祈祷在最高峰时，就是与神那种深刻而个人的相遇。 Prayer, at its height, is this very deep personal encounter with God.
可是在日常忙碌的生活里，我并不总能立刻进入那样的体验。 Now, I'm not always ready to move from the ordinary, workaday world right into that experience.
我需要一些节奏，一些操练，一些练习，才能把我带到那个境地。 I need some rhythm, some discipline, some practice to get me to that point.
这就是为什么托马斯·默顿，这位伟大的灵修导师，说像主祷 文和圣母祷文这样的祈祷，常常能够很好地引导人进入祈祷。 That's why Thomas Merton, one of the great spiritual masters, said that prayers like the Our Father and the Hail Mary are often a great way to lead you to prayer.
它们能够让我们的心思慢慢预备好。 They're a way to dispose the mind.
举个好例子吧，特别是想到圣母祷文时，就会想到玫瑰经。 I'll give you a good example, especially with the Hail Mary in mind, the Rosary.
我们一遍又一遍地重复那样的祷文。 We repeat that prayer over and over again.
你也许会说：「那有什么意义呢？」 You say, Well, what's the point of that?
佛教传统里会谈到让「猴子般的心神」安静下来。 The Buddhist tradition talks about the calming of the monkey mind.
我们的心思总是在树与树、枝与枝之间跳来跳去，一会儿想这个，一会儿想那个。 The mind's always leaping around from tree to tree, branch to branch, thinking about this and about that.
脑子里总是转个不停。 The mind's always rolling.
而这样的心还没准备好与神共融；它需要先平静下来。 Well, that mind is not ready for communion with God; it needs to be calmed.
这就是为什么念玫瑰经能帮助我们的意识平静，好让我们预备与神合一。 That's why the praying of the Rosary can be just that sort of calming of your consciousness to prepare you for this union with God.
人们随时都会祈祷。 People pray all the time.
研究显示，就连不信的人也会祈祷。 Studies show that even non-believers pray.
那么，这到底是什么样的活动，让我们这么多人都在参与？ What precisely is this activity that so many of us engage in?
好几个世纪以来，祈祷表现出了各种各样的形式：唱歌、跳舞、游行、阅读圣典 、保持静默、把脑海里的各种图像腾空——这一切都被视为不同的祈祷方式。 Prayer has taken on myriad forms and expressions over the centuries: singing, dancing, processing, reading sacred texts, keeping silence, emptying the mind of all imagery—all have been construed as types of prayer.
但是否存在一个共同点，让这些祈祷表达都有相同之处？ But is there a common denominator, something that all these expressions have in common?
大马士革的圣约翰曾说：「祈祷就是把我们的心思和心灵举向神。」 St. John of Damascus said this: prayer is the raising of the mind and the heart to God.
在世上任何地方，我都找不到比我现在所站之处更能唤起这种祈祷感受的地方。 I know no other place on the face of the earth that evokes this sense of prayer more than where I'm standing now.
我正在巴黎那座宏伟的圣夏佩尔教堂里。 I'm in the great Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.
这是由圣路易——国王路易九世——建造的，用来收藏荆棘冠冕的圣物。 It was built by St. Louis, King Louis IX, as a kind of reliquary for the relic of the Crown of Thorns.
伟大的艺术史学者肯尼斯·克拉克勋爵曾说，当光线透 过这些彩色玻璃窗洒进来时，空气中会产生某种振动。 Lord Kenneth Clark, the great art historian, said that when the light pours through these stained glass windows, it sets up a kind of vibration in the air.
我在这里感受到的是一种电流——那是当两种灵相遇时所带来的电流：人对神 的渴望，与那种如果我可以这么说的话，更加炽热的神对我们渴望的相遇。 What I sense in this place is that electricity—the electricity that comes from the meeting of two spirits: the human longing for God that meets, if I can put it this way, the even more passionate divine longing for us.
这两种热情迸发出来的电流——就是祈祷。 That electric coming together of these two passions—that's prayer.
祈祷就源于那种觉悟，不仅是头脑思考，更是感 官体验——即超越的领域正亲临我们的世界。 Prayer is born of that awareness, felt as much as thought, that the transcendent realm impinges on our world.
祈祷就是那种热切的渴望，要去抵达它、与之交流、触碰它。 It is the passionate desire to reach it, to communicate with it, to touch it.
借助在公教灵修传统中的一些伟大人物，我想来探究祈祷的本质。 With the help of some of the greatest figures in the Catholic spiritual tradition, I would like to explore the nature of prayer.
我也意识到，当我们谈起祈祷、神秘体验和灵性生活时，往往会想到一些看上去很 疏远的人物——比如中世纪坐在经堂座位里的修士，或者被带到荒漠中的隐士。 I realize that speaking of prayer, mysticism, and spiritual life often puts us in mind of rather alien figures—medieval monks in their fire stalls or perhaps hermits whirled away in the desert.
我认为僧侣和隐士确实能教会我们许多事情。 Now, I think monks and hermits have a lot to teach us.
我想先从一位离我们时代和经验都更近的人开始说起——一位在二十 世纪中叶行走于曼哈顿街头，或许就曾从时代广场穿行而过的人。 I want to begin with someone much closer to our own time and experience—someone who walked the streets of Manhattan in the mid-20th century, someone who probably tramped right here through Times Square.
那个人就是托马斯·默顿。 That man was Thomas Merton.
默顿在二十世纪对公教会的神秘与默观传统的复兴中 发挥了决定性作用，可能超过了现代任何其他人物。 Merton played a decisive role in the recovery of the Catholic mystical and contemplative tradition in the 20th century, perhaps more than any other figure in modern times.
