I am tempted to repeat a story about a great disciple going to God and demanding to be taught truth. This poor God says, My friend, it is such a hot day, please get me a glass of water.' So the disciple goes out and knocks on the door of the first house he comes to and a beautiful young lady opens the door. The disciple falls in love with her and they marry and have several children. Then one day it begins to rain, and keeps on raining, raining, raining - the torrents are swollen, the streets are full, the houses are being washed away. The disciple holds on to his wife and carries his children on his shoulders and as he is being swept away he calls out, 'Lord, please save me', and the Lord says, Where is that glass of water I asked for?'
我忍不住要重复一个故事，是关于一个伟大的信徒去上帝那里要求上帝教他真理。可怜的上帝说，“我的朋友，今天好热，请给我一杯水。”信徒出去找水，敲开第一家的门，开门的是一个年轻漂亮的女士。信徒与她坠入了爱河，结了婚，生了好几个娃。后来又一天开始下雨了，持续地下、下、下 －－ 洪流淹没了街道，房子被冲走了。信徒抓住他的妻子，怀抱着他的孩子，眼看就要被大水冲走的时候他大喊，“主啊，救救我”，主回答说，“我要的那杯水呢？”
It is rather a good story because most of us think in terms of time. Man lives by time. Inventing the future has been a favourite game of escape.
这真是一个好故事，因为我们大多数人以时间的方式思考。人靠时间生活。发明未来成了人最喜爱的逃避方式。
We think that changes in ourselves can come about in time, that order in ourselves can be built up little by little, added to day by day. But time doesn't bring order or peace, so we must stop thinking in terms of gradualness. This means that there is no tomorrow for us to be peaceful in. We have to be orderly on the instant.
我们认为，未来我们自己会有所改变，我们自身的那种秩序会一点一滴地增长，一天一天地积累。但是时间不会带来秩序，也不会带来和平，故我们必须停止用这种“逐渐”的方式思考。这意味着对我们来说，没有一种我们能够和平地生活于其中的“明天”。我们必须立即变得有秩序。
When there is real danger time disappears, doesn't it? There is immediate action. But we do not see the danger of many of our problems and therefore we invent time as a means of overcoming them. Time is a deceiver as it doesn't do a thing to help us bring about a change in ourselves. Time is a movement which man has divided into past, present and future, and as long as he divides it he will always be in conflict.
当遇到真正的危险时，时间就消失了，不是吗？这就是立即的（immediate）行动。但是，我们没有看到我们许多问题的危险性，因而我们发明了时间，把它当做一种“克服”这些问题的手段。时间是个骗子，因为它不会做任何事情来帮助我们改变自己。人们把时间这个运动分割成过去、现在和未来，而只要他有这种分割，他就总是处于冲突中。
Is learning a matter of time? We have not learnt after all these thousands of years that there is a better way to live than by hating and killing each other. The problem of time is a very important one to understand if we are to resolve this life which we have helped to make as monstrous and meaningless as it is.
学习是个关于时间的东西吗？千万年以来，我们仍然没有学到一种比彼此仇恨和杀戮更好的生活方式。如果我们要解决我们参与其中的这种畸形的无意义的生活的话，这个时间的问题就是个非常重要的问题，需要我们去理解。
The first thing to understand is that we can look at time only with that freshness and innocency of mind which we have already been into. We are confused about our many problems and lost in that confusion. Now if one is lost in a wood, what is the first thing one does? One stops, doesn't one? One stops and looks round. But the more we are confused and lost in life the more we chase around, searching, asking, demanding, begging. So the first thing, if I may suggest it, is that you completely stop inwardly. And when you do stop inwardly, psychologically, your mind becomes very peaceful, very clear. Then you can really look at this question of time.
我们第一个要理解的东西就是我们只能以心智的那种我们曾讨论过的新鲜和纯洁来看时间。我们困惑于我们的许多问题，迷失在这困惑中。现在，如果人迷失在树林中，他首先要做的是什么？他会停下来，对不对？它会停下来四处看。但是在生活中，我们越困惑、月迷失，我们就越到处跑、搜寻、询问、要求、乞求。故第一件事，如果我可以建议的话，就是你在内心中完全停下来。当你的内心、心理上停下来的时候，你的心智就变得非常平静、非常清晰。那么你就可以真正地看这个时间的问题了。
Problems exist only in time, that is when we meet an issue incompletely. This incomplete coming together with the issue creates the problem. When we meet a challenge partially, fragmentarily, or try to escape from it - that is, when we meet it without complete attention - we bring about a problem. And the problem continues so long as we continue to give it incomplete attention, so long as we hope to solve it one of these days.
