sides in an argument, disputing over mere words, but rather following with an intention to understand - a very difficult thing to do because most of us don't know how to look at, or listen to, our own being any more than we know how to look at the beauty of a river or listen to the breeze among the trees.
为了观察你自己思想和心灵的运动，你的全部，你必须有自由的心智，你的心不能评判同意或不同意、在争论中选取立场、或仅仅通过语言来争论，而是要以一种去了解的意图来跟随 －－ 这非常难以做到，因为我们大多数人不知道如何去看、去听我们自己的状态，就像我们不知道如何去看小河的美，如何去听树间的微风一样。
When we condemn or justify we cannot see clearly, nor can we when our minds are endlessly chattering; then we do not observe what is we look only at the projections we have made of ourselves. Each of us has an image of what we think we are or what we should be, and that image, that picture, entirely prevents us from seeing ourselves as we actually are.
当我们谴责或评判的时候，我们就不能清晰地看，我们的内心喋喋不休的时候，我们也不能清晰地看；这些时候我们没有在观察我们真实的样子，而只是在看我们把自己投射在自己内心的意象（image）。我们每个人，对我们认为的我们是什么样子或我们应该成为什么样子都有一个想象，而这个意象、图像，让我们完全无法看到自己真实的样子。
It is one of the most difficult things in the world to look at anything simply. Because our minds are very complex we have lost the quality of simplicity. I don't mean simplicity in clothes or food, wearing only a loin cloth or breaking a record fasting or any of that immature nonsense the saints cultivate, but the simplicity that can look directly at things without fear - that can look at ourselves as we actually are without any distortion - to say when we lie we lie, not cover it up or run away from it.
世界上最难的事之一，就是简单地去看每件事。我们的心智非常复杂，我们已经失去了简单的品质。我说的简单不是指吃穿上的简单，只系一块腰布或打破禁食记录等等这些救世主所教我们的不成熟无意义的东西，而是单纯地没有恐惧地直接地去看事物 －－ 这样就能没有扭曲地看到自己真实的样子 －－ 我们在说谎就说我们在说谎，不掩盖也不逃避。
Also in order to understand ourselves we need a great deal of humility. If you start by saying, `I know myself', you have already stopped learning about yourself; or if you say, 'There is nothing much to learn about myself because I am just a bundle of memories, ideas, experiences and traditions', then you have also stopped learning about yourself. The moment you have achieved anything you cease to have that quality of innocence and humility; the moment you have a conclusion or start examining from knowledge, you are finished, for then you are translating every living thing in terms of the old. Whereas if you have no foothold, if there is no certainty, no achievement, there is freedom to look, to achieve. And when you look with freedom it is always new. A confident man is a dead human being.
为了了解我们自己，我们还需要极大的谦逊。如果你一开始就说，“我了解我自己”，你就已经停止了解你自己了；或者如果你说，“关于我自己，没什么好了解的，因为我只是一堆记忆、观念、经验、传统”，那么你也已经停止了解你自己了。你只要一“达成”，你就不再具有天真和谦逊的品质了；你只要一得出结论，或一开始根据知识来检视，你就结束了（了解），因为此时你就把活的东西都变成老旧的死的了。然而，若没有定论、没有确定性、没有达成，就有去看、去达成的自由。而当你带着自由去看，就会发现所看的东西总是新的。有把握的人是死的。
But how can we be free to look and learn when our minds from the moment we are born to the moment we die are shaped by a particular culture in the narrow pattern of the `me'? For centuries we have been conditioned by nationality, caste, class, tradition, religion, language, education, literature, art, custom, convention, propaganda of all kinds, economic pressure, the food we eat, the climate we live in, our family, our friends, our experiences - every influence you can think of - and therefore our responses to every problem are conditioned.
但是我们整个一生已经被特定的文化将我们的心智塑造成狭隘的“我”的模式，我们如何才能够自由地去看呢？多少世纪以来，我们已经被国籍、等级制度、阶级、传统、宗教、语言、教育、文学、艺术、风俗、习惯、各种宣传、经济压力、食物、气候、家庭、朋友、经验 －－ 任何你能想到的影响因素 －－ 所限制住了，因而我们对任何问题的反应都被限制住了。
Are you aware that you are conditioned? That is the first thing to ask yourself, not how to be free of your conditioning. You may never be free of it, and if you say, I must be free of it', you may fall into another trap of another form of conditioning. So are you aware that you are conditioned? Do you know that even when you look at a tree and say, That is an oak tree', or `that is a banyan tree', the naming of the tree, which is botanical knowledge, has so conditioned your mind that the word comes between you and actually seeing the tree? To come in contact with the tree you have to put your hand on it and the word will not help you to touch it.