他教导了一个焦虑且日益世俗化的社会如何祈祷。 He taught an anxious and increasingly secularized society how to pray.
托马斯·默顿于1915年在法国南部出生，父亲来自 新西兰，母亲是美国人，两人在巴黎的艺术学校相识。 Thomas Merton was born in the south of France in 1915, the son of a New Zealander father and an American mother who had met at art school in Paris.
默顿的母亲在他只有六岁时就去世了，此后他跟随做画家的 父亲到处漂泊，短暂地居住在纽约、百慕大、法国和英国。 Merton's mother died when he was only a boy of six, and he wandered the world with his painter father, living for short periods in New York, Bermuda, France, and England.
托马斯十六岁时在英格兰寄宿学校就读，那时他父亲去世了，他一下子成了世上孤身一人。 When Thomas was 16 and a boarding school student in England, his father died, and the boy found himself alone in the world.
在剑桥大学读大一时，他过着放荡的生活——酗酒太多、狂欢太多、纵欲太多。 As a freshman at Cambridge, he lived a life of debauchery—too much carousing, too much drinking, too much sex.
事实上，默顿在那年还生了一个孩子，处理好一些经 济和法律上的安排后，他被送出了英国前往美国。 In fact, Merton fathered a child during that year, and after certain financial and legal arrangements were made, he was sent out of the country to America.
他来到纽约的哥伦比亚大学，他曾亲切地形容那里是「巨大而满是煤灰的工厂」。 He landed here in New York at Columbia University, a place he described affectionately as a great sooty factory.
默顿在校园里算是风云人物；他加入了许多学生社团。 Merton was something of a big man on campus; he joined lots of student organizations.
有一段时间，他担任校刊《滑稽刊》的艺术与幽默编辑，那是学生的文学刊物。 He was, for a time, the arts and humor editor of The Jester, which was the student literary publication.
单就这一点，就已经能告诉你很多关于默顿性格的事情。 That in itself tells you a good deal about Merton's personality.
他的老师之一是小说家莱昂内尔·特里林。 One of his teachers was Lionel Trilling, the novelist.
不过，对他影响最大的却是莎士比亚研究专家马克·范多伦，而且 那时与默顿交游的朋友多是当时这里最有才华、最具创造力的人。 The one, though, who influenced him the most was Mark Van Doren, the great Shakespeare scholar, and Merton's friends were among the most intelligent and creative people here at the time.
罗伯特·拉克斯后来成为了一位先锋派诗人，罗伯特·吉 罗则成了著名的图书出版商，他们都在默顿的朋友圈里。 Robert Lacks, who became an avant-garde poet, and Robert Giroux, who became a great book publisher, were in his circle of friends.
托马斯·默顿在哥伦比亚大学的确过得风生水起，但他依 然过着现代世俗的生活，追求各种体验，尤其是享乐。 Thomas Merton certainly flourished here at Columbia, but still, he was leading the life of a secular modern, seeking experience and, above all, pleasure.
1938年春天，托马斯·默顿在第五大道散步时，来到了斯克里布纳书店。 In the spring of 1938, Thomas Merton was walking down Fifth Avenue when he came to Scribner's Bookstore.
书店如今已经不存在了，但你可以从我身后看到它曾经的位置。 It's gone now, but you can see right behind me where it was.
在书店的橱窗里，他看到了这本书：法国哲学家艾 蒂安·吉尔松的 *《中世纪哲学的精神》*。 In the shop window, he saw this book: *The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy* by the French philosopher Étienne Gilson.
默顿当时在修一门法语诗歌课程，他觉得这本书可能会有所帮助。 Merton was taking a course in French poetry and thought the book might be helpful.
他买下这本书，上了地铁，然后把它翻开来看。 He bought it, got on the subway train, and then he opened it up.
他在扉页上看到这样一个拉丁词：「Imprimatur」，意思是「准予印行」。 He saw on the frontispiece this little Latin word: Imprimatur, meaning let it be printed.
这标志着这本书得到了公教会的正式认可——是一部公教著作。 It was a sign that it was officially approved by the Catholic Church—a Catholic book.
默顿当时想把书直接扔出地铁窗外，可是他说，出于一种 特别的恩典，他还是读了下去，这彻底改变了他的人生。 Merton thought, and wanted to throw it out the window of the train, but instead, he said by a special grace he actually read it, and it revolutionized his life.
在那本书里，他发现了对神极其精妙而深刻的阐述，这是公教思想所特有的。 What he found in that book was a clear presentation of the subtle and sophisticated understanding of God characteristic of Catholic thought.
他曾经和他的大多数同辈与朋友一样，以为神仅仅是个 喧闹的神话形象，宗教不过是神经质与投射的产物。 He had assumed, like most of his peers and friends, that God was a noisy mythological figure and that religion was the stuff of neuroses and projections.
他从未想过，人们竟能以如此引人入胜、又在理性上令人信服的方式谈论神。 He had never imagined that people could speak of God in such a compelling and intellectually satisfying way.
他最具体地发现了「神的自存」这一概念——神能够凭祂自己而存在的特质。 What he found most specifically was the idea of God's aseity—God's capacity to exist through Himself.
他发现了我们在本系列先前一集中所探讨的内容，也就是神并不是众多存在者之 一，而是 Ipsum Esse Subsistens，纯粹的存在本身。 He found what we explored in an earlier episode of the series, namely that God is not one being among many, but Ipsum Esse Subsistens, the sheer act of being itself.
这位神开始以极大的力量牵引并吸引默顿。 This God began to pull and tug at Merton with great power.
自从他读了吉尔松的那本书后，默顿的人生开始改变。 In the wake of his encounter with Gilson's book, Merton's life began to change.
