We're here to celebrate compassion. But compassion, from my vantage point, has a problem. As essential as it is across our traditions, as real as so many of us know it to be in particular lives, the word "compassion" is hollowed out in our culture, and it is suspect in my field of journalism. It's seen as a squishy kumbaya thing, or it's seen as potentially depressing. Karen Armstrong has told what I think is an iconic story of giving a speech in Holland and, after the fact, the word "compassion" was translated as "pity."
在這裡我們來讚頌同情。 但以我的觀點觀之,同情 卻有些問題。 儘管它在我們的傳統中無處不在, 儘管我們承認它 在某些人的生命中真是存在, “同情”這一詞語還是在我們的文化中千瘡百孔, 在新聞領域中也是岌岌可危。 它被看做類似Kumbaya的東西。 或具有讓人悲愁的潛質。 Karen Armstrong講述了一個我認為很典型的故事 她在荷蘭做了一個演講, 事後,同情一詞 被翻譯為可憐。
Now compassion, when it enters the news, too often comes in the form of feel-good feature pieces or sidebars about heroic people you could never be like or happy endings or examples of self-sacrifice that would seem to be too good to be true most of the time. Our cultural imagination about compassion has been deadened by idealistic images. And so what I'd like to do this morning for the next few minutes is perform a linguistic resurrection. And I hope you'll come with me on my basic premise that words matter, that they shape the way we understand ourselves, the way we interpret the world and the way we treat others.
而今,當同情進入新聞語境的時候, 它往往被當做 善意的代名詞, 或是平凡人無法企及的 英雄事蹟的註腳 或是大團圓的完滿結局, 或是那些自我犧牲的案例, 而我們往往認為那些案例過於崇高, 在大多數時候都不可能存在。 我們文化中對於同情的想像 已然被種種不著邊際的理想圖景嚴重削弱。 所以接下來幾分鐘里 我要做的, 就是從語言學上復活這一詞語。 當然我希望大家都認同一個基本的前提, 即文字事關重大, 言語塑造了我們理解自身的方式, 我們理解世界的方式 以及我們對待他人的方式。
When this country first encountered genuine diversity in the 1960s, we adopted tolerance as the core civic virtue with which we would approach that. Now the word "tolerance," if you look at it in the dictionary, connotes "allowing," "indulging" and "enduring." In the medical context that it comes from, it is about testing the limits of thriving in an unfavorable environment. Tolerance is not really a lived virtue; it's more of a cerebral ascent. And it's too cerebral to animate guts and hearts and behavior when the going gets rough. And the going is pretty rough right now. I think that without perhaps being able to name it, we are collectively experiencing that we've come as far as we can with tolerance as our only guiding virtue.
當這個國家 在六十年代第一次 遭遇真正的多元化時, 我們揀出“容忍” 來作為核心的公民道德 以處理多元化帶來的種種問題。 如果現在你翻開字典, 容忍一詞的含義包括了容許 與忍讓。 容忍源自醫學領域, 在那裡,它關乎挑戰逆境下 蓬勃發展的可能性。 其實容忍並不是鮮活的美德, 毋寧說,它更多代表了理性的巔峰。 而恰恰由於它過於理性, 以致它很難真正激發勇氣和決心 很難激發出有益的行為, 當事情真的開始變得糟糕。 而實際上,現在事情就很糟糕。 我想也許儘管我們很難明確的以言語表達 但我們無一例外都體會到, 以容忍作為我們唯一的道德嚮導, 我們已無力走的更遠。
Compassion is a worthy successor. It is organic, across our religious, spiritual and ethical traditions, and yet it transcends them. Compassion is a piece of vocabulary that could change us if we truly let it sink into the standards to which we hold ourselves and others, both in our private and in our civic spaces. So what is it, three-dimensionally? What are its kindred and component parts? What's in its universe of attendant virtues? To start simply, I want to say that compassion is kind. Now "kindness" might sound like a very mild word, and it's prone to its own abundant cliche. But kindness is an everyday byproduct of all the great virtues. And it is a most edifying form of instant gratification.
同情可以作為一個合格的繼任者。 它具有系統性, 橫跨宗教,靈性以及倫理各個傳統領域, 但同時它又超乎于它們之上。 作為我們語彙中的一份子, 同情真的可以改變我們, 如果我們可以讓它深深扎根于 公共私人空間里我們對待自我及他人的方式之中。 所以,它到底具有什麼樣的立體圖景? 什麽與它相關,它又由什麽組成? 它的連帶道德又有哪些? 簡單來講, 我想說,同情就是善良。 善良可能聽起來是個溫和的詞, 也很容易落入窠臼。 但是善良是所有美德 共同的附屬品。 它也是欣慰 的最具啓發性的化身之一。
Compassion is also curious. Compassion cultivates and practices curiosity. I love a phrase that was offered me by two young women who are interfaith innovators in Los Angeles, Aziza Hasan and Malka Fenyvesi. They are working to create a new imagination about shared life among young Jews and Muslims, and as they do that, they cultivate what they call "curiosity without assumptions." Well that's going to be a breeding ground for compassion.