只有在时间中，问题（problem）才存在，此时，我们没有完全地面对一件事（issue）。这种不完全，跟这件事（issue）一起，制造了这个问题（problem）。当我们部分地（partially）、片段化地（fragmentarily）面对一个挑战，或者试图逃避它的时候 －－ 也即，当我们未以全部注意力（attention）面对它的时候 －－ 问题就来了。而只要我们继续这样给予它不完全的注意力，只要我们希望有一天能解决它，这个问题就会继续（存在）下去。
Do you know what time is? Not by the watch, not chronological time, but psychological time? It is the interval between idea and action. An idea is for self-protection obviously; it is the idea of being secure. Action is always immediate; it is not of the past or of the future; to act must always be in the present, but action is so dangerous, so uncertain, that we conform to an idea which we hope will give us a certain safety.
你知道时间是什么吗？不是表上的时间，不是年代表上的时间，而是心理上的时间？时间是观念（idea）和行动之间的间隔。这里的观念（idea）显然是说自我保护的观念；是要安全的观念。行动则总是立即的（immediate），既不属于过去也不属于未来；行动必然是当下的，但是（由于）行动非常危险、不确定，以至于我们服从于一种想法，我们寄希望于这种想法能带给我们一定程度的安全。
Do look at this in yourself. You have an idea of what is right or wrong, or an ideological concept about yourself and society, and according to that idea you are going to act. Therefore the action is in conformity with that idea, approximating to the idea, and hence there is always conflict. There is the idea, the interval and action. And in that interval is the whole field of time. That interval is essentially thought. When you think you will be happy tomorrow, then you have an image of yourself achieving a certain result in time. Thought, through observation, through desire, and the continuity of that desire sustained by further thought, says, `Tomorrow I shall be happy. Tomorrow I shall have success. Tomorrow the world will be a beautiful place.' So thought creates that interval which is time.
切实地在你内心中观察一下这一点。你对于你和社会中什么是对的、什么是错的怀有一种观念，或者说是一种意识形态的概念，而你准备根据这种观念来行动。因而，行动就与观念一致了，与观念接近了，因而总是存在冲突。（于是就）有了观念、间隔和行动（三者）。而这个间隔就是时间的完整领域。这个间隔的本质上是思想（thought）。当你认为你明天会幸福，那么你就对你自己最终达成某个特定的结果有了想象（image）。思想，经由观察、经由欲望、以及（经由）进一步的思想所维持的欲望的延续性，说，“明天我会开心。明天我会成功。明天世界会是个美丽的地方。”故思想创造了（观念和行动之间的）间隔，即时间。
Now we are asking, can we put a stop to time? Can we live so completely that there is no tomorrow for thought to think about? Because time is sorrow. That is, yesterday or a thousand yesterday's ago, you loved, or you had a companion who has gone, and that memory remains and you are thinking about that pleasure and that pain - you are looking back, wishing, hoping, regretting, so thought, going over it again and again, breeds this thing we call sorrow and gives continuity to time.
我们现在要问，我们能否让时间停止？我们能否完整地生活，使得（生活中）没有一个“明天”以供思维（thought）来回想？因为，时间就是悲伤。也就是说，昨天或者一千个昨天之前，你爱过，或者你有过一个伴侣，他/她已故去，而记忆还延续着，你仍在回想那快乐或痛苦 －－ 你回顾着、希求着、企盼着、后悔着，故思维，将其一遍一遍地回顾，滋生了我们叫做悲伤的这个东西，让时间得以延续。
So long as there is this interval of time which has been bred by thought, there must be sorrow, there must be continuity of fear. So one asks oneself can this interval come to an end? If you say, `Will it ever end?', then it is already an idea, something you want to achieve, and therefore you have an interval and you are caught again.
只要还有这个思想滋生出来的时间的间隔，就一定会有悲伤、一定会有恐惧的延续。故人要问自己，这个间隔能否终结？如果你说，“它会终结吗”，那么这就已经是个想法，一种你想去达成的东西，因而你就有了间隔，而你又一次被困住了。
Now take the question of death which is an immense problem to most people. You know death, there it is walking every day by your side. Is it possible to meet it so completely that you do not make a problem of it at all? In order to meet it in such a way all belief, all hope, all fear about it must come to an end, otherwise you are meeting this extraordinary thing with a conclusion, an image, with a premeditated anxiety, and therefore you are meeting it with time.