他想与那位在理性层面上所认识到的神相交。 He wanted to commune with the God whom he had discovered intellectually.
他起初参加了一些新教礼拜；他的母亲曾是贵格会背景，但他并没有受到触动。 He first attended some Protestant services; his mother had been a Quaker, but he found himself unmoved.
然后，在一个主日早晨，他醒来时强烈地渴望去参加弥撒。 Then, one Sunday morning, he woke up with an intense desire to go to Mass.
默顿来到上西区121街的圣体堂。 Merton came here to the Church of Corpus Christi on 121st Street on the Upper West Side.
他紧张地走进去，对弥撒所知甚少，也不知道该怎么做，于是溜进了旁边的一排座位。 He entered the place nervously, knowing very little about the Mass, not knowing how to behave, and he slipped into a side pew.
不过，他参加完了这整场礼仪，虽然只懂得一半，但当他 走出这座教堂时，他说自己感觉仿佛进入了一个新世界。 But he made it through the liturgy, and again, though he half-understood it, when he walked out of this church, he said he felt as though he had entered a new world.
就连哥伦比亚大学那些丑陋的建筑，他说，都变得光彩夺目。 Even the ugly buildings of Columbia, he said, were transfigured.
随后他在111街一个破旧的小餐馆坐下来吃早餐， 虽然地方简陋，但他说仿佛自己坐在极乐之境一般。 Then he sat down for breakfast at a crummy little diner on 111th Street, and though he was in that simple place, he said it was as though he was sitting in the Elysian Fields.
那年晚些时候，托马斯·默顿和他的朋友罗伯特·拉克斯在第六大道这里散步。 Later that year, Thomas Merton was walking here down 6th Avenue with his friend Robert Lacks.
拉克斯转向他，说道：「汤姆，你这一生想要什么？」 Lacks turned to him and said, “Tom, what do you want out of life?”
默顿回答：「嗯，我想我想成为一个好的公教徒。」 Merton said, “Well, I suppose I want to be a good Catholic.”
拉克斯回应道：「不，不，那还不够。 Lacks replied, “No, no, that’s not enough.
你应该想成为圣徒。」 You should want to be a saint.”
这番话让默顿意识到，他必须用更彻底的方式来思考自己的灵性生活。 That comment convinced Merton he had to think in a much more radical way about his spiritual life.
他开始探索不同的修会，希望他们能接纳他成为司祭候选人。 He began to explore different religious orders in the hopes that they would accept him as a candidate for the priesthood.
最初，方济各会接纳了他，但当他坦白自己的过去后，他们又让他离开。 He was initially accepted by the Franciscans, but when he revealed the story of his past, they let him go.
他在一所小型的方济会学院——圣文德学院担任英语教授。在圣文德放假期间 ，他在纽约与挚友丹尼尔·沃尔什会面，沃尔什是哥伦比亚大学的哲学教授。 He became a professor of English at the small Franciscan college of St. Bonaventure's. While on break from St. Bonaventure's, he sat down in New York with his good friend Daniel Walsh, who was a professor of philosophy at Columbia.
沃尔什鼓励他在圣周期间，到肯塔基的盖色马尼圣母熙笃会修院做一次退省。 Walsh encouraged him to make a retreat during Holy Week at the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky.
默顿说，他在那里发现了一个静止的中心，全国都在它周围运转却并未察觉，他所感受到 的是「adoratio」（朝拜）的力量——以对神的恰当敬拜来安排自己的人生。 Merton said what he discovered there was the still point around which the whole country revolves—without knowing what he sensed was the power of adoratio, adoration: the ordering of one's life around the proper praise of God.
同年的十二月，就在珍珠港事件发生后不久，默顿正式进入那座 修院，开始了他身为修士、诗人以及灵修作家的二十七年生涯。 The following December, just days after Pearl Harbor, Merton entered the monastery himself, commencing a 27-year career as monk, poet, and spiritual writer.
最根本的是，他成为一个彻底沉浸在祈祷中的人。 Most fundamentally, he became a man utterly absorbed in prayer.
神以不同的方式对不同的人说话。 God addresses people in different ways.
有些人是以极为平常的方式被吸引进入灵性生活——并没有什么特别的事发生。 Some are drawn into the spiritual life in very ordinary ways—nothing extraordinary happens.
也有些人所经历的甚至超过默顿——他们经历了非凡的异象或与耶稣的相遇。 Others have things even beyond what Merton had: people have extraordinary visions and encounters with Jesus.
默顿的情况似乎介于两者之间。 His was kind of somewhere in the middle.
我称之为一种鲜明的神秘体验——神以不同的方式召唤人。 I call it a vivid mystical experience—God calls people in different ways.
有些人不会对这类体验有所回应；他们不知道该如何面对。 Some wouldn't respond to that; they wouldn't know what to do with it.
这不符合他们的心性、个性和背景。 It wouldn't fit their psyche, their personality, their background.
有些人就像天生会打棒球一样，天生就是神秘体验的好手。 Some people are kind of natural mystics, the way people are natural baseball players.
那个孩子很有天赋——不用别人教就知道怎么投球。 That kid is a natural—he just knows how to throw that ball without being told.
有些人——我认为默顿就是其中之一——天生就有神 秘体验的倾向，他们能以一种自然的方式回应神。 Some people, and I think Merton's one of them, are natural mystics, and they just kind of respond to the divine in this natural way.
但情形也会各不相同。 But it's different.
圣父的家中有许多住处，亲近神的途径也不尽相同。 There are many mansions in the Father's house and many different ways to approach God.
