We all want experiences of some kind - the mystical experience, the religious experience, the sexual experience, the experience of having a great deal of money, power, position, domination. As we grow older we may have finished with the demands of our physical appetites but then we demand wider, deeper and more significant experiences, and we try various means to obtain them - expanding our consciousness, for instance, which is quite an art, or taking various kinds of drugs. This is an old trick which has existed from time immemorial - chewing a piece of leaf or experimenting with the latest chemical to bring about a temporary alteration in the structure of the brain cells, a greater sensitivity and heightened perception which give a semblance of reality. This demand for more and more experiences shows the inward poverty of man. We think that through experiences we can escape from ourselves but these experiences are conditioned by what we are. If the mind is petty, jealous, anxious, it may take the very latest form of drug but it will still see only its own little creation, its own little projections from its own conditioned background.
我们都想要某种经验 －－ 神秘经验、宗教经验、性经验、拥有大量金钱、权力、地位、支配力的经验。随着我们变老，我们可能已经满足了我们身体的各种需求，但是我们随之要求更为广泛、更为深入、更有意义的经验，而我们尝试各种各样的方式去获得这些经验 －－ 一个相当有艺术性的例子是扩展我们的意识，或者，服用各种各样的迷幻剂。这是一种古老的把戏，年代久远却仍未失传 －－ 咀嚼一片叶子，或者尝试最新发明的化学药剂，以获取一种对脑细胞结构的临时改变。这种对越来越多的经验的需求显示出人内在的贫穷。我们认为通过经验，我们可以逃离自我，但是这些经验受限于我们自身。如果心智小气、嫉妒、焦虑，即便使用了最新的迷幻剂品种，心智仍然只能从它自己受限的背景出发，只能看到它自身可怜的那一点创造、投射。
Most of us demand completely satisfying, lasting experiences which cannot be destroyed by thought. So behind this demand for experience is the desire for satisfaction, and the demand for satisfaction dictates the experience, and therefore we have not only to understand this whole business of satisfaction but also the thing that is experienced. To have some great satisfaction is a great pleasure; the more lasting, deep and wide the experience the more pleasurable it is, so pleasure dictates the form of experience we demand, and pleasure is the measure by which we measure the experience. Anything measurable is within the limits of thought and is apt to create illusion. You can have marvellous experiences and yet be completely deluded. You will inevitably see visions according to your conditioning; you will see Christ or Buddha or whoever you happen to believe in, and the greater a believer you are the stronger will be your visions, the projections of your own demands and urges.
我们大多数人都要求不能被思想毁灭的完全的满足和持续的经验(experience)。这种对于经验的要求的背后，是对满足的渴望，而对满足的需求则要求体验(experience)，因而，我们不仅必须完整地理解“满足”是怎么一回事，还要理解被体验的事物。要拥有大的满足必须要有大的快乐；更持续、深入和广泛的满足就要求这种快乐更令人愉快，故快乐对我们需要的体验的形式有要求，而快乐则是度量体验的手段。任何可以度量的东西都受限于思想，因而易于创造幻想。你可以有奇迹般的体验，而却完全地被欺骗。你的所见不可避免的受限于你自身；你可能看到耶稣、佛祖，或者不论是你相信的什么，而你越是相信，你的所见和你的需求和渴望的投射就越强烈。
So if in seeking something fundamental, such as what is truth, pleasure is the measure, you have already projected what that experience will be and therefore it is no longer valid.
故你在探求某种基本的东西，例如真实，的时候，若把快乐当做度量，你就已经预设了会得到什么样的经验，因而，你的探求就无效了。
What do we mean by experience? Is there anything new or original in experience? Experience is a bundle of memories responding to a challenge and it can respond only according to its background, and the cleverer you are at interpreting the experience the more it responds. So you have to question not only the experience of another but your own experience. If you don't recognize an experience it isn't an experience at all. Every experience has already been experienced or you wouldn't recognize it. You recognize an experience as being good, bad, beautiful, holy and so on according to your conditioning, and therefore the recognition of an experience must inevitably be old.
