内心平静下来——找到直觉
| 读书笔记Coming back to America was, for me, much more of a cultural shock than going to India. The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect like we do, they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.
回到美国对我来说,去印度所引发的文化冲击远不如回到美国来得强烈。印度乡村的人们不像我们这样运用理性思考,他们运用直觉,而他们的直觉比世界上其他地方的人发达得多。在我看来,直觉是一种非常强大的东西,比理性更强大。这对我的工作产生了深远的影响。
Western rational thought is not an innate human characteristic; it is learned and is the great achievement of Western civilization. In the villages of India, they never learned it. They learned something else, which is in some ways just as valuable but in other ways is not. That’s the power of intuition and experiential wisdom.
西方的理性思维并非人类与生俱来的特性,它是后天习得的,也是西方文明的伟大成就。在印度的村庄里,人们从未学过理性思维。他们学到的是另一种东西,在某些方面同样有价值,但在其他方面却不尽然。那就是直觉和体验式智慧的力量。
Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western world as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is.
在印度村庄待了七个月回来之后,我既看到了西方世界的疯狂,也看到了它运用理性思维的能力。如果你只是坐下来静静观察,你就会发现自己的心灵有多焦躁。
If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things—that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practice it. Zen has been a deep influence in my life ever since.
如果你试图让它平静下来,情况只会变得更糟,但随着时间推移,它终究会平静下来——届时就会有空间让你聆听更加微妙的东西——那时你的直觉便会开始绽放,你看待事物会更加透彻,也更能活在当下。你的心灵慢了下来,你能在那一刻看到极其广阔的天地。你能看到比以往多得多的东西。这是一种修行,你必须不断练习。禅宗从那时起就深刻影响了我的生活。
At one point I was thinking about going to Japan and trying to get into the Eihei-ji monastery, but my spiritual advisor urged me to stay here. He said there is nothing over there that isn’t here, and he was correct. I learned the truth of the Zen saying that if you are willing to travel around the world to meet a teacher, one will appear next door.
有一段时间,我曾想到日本去,试图进入永平寺修行,但我的精神导师敦促我留在美国。他说那边有的东西这里都有,他是对的。我领悟了禅宗那句话的真理:如果你愿意走遍世界去寻访一位导师,导师自会在你隔壁出现。
——沃尔特·艾萨克森《史蒂夫·乔布斯传》