默顿一直仰望的伟大灵修导师，是十六世纪的西班牙人胡安·德· 耶佩斯·伊·阿尔瓦雷斯，他以修会名「十字若望」更为人所知。 Now, Merton's great spiritual master, the teacher to whom he consistently looked, was a 16th-century Spaniard named Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, better known by his religious name, John of the Cross.
十字若望于1542年出生，1563年成为加尔默罗会会士。在阿维 拉的圣德兰影响下，他致力于修会改革，使其回归福音的单纯与热忱。 John of the Cross was born in 1542 and became a Carmelite friar in 1563. Under the influence of St. Teresa of Avila, John dedicated himself to the reform of his order, returning it to its Gospel simplicity and zeal.
和大多数改革者一样，十字若望在他想改革的人群中并不受欢迎。 Like most reformers, John was unpopular among those whom he wished to reform.
1577年十二月，他的一群加尔默罗会弟兄把他捉拿到托 莱多，并关押在我身后那堵墙后面的加尔默罗会修院里。 In December of 1577, a group of his Carmelite brothers arrested him, bringing him here to Toledo, where they imprisoned him in the Carmelite monastery that stood right behind the wall you can see behind me.
他们把十字若望关在一个只有六英尺乘十英尺的小囚室里，只有在饭 厅里让他跪下时才把他带出来，而在那里他遭到同会弟兄的鞭打。 They placed John in a tiny cell, six feet by ten feet, and removed him from that place only to have him kneel in the refectory, where he was beaten by his brothers.
困在那间狭窄囚室时，十字若望在脑海里开始创作诗歌——这些诗后来成为西班牙文学 的瑰宝，也代表了公教灵修传统的高峰，因为他在诗中描绘了与神亲密结合的生命。 While holed up in that tiny room, John began to compose in his mind poetry that constitutes some of the gems of Spanish literature and the high point of the Catholic spiritual tradition, because in those poems he talks about the life of intimate union with God.
被囚禁九个月后，十字若望以相当戏剧化的方式成功逃脱，翻过我身后你所看到的那堵墙。 Nine months after he was imprisoned, John, in a rather dramatic way, made good his escape, clambering down over that wall you can see behind me.
十字若望教导的核心是什么？ What stands at the heart of John's teaching?
在他的著作 *《爱的活焰》* 中，十字若望为人类灵魂提供了一个强而有力的图像。 In his treatise called *The Living Flame of Love*, John offers a powerful image for the human soul.
他说，我们人内在有一些巨大的深渊，深不可测、无可探底。 We human beings, he says, have within us great caverns that are infinitely deep and unfathomable.
这些深渊就是我们的理智、意志和情感。 These are intellect, will, and feeling.
它们之所以无限且无底，是因为它们的指向是神。 They are infinite and unfathomable precisely because they are ordered to God.
心智想要知道一切，所以若不被神的真理之光照亮，就无法安息。 The mind wants to know everything about everything; it won't rest until it is illumined by the divine truth.
意志渴望无限的美善，唯有安息在神的绝对美善里才能得以满足。 The will wants infinite goodness; it will not rest until it rests in the absolute good of God.
情感怀着无限的渴望，因为它们指向神的无限性。 The feelings ache with an infinite longing because they are ordered to the infinity of God.
这也正是我们大多数人时常感到焦躁不安和不满足的原因。 This is why, by the way, most of us are so restless and dissatisfied most of the time.
十字若望这样诊断了一种根本的灵性错乱：我们想用这个世界的小恩 小惠——享乐、纵欲、权力、名誉——去填满这些无限深的空间。 John diagnosed a fundamental spiritual disorder this way: we try to fill these infinitely deep caverns with the petty goods of this world—pleasure, sex, power, honor.
这会导致沉溺，因为我们会不断去尝试这些无法真正满足人的东西。 This leads, as we've already seen, to addiction as we try more and more of these unsatisfying goods.
或者，他说，我们把这些深渊盖起来，假装它们根本不存在。 Or else, he said, we cover the caverns over, pretending they're not really there.
我们就这样在非常表面的层次生活，忽略内心深处的真实。 We live life in a completely superficial way, ignoring the depths within.
若要真正满足这些渴望，我们必须经历一个净化的过程。 If we want to fulfill these longings, we have to go through a purging process.
所有灵修导师都谈到过「净化之路」——将这些执着、这些以假代真 的东西，也就是十字若望所说的「偶像」从自己身上剔除的过程。 All the spiritual teachers talk about the purgative way—the process by which we rid ourselves of these attachments, these substitutes for God, what John would call idols.
十字若望将其分为两个阶段：感官的黑暗之夜与灵魂的黑暗之夜。 John of the Cross delineates this as a two-step process involving the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul.
必须强调，这跟清教主义毫无关系，也不是在否定世界的美善。 It's very important to point out that this has nothing to do with Puritanism and nothing to do with the repudiation of the goodness of the world.
十字若望在各处都肯定世界的美善。 John affirms the goodness of the world at every turn.
第二，尽管这两个阶段都很痛苦，但与心理上的抑郁无 关；如果你愿意把它们看成是对偶像崇拜的实际对治。 Secondly, though these two steps are painful, they have nothing to do with psychological depression; they are, if you will, practical antidotes to idolatry.
在感官的黑暗之夜里，我学习不要在感官和情欲的事物上寻找终极满足。 During the dark night of the senses, I learn not to seek my ultimate satisfaction in sensible and sensual things.
我放下它们；我刻意节制它们。 I let go of them; I fast from them.
在灵魂或心灵的黑暗之夜里，我甚至要放下那些高深 却只是取代神的东西，也就是心灵里的概念和图像。 During the dark night of the soul, or of the spirit, I let go even of those rarefied substitutes for God, which are the concepts and images of the mind.