我们所说的经验是什么呢？经验中有新的或原始的东西吗？经验是一堆记忆，这些记忆是对挑战的反应，它们只能对其背景进行反应，而在你诠释经验的时候，你越聪明，反应就越多。故你不仅必须质疑别人的经验，还得质疑自己的经验。如果你没有辨识出一个经验，它就完全不是经验。每一个经验都是被经验过的，否则你就不会辨识出它。你是根据你的受限才辨识出一个经验是好的、坏的、美的、神圣的等等，因而，对经验的辨识必然是陈旧的。
When we demand an experience of reality - as we all do, don't we? - to experience it we must know it and the moment we recognise it we have already projected it and therefore it is not real because it is still within the field of thought and time. If thought can think about reality it cannot be reality. We cannot recognize a new experience. It is impossible. We recognize only something we have already known and therefore when we say we have had a new experience it is not new at all. To seek further experience through expansion of consciousness, as is being done through various psychedelic drugs, is still within the field of consciousness and therefore very limited.
当我们一种对现实的经验时 －－ 我们每个人都要求，是不是？ －－ 要经验现实，我们必须知道现实，而我们辨识出现实的那一刹那，我们就已经（在头脑中）投射了现实，因而它（我们辨识出的现实）就不是真实的，因为它仍然是在思想和时间的领域之内。我们不能辨识出一个新的经验。这是不可能的。我们只能辨识出我们已知的事物，因而当我们说我们已经有了一个新的经验的时候，这个经验就肯定不是新的了。要通过我们意识的扩张对更深入的经验的寻求，就像经由各种迷幻药而体验到的一样，这种寻求仍然是在意识的领域之内，因而是非常受限的。
So we have discovered a fundamental truth, which is that a mind that is seeking, craving, for wider and deeper experience is a very shallow and dull mind because it lives always with its memories.
故我们已经发现了一个基本的事实，即，一个寻求、渴望更广更深的体验的心智，是非常浅薄和愚钝的，因为它永远都活在它的记忆中。
Now if we didn't have any experience at all, what would happen to us? We depend on experiences, on challenges, to keep us awake. If there were no conflicts within ourselves, no changes, no disturbances, we would all be fast asleep. So challenges are necessary for most of us; we think that without them our minds will become stupid and heavy, and therefore we depend on a challenge, an experience, to give us more excitement, more intensity, to make our minds sharper. But in fact this dependence on challenges and experiences to keep us awake, only makes our minds duller - It doesn't really keep us awake at all. So I ask myself, is it possible to keep awake totally, not peripherally at a few points of my being, but totally awake without any challenge or any experience? This implies a great sensitivity, both physical and psychological; it means I have to be free of all demands, for the moment I demand I will experience. And to be free of demand and satisfaction necessitates investigation into myself and an understanding of the whole nature of demand.
那么若我们从未有过任何经验，会如何呢？我们依赖于经验、挑战来使我们保持清醒。如果我们的内在没有冲突、没有改变、没有干扰，我们所有人就会立即睡着。故挑战对于我们大多数人而言是必要的；我们认为，没有挑战我们的心智就会变得愚蠢和沉重，因而我们依赖于挑战、经验，来让我们更兴奋、感情更强烈，来让我们的心智更敏锐。但事实上，依赖于挑战和经验让我们保持清醒，只会是我们更迟钝 －－ 那完全不是真的让我们保持清醒。故我问我自己，有没有可能完全地保持清醒，不是指我的存在的几个点上的外围的清醒，而是没有任何挑战或经验的完全的清醒？这意味着非常地敏感，因为一旦我要求(demand)我就会经验。而要摆脱要求和满足，就要探究我自己，就要理解要求(demand)的全部本质。
Demand is born out of duality: `I am unhappy and I must be happy'. In that very demand that I must be happy is unhappiness. When one makes an effort to be good, in that very goodness is its opposite, evil. Everything affirmed contains its own opposite, and effort to overcome strengthens that against which it strives. When you demand an experience of truth or reality, that very demand is born out of your discontent with what is, and therefore the demand creates the opposite. And in the opposite there is what has been. So one must be free of this incessant demand, otherwise there will be no end to the corridor of duality. This means knowing yourself so completely that the mind is no longer seeking.