你意识到你是受限制的了吗？这是你要问自己的第一个问题，不是去问如何摆脱这种限制。你可能永远不会摆脱这种限制，而如果你说，“我必须摆脱限制”，你就可能陷入另一种形式的限制中。故你意识到你受限制了吗？你知不知道，即便你看到一棵树说“这是棵橡树”或“那是棵菩提树”，树的名字、植物学的知识，都已经限制住了你的心智，使得你隔着文字，无法真正看到这棵树？要与树接触你得将你的手放在树上，文字不会帮助你去触碰它。
How do you know you are conditioned? What tells you? What tells you you are hungry? - not as a theory but the actual fact of hunger? In the same way, how do you discover the actual fact that you are conditioned? Isn't it by your reaction to a problem, a challenge? You respond to every challenge according to your conditioning and your conditioning being inadequate will always react inadequately.
你是怎样知道自己受限制的？什么告诉你的？什么能告诉你你饿了？ －－ 不是理论上的饿，而是饿了这个事实？同样的道理，你如何发现自己受限制的这个事实？难道不是从你对问题和挑战的反应中看出来的吗？你在受限的情况下，回应每个挑战，而你不当的受限，总是会有不当的反应。
When you become aware of it, does this conditioning of race, religion and culture bring a sense of imprisonment? Take only one form of conditioning, nationality, become seriously, completely aware of it and see whether you enjoy it or rebel against it, and if you rebel against it, whether you want to break through all conditioning. If you are satisfied with your conditioning you will obviously do nothing about it, but if you are not satisfied when you become aware of it, you will realize that you never do anything without it. Never! And therefore you are always living in the past with the dead.
当你逐渐意识到了这一点，这些种族、宗教、文化的限制，是否会带给你一种禁锢之感？仅以国籍的限制为例，当你逐渐严肃地、完全地意识到了它的限制，看看你是享受这种限制还是反感它？如果反感，你是否想打破所有限制？如果你满意你的限制，你显然不会做什么；但如果你意识到限制之后不满意，你会发现你做任何事永远都受到它限制。永远！因而你永远活在过去，毫无生机。
You will be able to see for yourself how you are conditioned only when there is a conflict in the continuity of pleasure or the avoidance of pain. If everything is perfectly happy around you, your wife loves you, you love her, you have a nice house, nice children and plenty of money, then you are not aware of your conditioning at all. But when there is a disturbance - when your wife looks at someone else or you lose your money or are threatened with war or any other pain or anxiety - then you know you are conditioned. When you struggle against any kind of disturbance or defend yourself against any outer or inner threat, then you know you are conditioned. And as most of us are disturbed most of the time, either superficially or deeply, that very disturbance indicates that we are conditioned. So long as the animal is petted he reacts nicely, but the moment he is antagonized the whole violence of his nature comes out.
只有在遇到想要延续快乐或避免痛苦的情况，你才会有能力自己去看。如果你周围的一切都完美而幸福，你的妻子爱你、你爱她、你的房子很漂亮、你的孩子很可爱、有很多钱，那么你就完全不会知道你是受限制的。但是，一旦有了困扰 －－ 当你妻子出轨或你的财产受损或被战争威胁或者任何其它焦虑或痛苦 －－ 那么你就会知道你是受限的。当你努力挣脱困扰或防御你自己免受内外威胁的时候，你就会知道你是受限的。而由于我们大多数人、大多数时间，都会有浅表的或内心深处的困扰，正是这种困扰表明了我们的受限。我们跟宠物一样，只要被宠就反应很好，但是一旦遭到敌对，本性中的全部暴力就显示出来。
We are disturbed about life, politics, the economic situation, the horror, the brutality, the sorrow in the world as well as in ourselves, and from that we realize how terribly narrowly conditioned we are. And what shall we do? Accept that disturbance and live with it as most of us do? Get used to it as one gets used to living with a backache? Put up with it?
我们被生活、政治、经济形势、外部世界和我们内心中的恐怖、暴行、悲伤所困扰，从中我们意识到我们的受限有多么恐怖多么狭隘。我们应该做什么呢？像我们大多数人那样接受这种困扰然后生活于其中？像人们习惯于背痛那样习惯于这些？容忍这些？
There is a tendency in all of us to put up with things, to get used to them, to blame them on circumstances. Ah, if things were right I would be different', we say, or, Give me the opportunity and I will fulfil myself', or, 'I am crushed by the injustice of it all', always blaming our disturbances on others or on our environment or on the economic situation.