当这些净化完成后，灵魂就预备好要进入神的旅程了 ，或者更准确地说，准备好领受神要赐下的礼物。 When these purgations are complete, the soul is ready for the journey into God—or, better, it's ready for the gift that God wants to give.
请看看十字若望在他有关黑暗之夜的诗篇里所写的华美诗句： 「在黑夜里，燃烧着爱迫切的渴望——啊，那纯粹的恩典！」 Consider these gorgeous lines from John's poem on the dark night: One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings—ah, the sheer grace!
「我在无人看见中走出去，因为我的房屋如今已完全寂静。」 I went out unseen, my house being now all still.
那寂静的房屋象征灵魂已度过黑暗之夜，如今只凭着纯净渴望的光去前行。 A stilled house is a symbol of the soul having passed through the dark night, and now it's ready to journey forth, illumined only by the light of its purified desire.
接着出现的这些诗行，让人想起神秘合一的至高境界。 Then come these verses, evocative of the high point of mystical union.
「在我花朵般的胸怀上，我为祂独自奉献，祂安睡在此，而我正温柔拥抱着祂。」 Upon my flowering breast, which I kept holy for Him alone, there He lay sleeping, and I caressing Him.
这些诗句正是一个恋爱中的灵魂所发出的语言。 These lines speak the language of a soul in love.
接着还有：「我舍弃并忘了自己，将脸贴在我的爱人身上。」 And then this: I abandon and forgot myself, laying my face on my beloved.
「一切都停息；我离开了自己，把所有牵挂留在百合花丛中。」 All things cease; I went out for myself, leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies.
在世上的文学中，是否还能找到比这更动人、更美丽的对默观祈祷的描述呢？ Is there anywhere in the literature of the world a more compelling and beautiful description of contemplative prayer?
十字若望以近似《雅歌》的热烈语言来描绘基督与人灵之间的神秘婚姻。 John presents the mystical marriage between Christ and a human soul in language as erotically evocative as anything in the Song of Songs.
请注意，在十字若望的诗意想象中，灵魂与基督几乎是唇对唇地贴近。 Notice how in John’s poetic imagination, the soul and Christ are literally mouth to mouth.
想象一种在敬拜姿态中的神圣氛围。 Picture an aura in the stance of adoration.
想想一位运动员，他在训练中饱经艰辛，也许还受过伤，可他生来就是为了那些非常投 入而又兴奋的时刻——当他以优雅、潇洒与激动的姿态比赛时，他整个人都鲜活起来。 Think of an athlete who goes through all kinds of tough experiences in practice, and maybe through injuries and all of that, but then he lives for those moments, those ecstatic moments when he plays the game with such grace and panache and excitement that he’s fully alive.
运动员的生活两方面都得兼具；一名杰出的网球选手必须经历 某种黑夜，才能达到那种畅快淋漓、满怀喜悦地比赛的境地。 An athlete's life has to have both; a great tennis player has to go through a kind of dark night to reach the point where he can play with reckless abandon and great joy.
在灵性的领域中也是如此。 The same is true in the spiritual order.
你必须经过这番净化过程，也就是那塑造性的黑暗之夜， 才能达到深切爱上神的地步，并在灵性上活得极为炽热。 You have to go through this purification process, this ascetic dark night, to come to the point where you can fall dramatically in love with God and you can live the spiritual life at a very high pitch.
所以，我看十字若望——尽管人们常把他想成一个严肃阴郁的人物— —可当我读他的诗时，却发现每句话都饱含爱、生命、激情与热忱。 So, I would see John—though maybe that’s the common perception of this sort of dour, dark figure—I read his poetry, and it’s just dripping with love and life and ecstasy and enthusiasm.
因此，这是那种伟大的「两者并存」；正因其一才有其二。 So, it’s the great both/and; it’s one because of the other.
在十字若望的一生中，也许最重要的人物便是阿维拉的德兰—— 那位加尔默罗会修女，她开启了那场十字若望参与的改革运动。 Perhaps the most important figure in the life of John of the Cross was Teresa of Avila, the Carmelite nun who inaugurated the reform movement in which John took part.
她比若望年长几十岁，出身贵族，儿时相当富足骄纵。 A few decades older than John, she was the daughter of nobility and enjoyed a fairly pampered childhood.
她进入阿维拉的加尔默罗会修院，许多年来过着规矩却并不出众的灵修生活。 She entered the Carmelite monastery at Avila and lived a decent but unheroic spiritual life for many years.
当德兰年过四十后，她的灵修生活变得更加深沉、更为严肃，并开始经历一连串神秘显现。 As Teresa entered her 40s, her spiritual life became more intense and more serious, and she began to receive a series of mystical visitations.
她会看见基督、圣母以及众圣——并非以肉眼，而是用心灵和想象的眼睛。 She would see Christ, the Blessed Mother, and the saints—not so much with her bodily eyes as with the eyes of her mind and imagination.
在这些强烈的经历中，她有时会处于出神的忘我状态，身体静止不动，长达半个小时。 During these intense experiences, she was sometimes in an ecstatic trance, lying motionless for upwards of a half an hour.
在这些神秘体验中，她有时甚至会飘浮在空中。 Other times, she was known during these experiences to levitate.
据说还有些较壮实的修女被叫来把她拉回地面。 There are even stories told about some of the stronger nuns being called upon to pull her back down to the ground.
在这些神秘事件当中，最著名的就是后来所称的「穿心之恩」。 The most famous of these mystical encounters was what came to be called the Transverberation.
德兰在她的自传中对这件事有生动的描述。 Teresa described this vividly in her autobiography.
她感受到有一位天使，用金尖的箭反复刺透她的心。 She experienced an angel piercing her heart repeatedly with a gold-tipped arrow.
