Source text in Chinese | Translation by Paul Hirsh (#6712) — Winner |
我们常常听人说,自己醒悟了,明白了,觉悟了之类的。 或许是的,或许不是的,更多的是在途中说的话。 我们没有可能说终极性的、不会变的话。那么这句话本身是不是终极的呢?这句话和它指向的话并不在一个意义上说的,这是一种视角立场,我们最好不要这样问。 我们常常感到自己醒悟了,例如我感到每一个月,每一个学期,每一年,甚至每一天都会感到自己醒悟了。然而,从历史的眼光看,我们只是说出了当下的感受和理解。事实上,时间一推移,什么都会变的。对一个人的爱,似乎也如此。你对一个人说,我爱你,直到永远。这句话其实是当时自己的体验和理解以及甚至是许诺,但时间是那样的严肃,生活是那样的偶然,你在另一个时间和条件下,你会把原来的话放下,或者淡化之,甚至完全背叛了 。 醒悟,我觉得把它理解为一个过程比较合适。我们对生活处于不断的醒悟中。对个人的生命,对群体生活,对组织单位,对民族文化,对自然宇宙,对未知者,对平时不被注视者处于不断的醒悟中,出现新的意识。一般地说,我们的醒悟依赖我们的方法论之发展,立场之改变,语言之变化,异质的交流,语言的反复运动,默观的实践等。我们的醒悟是历史中的醒悟。 | We often hear people use such expressions as: "I've woken up to reality", "It all becomes clear" or: "I've seen the light." It may or may not be real: more often it is something said along the way to an understanding. "We can't say anything in a definitive, immutable way". But isn't this sentence itself inherently definitive? Well, the question and the sentence it refers to do not share the same frame of meaning or angle of reference, and we had better not ask it. We often feel we have seen the light: I might for instance get flashes once a month, each term, every year or even daily. However, seen from a chronological angle, we are just talking about what we feel or understand at a given moment. In reality, everything can change with the passing of time. It would seem to be true of a person's love. You tell someone "I will love you forever". In fact this sentence describes what you experienced or understood, and even promised at the time. But time marches on relentlessly, life is so random, and at a different time and in another situation you might deny or play down what you originally said, or completely betray your own words. I think it is more appropriate to understand enlightenment as a process. We are in an ongoing process of awakening. Awakenings which constantly bring new awareness of our individual life, of our collective existence, of the workplace, of the nation's culture, of the natural universe, of strangers and people we do not usually pay attention to. In general, our awakenings depend on the development of our methodology, our changing perspectives, linguistic changes, the endless shifts of language, exchanges between opposites, the practice of silent observation and so on. Our awakenings take place in a chronological context. |