何谓心智?当我提出问题时,请不要期待我给出答案。请大家省察自心,观察自己的思维方式。我所描述的,仅仅是外在征象,并非事实本身;而事实,必须由你亲身体验。文字、描述、符号,并非事实本身;“门”这个字显然并不是真实的门,“爱”这个字也不是真实感受,不是这个字所指代的那种伟大品德。所以,我们不要将文字、名相、符号与所指代的事实相混淆。如果只是停留在文字层面上探讨心智,那么你已经迷失了,此时根本感受不到那个唤作“心智”的令人惊异之物。
那么,究竟何谓心智?显然,心智,就是我们全部的觉知或意识;心智,是全部的生活方式,是全部的思维过程。心智,是大脑的产物,大脑塑造了心智。若没有大脑,就没有心智,但心智又是与大脑相分别的,是大脑的衍生物。如果大脑是局限的、受损的,那么心智也必然也受损。大脑,记录了每一种觉受、每一种苦乐感受;大脑及其全部组织、以及所储存的所有反应模式,构成了所谓的心智,虽然心智的运转独立于大脑。
你们不必接受我的说法。你们可以自己体验,自行看清真相。
——克里希那穆提《生命书:365观心日课》(The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti)
译按:
汉语中的“心”字,除了解剖学意义的心脏,更指人的思维认知能力。中国古人认为人的思维器官是心,而西方近现代医学证明,思维(mind,thinking)器官是脑,这是一个有趣的中西错位。
一般把mind和“心”进行对译,比如英人蒲乐道翻译《黄檗禅师传心法要》时,就把禅家的“心”译为mind。如果再做分别,进一步表达玄学、形而上意义时,汉语一般用“灵”字;与此大致对应,现代英语表达形上意趣时,趋向用heart一词,以与mind做区分。
此时,“心”与mind,“灵”与heart有了大致的对应关系,但出现了错位混乱,因为词典上“心”也是heart。
为了回避这一尴尬,当代汉语又喜欢把mind译作大脑,把heart译作心,这种译法有清晰的区分辨析力,很快被中文读者接纳。
其实,除了必须做区分的少数语境,汉语并不把“心/灵”做泾渭分明的区分,甚至佛籍中在必需时也有“俗谛曰智,真谛️曰慧”的分别,但通常都合为心灵、智慧,禅宗中以一个“心”字指代全部的俗谛、真谛。
所以,汉语的意趣中,分别只是权宜而已,而融合则是旨归。
了解了以上,在汉英之间穿梭,才不至于迷乱,免得为一堆汉英名相而胶柱鼓瑟。终归,文字只是“指月手”,阅读文字时,须得其意而忘其言。
The Brain Produces the Mind
… What is the mind? When I put that question, please don’t wait for a reply from me. Look at your own mind; observe the ways of your own thought. What I describe is only an indication; it is not the reality. The reality you must experience for yourself. The word, the description, the symbol, is not the actual thing. The word door is obviously not the door. The word love is not the feeling, the extraordinary quality that the word indicates. So do not let us confuse the word, the name, the symbol, with the fact. If you merely remain on the verbal level and discuss what the mind is, you are lost, for then you will never feel the quality of this astonishing thing called the mind.
So, what is the mind? Obviously, the mind is our total awareness or consciousness; it is the total way of our existence, the whole process of our thinking. The mind is the result of the brain. The brain produces the mind. Without the brain there is no mind, but the mind is separate from the brain. It is the child of the brain. If the brain is limited, damaged, the mind is also damaged. The brain, which records every sensation, every feeling of pleasure or pain, the brain with all its tissues, with all its responses, creates what we call the mind, although the mind is independent of the brain.
You don’t have to accept this. You can experiment with it and see for yourself.
SEPTEMBER 22