我们每个人的内心都有一种倾向，忍受、习惯、或者有时抱怨。“啊，要是情况没那么糟，我也不至于这样”，我们说，或者，“给我个机会我就会实现自己”，或者，“我是被这一切不公平所击败的”，总是把我们的困扰怪罪于他人或者环境或者经济形势。
If one gets used to disturbance it means that one's mind has become dull, just as one can get so used to beauty around one that one no longer notices it. One gets indifferent, hard and callous, and one's mind becomes duller and duller. If we do not get used to it we try to escape from it by taking some kind of drug, joining a political group, shouting, writing, going to a football match or to a temple or church or finding some other form of amusement.
如果人已经习惯了困扰，意味着这个人的心变迟钝了，就好比一个人对身旁的美景视若无睹一样。人逐渐变得冷漠、顽强和无情，我们的心也越来越迟钝。但如果我们不对困扰习以为常，就会想尽办法逃避，服用迷幻药、参加政治团体、怒吼、写作、看足球赛、参拜寺庙或去教堂，或者寻找其他的娱乐方式。
Why is it that we escape from actual facts? We are afraid of death - I am just taking that as an example - and we invent all kinds of theories, hopes, beliefs, to disguise the fact of death, but the fact is still there. To understand a fact we must look at it, not run away from it. Most of us are afraid of living as well as of dying. We are afraid for our family, afraid of public opinion, of losing our job, our security, and hundreds of other things. The simple fact is that we are afraid, not that we are afraid of this or that. Now why cannot we face that fact?
为什么我们逃避现实？我们害怕死亡 －－ 我只是举个例子 －－ 于是我们发明各种学说、希望、信仰，来遮掩死亡的事实，然而事实仍旧在那里。要想理解事实，我们就必须看它，不是逃避。我们大多数人害怕生活也害怕死亡。我们害怕家庭，害怕政治观念，害怕失业，害怕失去安全感，害怕成百上千样东西。事实无非就是我们害怕，而不是害怕某种特定的东西。那么，我们为什么不能面对事实？
You can face a fact only in the present and if you never allow it to be present because you are always escaping from it, you can never face it, and because we have cultivated a hole network of escapes we are caught in the habit of escape.
只有在当下，你才能面对事实，如果你不允许事实出现在当下 －－ 因为你总是逃避 －－ 你就永远面对不了事实。由于形成了各种逃避的渠道，我们陷入了逃避的习惯中。
Now, if you are at all sensitive, at all serious, you will not only be aware of your conditioning but you will also be aware of the dangers it results in, what brutality and hatred it leads to. Why, then, if you see the danger of your conditioning, don't you act? Is it because you are lazy, laziness being lack of energy? Yet you will not lack energy if you see an immediate physical danger like a snake in your path, or a precipice, or a fire. Why, then, don't you act when you see the danger of your conditioning? If you saw the danger of nationalism to your own security, wouldn't you act?
那么，如果你完全地敏感，完全地认真，你将不仅意识到你的受限，还会意识到它造成的危险，它导致的残暴和仇恨。那么，如果你看到了你受限造成的危险，为什么不行动呢？是因为你懒惰吗，由于缺乏能量造成的懒惰？但是，如果遇到了会直接给你带来身体上的危险的东西，如蛇，断崖，或火，你却不会缺乏能量。那么，你看到了你受限造成的危险时为什么没有行动呢？如果你看到了民族主义威胁到你自己的安全时，你会不会行动呢？
The answer is you don't see. Through an intellectual process of analysis you may see that nationalism leads to self-destruction but there is no emotional content in that. Only when there is an emotional content do you become vital.
答案是你没看到。通过理性的分析过程，你可能知道民族主义导致自我毁灭，但你这种知道中没有任何情感的内容。只有存在情感的内容了，你才有生命力。
If you see the danger of your conditioning merely as an intellectual concept, you will never do anything about it. In seeing a danger as a mere idea there is conflict between the idea and action and that conflict takes away your energy. It is only when you see the conditioning and the danger of it immediately, and as you would see a precipice, that you act. So seeing is acting.
如果你仅仅是在理性概念上看到你的受限，你永远不会对它做任何事情。仅仅在想法上看到危险，在想法和行动之间就存在冲突，这种冲突会消磨掉你的能量。唯有当你直接（immediately）看到了受限及其危险，就像你看到悬崖的时候一样，你才会行动。故，看到就是行动。
Most of us walk through life inattentively, reacting unthinkingly according to the environment in which we have been brought up, and such reactions create only further bondage, further conditioning, but the moment you give your total attention to your conditioning you will see that you are free from the past completely, that it falls away from you naturally.
我们大多数人就这么漫不经心地走完了一生，不假思索地根据我们生长于其中的环境加以反应，这样的反应，只会让我们被奴役，被限制得更深，但是你一旦将你的全部注意力（attention）放到了你的受限上，你会发现你不受过去的影响（free from the past）了，而受限就自然地离你而去了。