tian xin 于 1999/11/14 05:59:08 发表在 汉英
Walking along the lofty ridge of fulfilled desire
In the cool of New England's morning air,
I smelt time
Not time of my kitchen clock
But time of Grandma's baked potato sweet
Time of trains passing by my school days
With fading drone
Carrying me to lands folded away
Time that taught me twinge of pain
As I trod on aching snow white
In my first winter of womanhood
Time of straw-colored champagne
Left in glasses by classmates departing
After the graduation feast
The wind drops, a wallaby hops by
My watch pulses to each throb of a responsive heart
Along the winding road of seasons
Time rocks
An old woman on her verandah
Nodding away pale afternoons
Fragile and tired
Bearing the woes of mortality
But with a smile angelical
She greets each sunrise
Time and again I reach out in the dark
To touch the hem of an eternity absent
Under starry heaven of silent longing
Time moves on
Gently dodging hope and despair
Hiding joys and sorrows among the gum trees
Slipping into a present all pervading
Till it stands still
When I suddenly remember
The day I grew out of the little girl
That loved crying
Now seeing in every tear
A happy lady wanting to jump out!
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- 致浅草君 - tian xin 19991114131018
致浅草君
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/14 13:10:18
***
Thank you for your openness and trust!
(And sorry for the delay-having been away from home and work and cyber world for the last week.)
You ask seemingly simple questions that need a library or a sage to answer :-)
What else can I say except that you are so right!
The spiritual traditions have not come to grips with the global challenge. Syncretism cannot be the solution. Although all world religions proclaim the same universal truth, yet each path is a complete path in itself, one has to follow a particular path to reach the goal. The more one learns, the more one realizes one's own limitations and the need for a guide who unfailingly lends a hand in times of crisis. That's why nearly all spiritual traditions emphasize on the importance of finding a (ideally spiritually perfect) master.
You are also right in feeling that an abstract and theoretical approach just won't do. Intellectual understanding is necessary but has to give way to intuitive response of the heart when time is ripe. All we can do is to try to respect what our mind and heart feel as truth, and to overcome the false limitations our ego and society put on human knowledge.
Please note that I am a spiritual aspirant myself, a lover of the good the true and the beautiful. Perhaps I can help a bit, with information on books at least which might widen perspectives or give a bird's eye view.
Well, my fellow wayfarer, let me suggest one book for you to start with-it provides a coherent perspective of the whole spiritual panorama and has had great influence on my life and outlook. Full of heart quality, supported by profound stories and in lucid and simple English. At least it may save you lots of time diving into the ocean of spiritual literature to find the real pearl:-):
Discourses
By Meher Baba
Sheriar Press, 1987
(currently available at Amazon)
Further recommendations can follow if you like, and I will try to tailor them to your ongoing responses.
Seek and you shall find:-) Good luck!
