We have also to talk over together what is death. That is one certain thing that we all have to face. Whether we are rich or poor, ignorant or full of erudition, death is certain for every human being; we are all going to die. And we have never been able to understand the nature of death. We are always frightened of dying, aren’t we? And we hope for continuity after death. So we are going to find out for ourselves what is death, because we are going to face it whether we are young or old. And to understand death, we must also inquire into what is living, what is our life.
我们也必须一起来谈谈死亡是什么。这是一件我们都必须面对的事情。无论我们富有还是贫穷，愚昧无知还是学富五车，死亡对每个人来说都是必然发生的事情，我们都会死。而我们从来都没能了解死亡的本质。我们总是害怕死亡，不是吗？我们希望死后生命能够延续。所以我们要自己去弄清楚死亡是什么，因为无论我们年轻还是年老，我们都要面对它。而若要了解死亡，我们也必须探询什么是活着，我们的生命是什么。
Are we wasting our lives? By that word ‘wasting’ we mean dissipating our energy in various ways, dissipating it in specialized professions. Are we wasting our whole existence, our life? If you are rich you may say, ‘Yes, I have accumulated a lot of money, it has been a great pleasure.’ Or if you have a certain talent, that talent is a danger to a religious life. Talent is a gift, a faculty, an aptitude in a particular direction, which is specialization. Specialization is a fragmentary process. So you must ask yourself whether you are wasting your life.
我们是在浪费自己的生命吗？用“浪费”这个词，我们的意思是指以各种方式、在各种专门化的职业中耗散我们的能量。我们是在浪费我们的整个生命、我们的生活吗？如果你很富有，你也许会说：“是的，我积攒了很多钱财，这是一种巨大的快感。”或者，如果你有某种天赋，那天赋对宗教生活来说就是一种危险。天赋是在某个特定的方向上具有的天分、才能和天资，那是一种专门化，而专门化是一个支离破碎的过程。所以你必须问问自己你是不是在浪费自己的生命。
You may be rich, you may have all kinds of faculties, you may be a specialist, a great scientist or a businessman, but at the end of your life has all that been a waste? All the travail, all the sorrow, all the tremendous anxiety, insecurity, the foolish illusions that man has collected, all his gods, all his saints and so on—have all that been a waste? You may have power, position, but at the end of it—what? Please, this is a serious question that you must ask yourself. Another cannot answer this question for you.
你也许很富有，也许拥有各种才能，也许是个专家，是个大科学家或者是个商人，但是，在你生命的尽头，那一切是不是一种浪费？所有的痛楚、所有的悲伤、所有巨大的焦虑感、不安全感，人类搜集的各种愚蠢的幻觉，他所有的神明、所有的圣人等等——这一切是不是一种浪费？你也许拥有权力、地位，但是到了最后——又能怎样呢？拜托，这是一个很严肃的问题，你必须问问你自己，别人无法替你回答这个问题。
So we have separated living from dying. The dying is the end of our life. We put it as far away as possible—a long interval of time—but at the end of the long journey we die. And what is it that we call living? Earning money, going to the office from nine to five, over-worked either in a laboratory or in an office or in a factory, and the endless conflict, fear, anxiety, loneliness, despair, depression—this whole way of existence is what we call life, living. And to that we hold.
所以我们把生与死分离了开来。死亡就是我们生命的结束，我们竭尽所能把它推得远远的——推到一段漫长的时间之后——然而，就在这段漫长旅程的尽头，我们还是会死去。而什么又是那个我们叫做生活的东西呢？赚钱，朝九晚五地上班去，要么在实验室，要么在办公室或者工厂里加班加点，还有无尽的冲突、恐惧、焦虑、孤独、绝望和沮丧——这整个生存方式，我们称之为生活、生存，并且紧紧抓住不放。
But is that living? This living is pain, sorrow, anxiety, conflict, every form of deception, and corruption. Where there is self-interest there must be corruption. This is what we call living. We know that, we are very familiar with all that, that is our daily existence. And we are afraid of dying, which is to let go of all the things that we have known, all the things that we have experienced and gathered—the lovely furniture and the beautiful collection of pictures and paintings. And death comes and says, ‘You cannot have any of those things any more.’ So we cling to the known, afraid of the unknown.
然而这是生活吗？这种生活就是痛苦、悲伤、焦虑、冲突，是各种形式的欺骗和腐败，而哪里有自私自利哪里就必然会有腐败。这就是我们叫做生活的东西。我们知道这些，我们对这一切都非常熟悉，这就是我们的日常生活。同时我们也害怕死亡，死亡就是放开我们已知的一切，我们经历过和积攒起来的一切——漂亮的家具，收藏的美丽照片和画作。然后死亡来临并且说：“所有这些东西你都不能再拥有了。”所以我们执着于已知，害怕未知。
We can invent reincarnation. But we never inquire into what it is that is born next life. What is born next life is a bundle of memories. Because we live by memories. We live by the knowledge we have acquired or inherited, and that knowledge is what we are. The self is the knowledge of the past experiences, thoughts, and so on. The self is that. The self may invent something divine in one. But it is still the activity of thought, and thought is always limited.
我们可以编造出轮回转世的说法，但我们从不探究来世再生的是什么。来世再生的是一团记忆，因为我们依靠记忆为生。我们依靠后天获取的或者先天继承来的知识为生，而那知识就是我们自己。自我就是过去的经验、思想等等的知识，自我就是这些。自我也许会在人类身上虚构出某种神圣的东西，但那依然是思想的活动，而思想始终是局限的。
So this is our living, this is what we call life—pleasure and pain, reward and punishment. And death means the ending of all that, the ending of all the things that we have thought, accumulated, enjoyed. And we are attached to all that. We are attached to our families, to all the accumulated money, to knowledge, to the beliefs and the ideals we have lived with. We are attached to all that. And death says, ‘That’s the end of it, old boy.’
所以这就是我们的生活，这就是我们所谓的生活——快乐和痛苦，奖励和惩罚。而死亡意味着这一切的终结，我们所思所想、所积累、所享受的一切的终结。我们依附于这一切，我们依附于我们的家庭，依附于积累起来的所有记忆、知识、信仰和理想，我们就与它们生活在一起。我们依附于这一切。而死亡说，“到此结束了，老兄。”
That Benediction is Where You Are, Talk 4
《生命的所有可能》之“至福就在身边”
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