以死亡的问题为例，对大多数人来说这是个大问题。你了解死亡，它每天就在你身边晃来晃去。是否可能完整地遇见死亡，使得死亡对你根本不算一个问题？为了以这样的方式遇见它，你得终结关于死亡的所有信仰、所有希望、所有恐惧，否则，你就是怀着结论、意象和有预谋的焦虑来遇见（死亡）这个非同寻常的东西，也就是与时间一起遇见死亡。
Time is the interval between the observer and the observed. That is, the observer, you, is afraid to meet this thing called death. You don't know what it means; you have all kinds of hopes and theories about it; you believe in reincarnation or resurrection, or in something called the soul, the atman, a spiritual entity which is timeless and which you call by different names. Now have you found out for yourself whether there is a soul? Or is it an idea that has been handed down to you? Is there something permanent, continuous, which is beyond thought? If thought can think about it, it is within the field of thought and therefore it cannot be permanent because there is nothing permanent within the field of thought. To discover that nothing is permanent is of tremendous importance for only then is the mind free, then you can look, and in that there is great joy.
时间就是在观者与所观之物的间隔。也就是说，观察者，你，害怕遇到这个叫做死亡的东西。你不知道这意味着什么；你有各种关于死亡的希望和理论；你相信转世或复活，或者相信某种叫做灵魂（soul）的东西，印度教里所说的灵魂（the atman），一个精神的实体，永恒的，你把它叫成不同的名字。现在你是否自己已经发觉是否有灵魂呢？或者是否这只是一个观念，口口相传到你这里？是否有某种永恒的、持续的、超越思想的东西呢？如果思想能够思考它，它就是在思想的范畴里，因而就不能永恒，因为在思想的范畴中没有永恒的东西。发现没有什么可以永恒这件事，具有极端的重要性，因为只有发现了这件事之后，心智才能自由，然后你才能看、在这种看中才有巨大的愉悦（joy）。
You cannot be frightened of the unknown because you do not know what the unknown is and so there is nothing to be frightened of. Death is a word, and it is the word, the image, that creates fear. So can you look at death without the image of death? As long as the image exists from which springs thought, thought must always create fear. Then you either rationalize your fear of death and build a resistance against the inevitable or you invent innumerable beliefs to protect you from the fear of death. Hence there is a gap between you and the thing of which you are afraid. In this time-space interval there must be conflict which is fear, anxiety and self-pity. Thought, which breeds the fear of death, says, Let's postpone it, let's avoid it, keep it as far away as possible, let's not think about it' - but you are thinking about it. When you say, I won't think about it', you have already thought out how to avoid it. You are frightened of death because you have postponed it.
你不能被未知吓到，因为你不知道未知是什么，故没有什么可以吓到你。死亡是一个单词，而正是这个单词、这个意象，创造了恐惧。故你能否（只是）看着死亡而不怀着对死亡的意象？只要这种意象存在，从想象中涌出思想（thought），思想就一定总是创造恐惧。继而，在你和你所害怕的东西之间就有了间隔（gap），在这个时空间隔中，一定有冲突，这就是恐惧、焦虑和自怜。思想，滋生了对死亡的恐惧，说，“推迟它吧，避免它吧，让它尽可能远离吧，不要思考它” －－ 但是你（正是）在思考它。当你说，“我不会思考它”，你已经思考出来如何避免它了。你被死亡吓到了因为你已经推迟了它。
We have separated living from dying, and the interval between the living and the dying is fear. That interval, that time, is created by fear. Living is our daily torture, daily insult, sorrow and confusion, with occasional opening of a window over enchanted seas. That is what we call living, and we are afraid to die, which is to end this misery. We would rather cling to the known than face the unknown - the known being our house, our furniture, our family, our character, our work, our knowledge, our fame, our loneliness, our gods - that little thing that moves around incessantly within itself with its own limited pattern of embittered existence.
