高英第六册Unit 10 全文翻译

人生的两大真谛（Suigenlia试译）

The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbits of old put it this way: "A man comes to this world with his first clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open."

Surely we ought to hold fast to life for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.

We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.

A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack that had been in intensive care for several days. It was not a pleasant place.

One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines

were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney.

As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That's all there was to my experience. Just the light of the sun, and yet how beautiful it was - how warming, how sparkling, how brilliant!

I looked to see whether anyone else relished the sun's golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond to the splendor of it all.

The insight gleaned from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself: life's gifts are precious-but we are too heedless of them. Here then is the first pile of life's paradoxical demands on us: Never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.

Hold fast to life... but not so fast that you cannot let it go. This is the second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.

This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of or passionate being can, may, will, be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surly this second truth dawns upon us.

At every stage of life we sustain losses- and grow in the process. We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We enter a progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our own strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise, losing ourselves, as it were, all that we were or dreamed to be.

But why should we be reconciled to life's contradictory demands? Why fashion things of beauty when beauty is evanescent? Why give our heart in love when those we love will ultimately be torn from our grasp?

In order to resolve this paradox, we must seek a wider perspective,

viewing our lives as through windows that open on eternity. Once we do that, we realize that though our lives are finite, our deeds on earth weave a timeless pattern.

Life is never just being. It is a becoming, a relentless flowing on. Our parents live on through us, and we will live on through our children. The institutions we build endure, and we will endure through them. The beauty we fashion cannot be dimmed by death. Our flesh may perish, our hands will wither, but that which they create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come.

Don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. Pursue not so much the material as the ideal, for ideals alone invest life with meaning and are of enduring worth.

Add love to a house and you have a home. Add righteousness to a city and you have a community. Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have a school. Add religion to the humblest of edifices and you have a sanctuary. Add justice to the far-flung round of human endeavor and you have civilization. Put them all together, exalt them above their present imperfections, add to them the vision of humankind redeemed, forever free of need and strife and you have a future lighted with the radiant

colors of hope.

生活的艺术是要懂得何时紧握，何时该放手。因为生活就是一个矛盾体，它命令我们坚持那些它给予我们的礼物，即使最后注定是作罢的。老一辈犹太学者曾这样说过：人来到世上的时候拳头紧握，当他离开人间时，却手心张开。

的确，我们要紧紧地抓住生活，因为生活是奇妙的，世间的每个角落都充满着美丽。我们都知道事实确实如此，仅当我们蓦然回首时，它们却悄然逝去，不复存在时才懂得这真谛。

我们追忆消逝的美，衰老的爱。人生最痛苦莫过于生命之花开得愈发灿烂时，我们却熟视无睹。当爱向我们呼唤时，我们却未曾回忆。

最近的经历重新告诉我这个事实，由于突如其来的严重心脏病，我被送进医院精心照料几天，可那不是一个好呆的地方啊。

一天早上，我不得不做一些额外的检查，而那些需要的仪器在医院对面的建筑物，所以我不得不被推着轮床通过庭院到对面去。

我们从单元出来后，阳关照在我们脸上，那是我所有的经历。那太阳光是如此的美丽动人——多么的温暖人心，多么的光芒四射，多么的辉煌万丈！

我环视四周，看是否也有人在享受着金色的阳光，却发现他们来去匆匆，眼光都聚焦在地面上。忽而才发现，曾几何时，我也一样忙于生活琐事而冷漠地对待美丽的日子，与华美的它擦肩而过。

我所洞悉的和这次经历的一样平凡无奇，生活赐予的礼物是如此的弥足珍贵，然而，我们却充耳不闻，茫然若失。

这看似是而非的生活真谛给我们这样的启示：请勿过于忙碌而忽略了对生活的好奇，对生活的敬畏。请虔诚地迎接每个黎明的到来。拥抱每时每刻，抓紧每分每秒。

紧握生命的同时，谨记不要握得太紧以致不懂放手。正如生活硬币的两面，生活的另一面矛盾是：我们要坦然接受失去的，也要学会该如何放手。

这不是容易学会的一课，尤当我们还年轻时，总是以为世界是由我们操控的，只要我们充满激情，不顾一切地去追求，我们就可能得到——不，世界会是我们的。然而，生命把我们置于现实前，渐渐地，我们终究还是感知了这真谛。

人生的每个台阶中，我们都默默地承受着失去，与此同时，我们也逐步地成长。当我们从子宫诞生出来，离开它的保护，我们才开始成为独立的个体。我们开始上学，渐渐地长大，然后我们离开父母，也离开了童年时的家园。我们结婚生子，又松手让儿女去闯出他们的天地。我们面对着亲人和配偶的逝去，面对着日渐老去或突如其来的衰退。最终，如同那个犹太学者告诉我们的寓言一样，我们必须正视这个无法避免的死亡，失去自我，失去曾经梦想过的一切。

但是，我们为什么要妥协于生命的矛盾要求呢？为什么时尚美丽的东西总是昙花一现呢？既然爱终究会支离破碎，那为什么还要让爱在心中萌芽？

为了解开矛盾，我们得寻求一片更宽阔的远景，透过永恒之窗，审视我们的生命。一旦完成了，我们便深刻体会到，虽然生命是有限的，但我们仍可用行动在这世界编织最永恒的模式。

生命绝不是仅仅的存在，而是一个逐渐蜕变，从不间断地前进的过程。父母的生命因有我们而得以延续，而我们的生命也将在我们的子孙后代身上得以生生不息。我们创造的美好不曾因我们的逝去而逝去光彩，却继续发光发亮。即使我们的躯体腐烂，双手枯损，我们曾创下的真善美却永垂不朽。

请不要把生命浪费在物质的聚积上，因为那些终会化为尘灰。与其过分追求物质不如追求理想，因为只有理想才能赋予生命以内涵及永存的价值。

给房子予以爱，也便成了家；给城市予以道义，也便成了社区；给红砖石瓦予以真理，也便成了学校；给简陋的建筑予以宗教的色彩，也便成了神殿；给人类绵延千年的探索予以正义，也便成了文明。让所有的一切汇聚起来，取其精华，去其糟粕。使其增添到人类的救赎中，让人们永远摆脱贫困和冲突，拥有一个炫彩夺目的未来。