这个场景正是让吉安·洛伦佐·贝尼尼以大理石雕刻而永生的题材。 It was that scene, of course, that was immortalized in marble by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
不过，尽管这些神秘体验如此离奇，却并非德兰灵修教导的核心所在。 But these mystical experiences, as extraordinary as they were, don't really get to the heart of Teresa's spiritual teaching.
要认识她想表达的内容，我认为最好先看她最著名的著作标题：*《内在的城堡》* 。阿维拉的圣德兰在自己灵魂的最深处发现基督居住其中，而她把那比作一座城堡。 To understand what she was trying to communicate, I think it's best to look at the title of her most famous work: *The Interior Castle*. Teresa of Avila found at the very depth of her soul Christ dwelling in her, and she found that to be a castle.
想象一下，对十六世纪的西班牙人来说，这意味着什么。 Now imagine what that meant for a 16th-century Spaniard.
城堡是一座坚固之地，是力量与安全之所。 A castle was a keep; it was a place of power and safety.
她体会到，若以基督为根基，就能倚靠那在此时此 地创造万有的力量——远超越时空变幻的力量。 To be grounded in Christ, she realized, was to be grounded in that very power which here and now creates the cosmos— that power which lies beyond the vagaries of space and time.
顺带一提，十字若望称这个中心点为「内里的酒窖」，也就是心灵存放美酒之处。 St. John of the Cross referred to this central place, by the way, as the interior wine cellar, the place where the spirits are kept.
阿维拉的圣德兰发现基督在她内心宛如一座城堡：充满力量与平安的场所。 Teresa of Avila found Christ dwelling within her as a castle: a place of power, a place of peace.
现在，想想德兰的一段著名祈祷：「让什么都不扰乱你 ，让什么都不困扰你；万事皆会逝去，唯独神永存。」 Now recall one of Teresa's most famous prayers: Let nothing disturb you, let nothing trouble you; everything passes; God alone remains.
这正是从那「内在城堡」的稳妥安然中发出的祷词。 That's a prayer uttered from the security of the interior castle.
正是在这个核心之处，人才能活出超脱，并无忧无虑地接受神的旨意。 It’s from this center that one can live a life of detachment and carefree acceptance of God's will.
不论寿命长短，健康或疾病，富足或贫穷，我都住在这座内在城堡的安稳之中。 Whether I have a long life or a short life, whether I'm sick or healthy, whether I'm rich or poor, I dwell in the safety of the interior castle.
漂浮、异象、神启，以及那些令人惊奇的超自然现象，可能会让人退避三舍。 Levitations, visions, locutions, and the kind of freaky supernatural elements can turn people off.
他们会说：「看起来像胡言乱语而已。」 They can say, Well, it just seems like a lot of nonsense.
对此的一种看法是：「我不在乎，也没人管你信不信。」 One perspective on that is, I don't care, or Who cares if you believe it or not?
因为这些都不是信仰的核心。 That's not the essence of the faith.
我们从没在主日站起来背诵信经时说：「我相信 圣……德兰会漂浮，或相信十字若望的异象。」 We never get up on Sunday and recite the Creed and say, I believe in the levitation of St.... Teresa or I believe in the visions of St. John of the Cross.
所以，我们的信仰并不建立在这些经历上。 So, our faith does not depend upon these things.
然而，从另一个角度来说，有种科学还原论认为「真实」只限于我能够以经验验证的一切。 In some ways, on the other hand, there is a scientific reductionism that says the real is simply what I can empirically verify.
但是，谁这么规定呢？ Well, who said it?
我们所能用经验科学仪器去测量的那片小小世界吗？ Our little world that we can measure with our empirical scientific instruments?
回想莎士比亚在*《哈姆雷特》*里的名言：「天地之 间有太多事物，是你们的理性哲学所未曾梦想过的。」 Go back to Shakespeare's great line in *Hamlet*: There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophies of ratio.
这是对那早期理性主义的嘲讽。 It was a mock of that early rationalism.
不要把科学与哲学能够测量、命名的东西就说成是真实的一切——那也未免太狭隘！ Instead of saying that what science and philosophy can measure and name is the real—come on!
我的意思是，神的大能远远超出我们能够测量的范围。 I mean, God's power stretches way beyond what we can possibly measure.
那么，谁能说神就不能偶尔行一些非凡之事来引起教会的注意呢？ So, who's to say God can't do extraordinary things at times to get the attention of the Church?
我对那种科学还原论会非常不耐烦，就像我也会对过度强调 「我的全部信仰都取决于这些现象」那种态度不耐烦一样。 I'd be very impatient with that scientific reductionism, as I would be impatient with a hyper-stress on it that says, Oh my, my whole faith depends on these things.
在这两个极端中间的某处，你才能找到真理。 Somewhere beyond those two poles, you find the truth.
我想大部分人想到祈祷时，大概不会立刻联想到我们所谈的那些深奥的形式。 I think when most people think of prayer, they're probably not spontaneously thinking about the more rarefied forms that we've been considering.
他们很可能想到的，是向神祈求些什么。 What they probably have in mind is asking God for something.
的确，祈求式祈祷是我们把心思和意念举向神最基本的方式之一。 Indeed, petitionary prayer is one of the most fundamental ways that we raise our minds and hearts to God.
这也是在圣经中最常见的祈祷形式。 It's also the most common form of prayer found in the Bible.
想想主祷文，其实就是连续不断的祈求。 Think of the Our Father as nothing but a series of petitions.
我不知道世上还有什么地方，比这里——卢尔德圣地——承载了更多的祈求式 祈祷。每年数以百万的人来到这朝圣之所，期盼从神那里获得医治的恩典。 I don't know any other place on earth where more petitionary prayer is offered than here at Lourdes, the shrine to which millions come every year seeking God's healing grace.