要求，来源于二元性(duality)：“我不开心(happy)，我必须要开心”。而不开心，正是从这种对于“我必须开心”的要求中而生。人若要努力变善良，恶就从中而生。任何被认为正确的事物都包含其相反面，努力克服相反面反而会助长它。当你要求对真实或实相的经验，这种要求其实是从你对现状的不满而生，因而这种要求创造了相反面（远离了实相）。而相反面是过去的投射。故人必须要从无尽的要求中解脱出来，否则二元性的长廊就永无尽头。这意味着完整地了解你自己，以至于心灵不再寻求。
Such a mind does not demand experience; it cannot ask for a challenge or know a challenge; it does not say, I am asleep' or I am awake'. It is completely what it is. Only the frustrated, narrow, shallow mind, the conditioned mind, is always seeking the more. Is it possible then to live in this world without the more - without this everlasting comparison? Surely it is? But one has to find out for oneself.
这样的思想不要求经验；它不要求挑战，也不了解挑战；它不说，“我睡着了”或者“我醒着”。它完全是它本来的样子。唯有沮丧的、狭隘的、浅薄的心智，受限的心智才总是寻求更多。那么，要生活在这个世界上而不要求更多 －－ 没有那永无止境的比较 －－ 是可能的吗？一定是可能的吗？但是人必须要自己来探究（这个问题的答案）。
Investigation into this whole question is meditation. That word had been used both in the East and the West in a most unfortunate way. There are different schools of meditation, different methods and systems. There are systems which say, `Watch the movement of your big toe, watch it, watch it, watch it; there are other systems which advocate sitting in a certain posture, breathing regularly or practising awareness. All this is utterly mechanical. The other method gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely you will obviously have-a certain experience because by repeti- tion the mind becomes quiet. It is a well known phenomenon which has been practised for thousands of years in India - Mantra Yoga it is called. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle and soft but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind. You might as well put a piece of stick you have picked up in the garden on the mantelpiece and give it a flower every day. In a month you will be worshipping it and not to put a flower in front of it will become a sin.
对这整个问题的探求就是冥想。冥想这个词过去曾被东西方用一种非常不幸的方式使用。有各种冥想的学校，不同的方法、体系。有的体系说，“观察你的大拇脚趾的运动，观察它，观察它，观察它”；还有的体系主张以一种特定的姿势坐着，规律地呼吸或练习觉知。所有这些都是完全机械化的。还有的方法给你一些特定的词语，并告诉你如果你持续重复它们，你就会有非凡的体验。这都是一派胡言。这都是自我催眠的形式。通过重复阿门(西方宗教)、唵(印度教)或可口可乐，无疑会让你有一种特定的经验，显然是因为心智在重复的过程中变得安静。这叫做真言瑜伽，是在印度(被人们)练习了几千年的著名现象。通过重复，你可以诱导心智变得温和柔软，但心智仍然是渺小、卑劣、琐碎的。也许你从花园中拾起一根木条放到壁炉上，并且每天为它献花。一个月之后你就会崇拜上它，不去献花就感觉是犯了罪一样。
Meditation is not following any system; it is not constant repetition and imitation. Meditation is not concentration. It is one of the favourite gambits of some teachers of meditation to insist on their pupils learning concentration - that is, fixing the mind on one thought and driving out all other thoughts. This is a most stupid, ugly thing, which any schoolboy can do because he is forced to. It means that all the time you are having a battle between the insistence that you must concentrate on the one hand and your mind on the other which wanders away to all sorts of other things, whereas you should be attentive to every movement of the mind wherever it wanders. When your mind wanders off it means you are interested in something else.