我们已经将死（dying）从生（living）中分离出来了，而生和死之间的间隔就是恐惧。这个间隔，这个时间，是恐惧创造的。生是我们的每日的折磨、每日的凌辱、悲伤和困惑，偶而开启一扇窗户来面对汪洋。这就是我们叫做生的东西，而我们害怕死，害怕终结这痛苦。我们宁愿固守已知也不愿面对未知 －－ 已知是我们的房子、我们的家具、我们的家庭、我们的性格、我们的工作、我们的知识、我们的名望、我们的孤独、我们的上帝 －－ （已知就是）这些渺小的事物，虽其自身在不断地变化，却（总是）受限于那苦难存在的模式中。
We think that living is always in the present and that dying is something that awaits us at a distant time. But we have never questioned whether this battle of everyday life is living at all. We want to know the truth about reincarnation, we want proof of the survival of the soul, we listen to the assertion of clairvoyants and to the conclusions of psychical research, but we never ask, never, how to live - to live with delight, with enchantment, with beauty every day. We have accepted life as it is with all its agony and despair and have got used to it, and think of death as some- thing to be carefully avoided. But death is extraordinarily like life when we know how to live. You cannot live without dying. You cannot live if you do not die psychologically every minute. This is not an intellectual paradox. To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is.
我们以为，生总是在当下，而死是在遥远未来等待我们的某种东西。但是我们从来没有问过，这个每日生活的战斗，是否就是生。我们想要了解关于转世的真相，我们想要灵魂存在的证据，我们听从“天眼通”的断言，听从心理学研究的结论，但我们从来、从来都没有问过，如何活着 －－ 每天都怀着欣喜、陶醉和美丽来生活。我们已经接受了生活的样子，接受了它所有的痛苦、绝望，已经习惯了，并把死亡当成一种要小心避免的东西。但是当你知道如何活着的时候，死亡就特别像活着。你不能活着而不（同时）死。你若不能每分钟都在心理上死去，你就不能活着。这不是理性的悖论，要完全地生活，完整地，每天就好似一个崭新的、可爱的日子，就一定要死于昨天的一切，否则，你就是在机械地活着，而一个机械的心智永远都不知道爱或自由是什么。
Most of us are frightened of dying because we don't know what it means to live. We don't know how to live, therefore we don't know how to die. As long as we are frightened of life we shall be frightened of death. The man who is not frightened of life is not frightened of being completely insecure for he understands that inwardly, psychologically, there is no security. When there is no security there is an endless movement and then life and death are the same. The man who lives without conflict, who lives with beauty and love, is not frightened of death because to love is to die.
我们大多数人被死吓着了，因为我们不知道活着意味着什么。我们不知道如何活着，因而我们不知道如何死去。只要我们还害怕生活，我们就会害怕死亡。不害怕生活的人也不会害怕完全的不安全，因为他理解，内在和心理上是不存在安全的。当不存在安全的时候，就存在无尽的运动，因而生和死是一样的。没有冲突地生活着的人，怀着美丽和爱生活着的人，不会被死亡吓着，因为去爱就是去死。
If you die to everything you know, including your family, your memory, everything you have felt, then death is a purification, a rejuvenating process; then death brings innocence and it is only the innocent who are passionate, not the people who believe or who want to find out what happens after death.
如果你死于你所知的任何事情，包括你的家庭、你的记忆、你感受到过的任何事情，那么死亡就是一种净化、回生的过程；然后死亡就带来了无知，而只有无知的人才有激情，而不是那些相信或想要弄明白死亡之后会发生什么的人。
To find out actually what takes place when you die you must die. This isn't a joke. You must die - not physically but psychologically, inwardly, die to the things you have cherished and to the things you are bitter about. If you have died to one of your pleasures, the smallest or the greatest, naturally, without any enforcement or argument, then you will know what it means to die. To die is to have a mind that is completely empty of itself, empty of its daily longing, pleasure; and agonies. Death is a renewal, a mutation, in which thought does not function at all because thought is old. When there is death there is something totally new. Freedom from the known is death, and then you are living.
要切实地弄明白你死的时候发生什么事情你就必须死。这不是笑话。你必须死 －－ 不是身体上的，而是精神上的、内在的，死于你珍爱的事物，死于你感到痛心的事物。如果你曾死于你的某种或小或大的快乐，自然地，不带任何的强制或争辩地，那么你就会知道死意味着什么。（这里说的）死，就是要有一个完全没有自身、没有每日的渴望、快乐和痛苦的心智。死亡是一种更新、一种突变，思想在其中完全不起作用，因为思想是旧的。当有死亡的时候就有完全新的东西。从已知中解脱的自由就是死亡，这之后你才活着。