祈求式祈祷有一种原始、根本的特质：「哦，神啊，帮助我！」 There's just something elemental and primal about petitionary prayer: Oh God, help me!
「神啊，求你行事！」 Please, God, do something!
「主啊，赐她健康。」 Oh Lord, give her good health.
如果能在医院和教堂上方张一张网，捕捉这些祈祷的声音，我们会捕获数不清的呼求。 If we could place a net that could catch such prayers over hospitals and churches, we would capture millions upon millions of them.
耶稣亲自常常教导我们要恒心祷告：「你们祈求，就 给你们；寻找，就寻见；叩门，就给你们开门。」 Jesus Himself tells us often to persevere in prayer: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find.
「叩门，就给你们开门。」 Knock, and it will be opened to you.
然而，这也带来了一些矛盾——一些困扰宗教思想者数百年的难题。 Yet dilemmas emerge—anomalies that have puzzled religious thinkers for centuries.
如果神不改变，那我们向祂祈求又有什么用？ If God can't change, what's the point of asking Him for anything?
如果神全知，那我们告诉祂我们的需要又有何意义？ And if God is omniscient, what's the point of telling Him what we need?
别忘了，正是同一位耶稣说过要不断祈求，也说过：「因为你 们没有祈求以先，你们所需用的，你们的父早已知道了。」 Keep in mind the same Jesus who said ask, and ask, and ask also said, Your Father knows what you need before you ask.
以下是对这个难题的一些思考角度。 Here are some perspectives on this dilemma.
在圣经中，神一直被描述为一位父亲。 God is consistently portrayed in the Bible as a parent.
父母经常听到孩子的祈求——有的东西很好，有的并不好，但孩子还是不厌其烦地要求。 Parents hear petitions from their children all the time—persistent requests for things, some good and some bad.
好父母其实在孩子开口前就知道他们需要什么，但这并不会让父母去阻止孩子开口请求。 Good parents know, even before their children ask, what they need, but this doesn't lead parents to quiet the requests of their children.
恰恰相反，他们仍愿意听到孩子的请求，但不一定总能满足他们。 On the contrary, they want to hear them, but they don't always respond positively.
同理，神对万事万物无所不知，当然祂在我们开口前，就知道我们的需求。 Well, God knows everything about everything; of course, He knows what we need even before we ask.
但就像好父母一样，祂乐于听见我们的请求，也同样不会一概照我们心意去回应。 But still, like a good parent, He delights in hearing our requests, and like a good parent, He doesn't always respond the way we want Him to.
这里有圣奥古斯丁的看法：神之所以邀请我们不断向祂祈 求，是为了让我们的心能扩张，好接收神要赐予的礼物。 Here’s a perspective offered by St. Augustine: God invites us to ask and ask and ask again so that our hearts might expand to receive the gift that God wants to give.
这并不是说我们面向的是一个固执的领主或大城市的权威人物，盼望他最终能被说服。 It’s not as though we’re petitioning a stubborn pasha or a big city boss whom we hope will eventually be persuaded.
不，相反地，是神借由鼓励我们持久祈祷，来改变我们自己。 No, rather, it’s God who changes us by this invitation to pray persistently.
再看看另一种见解，这是圣托马斯阿奎那提出的。 Here’s another take, this one offered by St. Thomas Aquinas.
圣托马斯阿奎那说，我们的祈祷并不会让神有所移动；毕竟，神是那不动的推动者。 Thomas says our prayer doesn’t move God; God, after all, is the unmoved mover.
相反，在最理想的状态下，我们的祈祷其实是神已经在我们内里祈求——换言 之，是神在催促我们请求正确的事物，好使我们的生命与祂的旨意协调一致。 Rather, our prayer, at its best, is God already praying through us—God, as it were, prompting us to ask for the right thing, thereby bringing our lives into line with His own will.
这就是为什么我们所有的祈祷都该以耶稣在客西马尼园里的那句伟大祷文作为结束。 That’s why all of our prayers should end the way that Jesus' great prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane ends.
「愿祢的旨意成就。」 Thy will be done.
这样的一种奥妙互动，有一个很好的例子，就是在庆祝圣莫妮加的节日祈祷中。 A very good example of this dynamic is in the prayer for the Feast of St. Monica.
那篇祈祷中写道：「主啊，祢曾仁慈地收纳了莫 妮加的眼泪，为了她儿子奥古斯丁的悔改。」 The prayer reads: Lord, you graciously received the tears of Monica for the conversion of her son Augustine.
并不是莫妮加的眼泪让神决定改变她的儿子，而是那些眼泪本身就是神在她 里面祈祷的记号，促使她去祈求，然后神使祂的恩典与这样祈求相呼应。 It's not as though the tears of Monica moved God to convert her son, but rather, those tears themselves were the sign that God was, as it were, praying in her, prompting her to ask, and God coordinated His grace with that petition.
当然，在圣经里神就是父亲——这是对神的一个伟大比喻。 Now, God, of course, is a parent in the Bible—that's the great metaphor for God.
小孩子经常不断地向父母要东西：「给我！」 Little kids ask their parents all the time for things: Give me!
「给我！」 Give me!
很多时候，他们所求的并不适合他们。 Very often, they're asking for the wrong things.
我的意思是，他们想要的并不是真的对他们有益，但因着他 们思维幼小、经验有限，就觉得：「哦，我需要那个！」 I mean, they're asking for things that aren't really good for them, but given their very small minds and limited experience, they think, Oh, that's what I need!
「那就是我想要的！」 That's what I want!