tian xin
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回来了真好。附陋译，以示深深的感激 ：-)
作者：浅草 - 1999/11/14 13:14:03
***
Time--a whiff of my one week's retreat in Australian bush
“时光--澳大利亚丛林一周漫游浅痕”
Walking along the lofty ridge of fulfilled desire
In the cool of New England's morning air,
I smelt time
走在高高的畅意的峰峦
新英格兰寒冽的晨风中
我闻着时间的气息
Not time of my kitchen clock
But time of Grandma's baked potato sweet
不是厨房里的那架钟
是“祖母”烤出的甜红薯
Time of trains passing by my school days
With fading drone
Carrying me to lands folded away
时间的列车掠过校园的晨昏
渐逝的笛音
带我到书页上
封合的土地
Time that taught me twinge of pain
As I trod on aching snow white
In my first winter of womanhood
时间教我品尝尖锐的刺痛
当我踩在疼痛的白色雪野
当我不再是少女的
第一个冬季
Time of straw-colored champagne
Left in glasses by classmates departing
After the graduation feast
时光浸于麦色的香槟
杯中酒残，同伴远去
告别毕业的宴席
The wind drops, a wallaby hops by
My watch pulses to each throb of a responsive heart
Along the winding road of seasons
风儿歇息，一只小袋鼠蹦跳而过
腕上的表，应和着易感的心
脉动，在这四季风飘的道路
Time rocks
An old woman on her verandah
Nodding away pale afternoons
Fragile and tired
Bearing the woes of mortality
时光摇荡
阳台上一位老妇人
颔首送别苍凉午后
脆弱，倦怠
这生命必逝的悲伤
But with a smile angelical
She greets each sunrise
她却又用微笑，如天使一般的
问候每一次的日出，每一个朝阳
Time and again I reach out in the dark
To touch the hem of an eternity absent
Under starry heaven of silent longing
一次又一次，黑暗的时光中伸出双臂
想要触摸永恒的裙裾
虚无的，在沉默渴求的、繁星的天宇
Time moves on
Gently dodging hope and despair
Hiding joys and sorrows among the gum trees
Slipping into a present all pervading
时光流逝
把希望和失望，轻巧地闪避
藏起快乐和悲伤，在橡胶树林
然后潜入现在，无所不在的此时
Till it stands still
直到 寂 然 不 动
When I suddenly remember
The day I grew out of the little girl
That loved crying
Now seeing in every tear
A happy lady wanting to jump out!
我便忽然记起往昔
那个爱哭的小小女孩
今天的她，重又泪落
只是每一朵泪花啊
都是含不住的幸福在闪烁
Dear Tian Xin, many thanks for your reply and recommending the book. I'll definitely try to get one copy. Amazon doesn't seem so good this time as before - I'm still waiting for the "World Tales"! Maybe they know I am very busy these days and so I have to wait for a short while anyhow before I can read the book :-) I'll tell a story here sometime after I get to read it! :-)) By the way, the translation above is far from perfect. Just say thanks by it!
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Well, some corrections :-)
作者：QC - 1999/11/14 18:33:02
***
时间
走在高高的畅意的峰峦
新英格兰寒冽的晨风里
我闻着时间的气息
不是厨房里的那架钟
是“祖母”烤出甜薯时分
时间的列车掠过校园晨昏
渐逝的笛音
带我到书页里封合的土地
时间教我品尝尖锐的刺痛
当我踩在疼痛的白色雪野
当我不再是少女的
第一个冬季
时光浸于麦色的香槟
杯中酒残，同伴星散
告别了，毕业的欢宴
风儿歇息，一只小袋鼠蹦跳而过
腕上的表，应和着易感的心
脉动，在这四季风飘的道路
时光摇荡
阳台上一位老妇人
颔首送别午后的苍凉
脆弱，倦怠
负着生命必逝的哀伤
然而她又以微笑，如同天使
问候每一轮 初升的太阳
黑暗时分，一次次伸出双臂
想要触摸永恒的裙裾
它却不在 沉默渴望的、繁星的天宇
时光流逝
将希望和绝望，轻巧地闪避
藏起快乐和悲伤，在橡胶林丛
然后潜入现在，无所不在的此时
直到寂然 伫立
我于是忽然记起往昔
那个爱哭的小小女孩
今天的她，重又泪落
只是那泪花朵朵
都是含不住的幸福 在闪烁
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Thank you so much for your kindness and brilliant translation!
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/15 06:03:21
***
You've made me start to appreciate my own poem now.
Now to the second part of your posting, about Hongloumeng. I've forgotten what I said about the novel:-) However, this time I shall start with a story I read four years ago from a book written by a Tibetan Buddhist teacher.
There was once a highly advanced Buddhist monk who had been sitting in a cave meditating for many years. One day when he was deep in contemplation on the emptiness of life, he overheard some one riding a horse and singing a happy song down on the plains below. With years of yogic practice, he could look into his clairvoyant mind and see that the horseman was to die tragically the next day, and that the horse had only one more week to live. Yet the man, not knowing what was to become of him, was so carefree and singing merrily. The yogi was overwhelmed by the transitoriness of the human lot and couldn't help weeping out of compassion for days.