冥想不是追随任何的体系；它不是持续的重复和模仿。冥想也不是集中精力。一些导师最喜欢的策略之一就是坚持让他们的学生学习集中精力 －－ 即，将心智集中在一种思想上，并驱逐所有其他想法。这是一种最愚蠢、最丑陋的事情，任何学生都能做到，因为他被强迫。这意味着你每时每刻都处在斗争中，一方面要坚持是自己的心智维持在一件事情上，另一方面心智其实在各种各样的事情中游荡。事实上，你应该留意心智的每次游动，看看它到哪里去了。当你的心智游离时，意味着你的兴趣不在原先的事物上了。
Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; meditation is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind, but when you understand the structure and origin of thought, which we have already been into, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline which is meditation.
冥想要求高度警觉的头脑；冥想是对于生命完整的理解，在这种理解中，任何形式的分割都停止了。冥想不是控制思想，因为当思想被控制时就会在头脑中滋生冲突，但是当你理解了思想的结构和起源，像我们已经探究过的那样，那么思想就不会干涉了。这种对于思想结构的理解，正是它本身的纪律所在，这也正是冥想。
Meditation is to be aware of every thought and of every feeling, never to say it is right or wrong but just to watch it and move with it. In that watching you begin to understand the whole movement of thought and feeling. And out of this awareness comes silence. Silence put together by thought is stagnation, is dead, but the silence that comes when thought has understood its own beginning, the nature of itself, understood how all thought is never free but always old - this silence is meditation in which the meditator is entirely absent, for the mind has emptied itself of the past.
冥想就是要明晰每个想法、每个感觉，永远不判断对错，而仅仅是观察和随之移动。在这种观察中，你开始理解了思想和感觉的整个运动。而这种觉知会生出寂静。思想制造的寂静是停滞的、死的，而在理解了思想的开端、思想的本质，理解了为什么思想永远陈旧、不自由之后，生出的寂静 －－ 这种寂静是冥想，在这种冥想中没有冥想者，因为头脑中已清空了过去。
If you have read this book for a whole hour attentively, that is meditation. If you have merely taken away a few words and gathered a few ideas to think about later, then it is no longer meditation. Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system and that is not attention. Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life - perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy - if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation.
如果你在读此书的过程中留意(自己的思想和感觉)，那就是冥想。如果你只是学习了一些单词、收集了一些想法，留待以后思考，那么就不再是冥想了。冥想是一种心智状态，即完全地留意一切，完整地，不是部分地。而没有人能够教你如何留意。如果任何体系教你如何留意，那么你就是在留意体系，那不是冥想。冥想是生命中最伟大的艺术之一 －－ 可能是最伟大的，而人不可能从任何人那里学到它，这就是它的美。没有任何的技术，因而也没有任何权威。当你了解你自己、观察你自己、观察你走路的方式、吃饭的样子、你说什么、流言、憎恶、嫉妒 －－ 如果你明晰你内在的所有这些，不加拣择，那么就是冥想的一部分。
So meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing of birds or looking at the face of your wife or child.
故冥想唯有当你坐公交车时，或在弥漫着光影的树林里行走时，或听鸟儿歌唱时，或看妻儿的脸时发生。
In the understanding of meditation there is love, and love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought. Love can perhaps come into being when there is complete silence, a silence in which the mediator is entirely absent; and the mind can be silent only when it understands its own movement as thought and feeling. To understand this movement of thought and feeling there can be no condemnation in observing it. To observe in such a way is the discipline, and that kind of discipline is fluid, free, not the discipline of conformity.
在对冥想的理解中就有爱，而爱不是那些体系、习惯或遵循方法的产物。爱不能被思想培养。爱可能会在完全寂静时出现，在这种寂静中，没有冥想者；而心智只有在它理解了自身的运动形式，即思想和感觉，时才会寂静。要理解思想和感觉的运动就不能在对它们的观察中有谴责。要以这种方式观察就是纪律，而这种纪律是流动的、自由的，不是那种讲求服从的纪律。