于是他们央求父母，如果父母没立刻答应，他们就会难过地说：「我的父亲不爱我！」 So they beg their parents and then they're often just mortified when their parents don't give them immediately what they want: My father doesn't love me!
「我的母亲不在乎我！」 My mother doesn't care about me!
实际上，你的父母比你自己更在乎你。 When, in fact, your father and mother do care about you more than you care about yourself.
他们比你自己还了解你，所以这就是他们为什么不会给你想要的东西。 They know you better than you know yourself, which is why they're not giving you what you want.
所以我们也可以随时向神祈求：「给我！」 So we can ask God all the time: Give me!
「给我！」 Give me!
我们的心智渺小、经验不足，所以我们就会想：「对，这就是我想要的！」 We have these little, tiny, inexperienced minds, so we think, Sure, that's what I want!
「这正是我所需要的！」 That's what I need!
但正如耶稣所说，神在我们祈求之前就知道我们的需要。 But God knows what we need before we ask, as Jesus said.
祂比我们更清楚我们真正需要什么。 He knows better than we know what we need.
那么神不答应我们的祈求，究竟是冷漠疏远呢，还是正好表现了祂作为慈爱的父亲？ So is God being distant and difficult, or is God being a loving parent precisely in not giving us what we're asking for?
想想神所看见的全景——祂所眷顾的是所有的时空与万有。 Think of the picture that God sees—what God is provident over is all of space and all of time.
而我们只是这幅宏大图景里微不足道的一部分，一个小角落。 We are one tiny little fraction, one little corner of that picture.
可我们却说：「这对我最好。」 And I say, This is what's good for me.
我怎么可能知道呢？ How do I know?
在宏大的图景中，我怎么可能知道什么对我才是真正的益处？ How do I possibly know what's good for me in the grand scheme?
神知道对我有益的是什么，也乐意将之赐给我。 God knows what's good for me and wills that for me.
有时那会符合我的意愿，也可能不会。 It might correspond to my will; it might not.
这就是我们在祈祷时始终面对的处境。 So that's always the space we're in when we pray.
托马斯·默顿在盖色马尼修院的最后二十七年里住在这里。 Thomas Merton spent the last 27 years of his life here at Gethsemane.
他写了一本令人惊艳的自传 *《高山上的七重堡》*，于1948年问世 时在全国引起轰动。他还写了许多著作，试图为默观祈祷作进一步刻画。 He wrote a stunning autobiography, *The Seven Storey Mountain*, which galvanized the country when it appeared in 1948. He wrote a number of books attempting to characterize contemplative prayer.
即使在盖色马尼修院，默顿依然是个不安分的灵魂；他不断追求更为深刻的灵性生活表现。 Even at Gethsemane, Merton was a restless soul; he was seeking ever more intense expressions of the spiritual life.
在他所有渴望之中，最强烈的就是独处。 What he wanted above all was solitude.
二十世纪六十年代中期，院长准许他住进修院范围内的一座隐居小屋。 In the mid-1960s, his abbot gave him permission to live in a hermitage on the grounds of the monastery.
我现在正站在这间小屋里。 I’m standing in it now.
在这样一处简朴谦卑的住所里，默顿度过了他生命最后的几年时光。 In this simple, humble place, Merton lived and worked the last few years of his life.
默顿或许在这句话里最精准地总结了默观的本质：「默观就是在你内在找到这样一个地方 ，你此时此地正被神创造；或者说，觉醒于那最深的核心——默顿称之为『处女点』—— 在那儿你可以与保罗同声说：『现在活着的不再是我，乃是基督在我里面活着。』」 He probably best summed up the nature of contemplation when he said, To contemplate is to find that place in you where you are here and now, being created by God, or, It is to awaken to that deepest center, what Merton called the virginal point, where you could say with St. Paul, It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
默顿看得很透彻：默观并不只是少数灵修能手的专属，而是基督信仰 的核心所在，因为默观就是围绕神的中心，重新整合我们的人生。 Merton saw so clearly that contemplation is not the concern of a few spiritual athletes alone; rather, it stands at the heart of the Christian thing, for contemplation is the reorganization of one's life around the divine center.
在五十年代中期，默顿在修院生活了约十五年后，因一些事务前往路易斯维尔。 In the mid-1950s, after some 15 years in the monastery, Thomas Merton made his way into Louisville on some practical business.
他来到市中心第四街与沃尔纳特街的交叉路口。 He found himself in the center of the city at the corner of 4th and Walnut.
当他伫立在那里，望着成群的平常人来来往往，他突然强 烈地感受到自己是何等爱他们，何等与他们紧密相连。 As he stood there watching the crowds of ordinary people go by, he was struck by how much he loved them, how connected to them he felt.
他说，那感觉就像从「分离」的梦中苏醒过来一样。 It was, he said, like waking from a dream of separateness.
他所发现的，当然便是默观的结果。 What he had discovered, of course, was the consequence of contemplation.
一旦有人觉察到此时此地自己正被神创造，他便找到那个与众人、与万物相连的所在。 Once one has found the place where he is here and now being created by God, he finds the place that connects him to everyone else and everything else in the cosmos.
作为一个身处神秘体验与默观之中的人，默顿能够看清这一点。 As a mystic and a contemplative, Merton could see this.
他的描述在这句话达到情感高潮：「根本无法向 人诉说，他们其实都在阳光般的光辉中行走。」 His account reaches its emotional climax when he says, There's no way of telling people that they're all walking around shining like the sun.
谢谢。 Thank you.
「至高的光之主，我们每日的祈祷是愿祢得着荣耀——愿祢得着荣耀。」 O Lord of light, who art on high, our daily prayer is that there be honor—that there be honor in Thee.