When I was reading the story, the first image that came to my mind was that of four young people rowing and laughing on a beautiful lake. They were old classmates and best friends and happened to work in the same city. It was spring and they rode all the way to the west of the city, with fishing and picnic gear, singing all the way to the lake and singing all the time all the songs they could remember from college days while fishing and boating, not catching one single fish.
Within a few years time, however, one had leukemia and left the world, leaving behind a baby and his young wife. The others were battling with life and fate, each on a strange continent. None had any idea whether they could ever see one another again. I was, of course, one of the carefree and blissfully happy singers.
As I was reading the story and visualizing the day on the lake, I thought, gosh, imagine if there had been an advanced yogi sitting above. Wouldn't he be weeping for us? I wept and wept and wept.
Again back to "Dream of the Red Chamber". In a way we are all like Baoyu dreaming the wondrous but incredibly painful dream of life. It is no surprise that we get lost in the book and identify with this or that role while immersed in it, in the same way we get immersed in creation itself. But, of course, one wants to rise above it and to see the whole panorama from a vantage point of view, as that advanced yogi does. Yet unless one has aquired a certain degree of insight like the yogi, one finds it very hard to transcend the boundary of the story itself and can easily get confused and lost.
As you said, a writer is not a teacher or philosopher, he is just a story-teller. And trying to understand a story through the story itself is like trying to stand on one's own shoulders. We need something more than a story to lift our perspective. Once one gets an integrated vantage point, all else seems crystal clear. After reading Huineng, Zhuangzi, New Testament, Gurdjieff, and Meher Baba, I find it difficult to condemn people, much less to condemn Baocai and Xiren etc in Hongloumeng. One feels that the pull of destiny is sometimes so strong that whatever a particular person does is understandable, and that we are all capable of acting the worst as well as the best under similar circumstances. One has to learn to forgive oneself as well as others.
Then one can start to appreciate the intrinsic values of a great literary work and find that sometimes writers like Cao Xueqin and Shakespeare could do more than preachers can in our postmodern world. Books like "Dream of the Red Chamber" are invaluable in that they have more to them than they reveal on the superficial level. Their complexity and depth work together to create an overall impact on the readers' heart and mind. They all have what is called "open ending" in the sense that they ask questions without answering them dogmatically. They also open people's heart instead of closing it, alerting us to our hopeless human dilemma, awakening our compassion for our fellow being, bringing new vistas of understanding, shaping our general approach to life.
Great literary works are what I would call "secular scriptures" conveying universal spirituality still much needed and they can work more effectively in some cases than ideologies and religious dogmas. There is a visionary logic which comes from the heart and which can give values beyond anything that the rational faculty can encompass. One learn to love not because of misunderstanding, but with acceptance of human vulnerablity and hopelessness.
And your translation touches my heart.
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You saved me another confession :-)
作者：QC - 1999/11/16 00:54:50
***
Thank you so much for your reply and your sincerity. I couldn't help weeping over your story. I wish you had not felt too sad while having to tell it again to share with me.
What you wrote was also very inspiring, which made me think a lot about the existence of human beings: present and eternity, finite and infinite, understanding, detachment from oneself, reading literary works and living a life, death, predetermination and free will, love... If I let it, my response would almost be endless! (Well, if that is the case, better in Chinese! :-) However, even for a brief posting, I have to wait for a couple of days until I finish my mid-terms. How unfortunately they don't request my analysis of Hongloumeng!
I'm glad you like the translation, which I had only hoped not to ruin the beauty of the original artistic work.
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I hope my story hasn't distracted you too much from your studies :-)
作者：tian xin - 1999/11/16 14:08:50
***
Please feel free to share your thoughts and inspirations whenever you are free and in whatever language you feel comfortable with, and I am happy to share with you some of my ideas.
All the best with your exams!
tian xin
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