同情還是好奇。 同情產生并實踐著好奇。 我尤其喜歡這一個詞組, 它是由兩個在洛杉磯 從事跨宗教活動的年輕婦女提供個我的。 Azizi Hasan和Malka Fenyvesi. 她們試圖通過努力來創造出一種新的圖景 即青年猶太人和穆斯林和平共處。 在實踐中,她們試圖培養出她們叫做 “無前提好奇心”的東西。 它可以作為產生同情的溫床。
Compassion can be synonymous with empathy. It can be joined with the harder work of forgiveness and reconciliation, but it can also express itself in the simple act of presence. It's linked to practical virtues like generosity and hospitality and just being there, just showing up. I think that compassion also is often linked to beauty -- and by that I mean a willingness to see beauty in the other, not just what it is about them that might need helping. I love it that my Muslim conversation partners often speak of beauty as a core moral value. And in that light, for the religious, compassion also brings us into the territory of mystery -- encouraging us not just to see beauty, but perhaps also to look for the face of God in the moment of suffering, in the face of a stranger, in the face of the vibrant religious other.
同情可以是移情的同義詞。 更深的說,它還可以與 原諒與和解產生聯繫。 但是,它還可以以它自身的單純存在 來表達自己。 它與慷慨、好客那樣的 實踐美德聯繫在一起。 它就在那兒, 它就那麼無故出現。 我認為,同情 還經常與美產生聯繫 我的意思是,那種 在他者中發現美的意願, 而不僅僅是需要 幫助的弱者。 我的穆斯林對話夥伴們 常說美是一個核心的道德價值,對此我深表贊同。 在這一方面,對於信者, 同情還把我們 引入神秘的領域, 它鼓勵我們去發現, 不僅僅是美, 而或許還有在受難一刻, 在面對他者時, 在面對異教的狂熱信徒時 上帝的面容。
I'm not sure if I can show you what tolerance looks like, but I can show you what compassion looks like -- because it is visible. When we see it, we recognize it and it changes the way we think about what is doable, what is possible. It is so important when we're communicating big ideas -- but especially a big spiritual idea like compassion -- to root it as we present it to others in space and time and flesh and blood -- the color and complexity of life.
我不確定我是否能夠給你們展示 容忍的含義, 但我的確可以給你們看看同情長的什麼樣子, 因為同情是可見的。 每當我們看見它,我們就能認出它, 而它也改變了我們對於可行性 和可能性的看法。 當我們討論 重大想法時, 尤其是像同情這樣一個重大的精神性概念時, 在展示的同時,還要讓它滲入人們的血肉, 在時空中展開,以豐富的色彩 和內涵讓人們和它產生共鳴,這尤其重要。
And compassion does seek physicality. I first started to learn this most vividly from Matthew Sanford. And I don't imagine that you will realize this when you look at this photograph of him, but he's paraplegic. He's been paralyzed from the waist down since he was 13, in a car crash that killed his father and his sister. Matthew's legs don't work, and he'll never walk again, and -- and he does experience this as an "and" rather than a "but" -- and he experiences himself to be healed and whole. And as a teacher of yoga, he brings that experience to others across the spectrum of ability and disability, health, illness and aging. He says that he's just at an extreme end of the spectrum we're all on. He's doing some amazing work now with veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan. And Matthew has made this remarkable observation that I'm just going to offer you and let it sit. I can't quite explain it, and he can't either. But he says that he has yet to experience someone who became more aware of their body, in all its frailty and its grace, without, at the same time, becoming more compassionate towards all of life.
同情與肉體息息相關。 我第一次對此深有感觸, 是源於Matthew Sanford。 看他的這幅照片, 也許你們不會想到, 他其實是個高位截癱病人。 從13歲開始,他從腰部以下就癱瘓了, 那場車禍奪取了他父親和妹妹的生命。 Matthew的腿不能動彈,他也永遠不可能行走, 而且——他真實的體驗到——是“而且”, 而非“但是” 他感到自己 已然痊愈。 作為一個瑜伽教練, 他把這種感受傳遞給其他人, 無論他們是健全的抑或殘疾的, 健康的,病重的,衰老的。 他說自己僅僅是我們共同所在的譜系上的 一個端點。 他現在正從事一些令人驚歎的工作, 與那些伊拉克戰爭和阿富汗戰爭中退伍的老兵們共處。 Matthew有一個心得, 這也正是我想與你們分享的, 我很難解釋它,他也不能。 但是他說,他遇到的所有人 當他們意識到 自己身體的脆弱和優雅之後, 也都同時產生了 對其他生命的同情和敬意。
Compassion also looks like this. This is Jean Vanier. Jean Vanier helped found the L'Arche communities, which you can now find all over the world, communities centered around life with people with mental disabilities -- mostly Down syndrome. The communities that Jean Vanier founded, like Jean Vanier himself, exude tenderness. "Tender" is another word I would love to spend some time resurrecting. We spend so much time in this culture being driven and aggressive, and I spend a lot of time being those things too. And compassion can also have those qualities. But again and again, lived compassion brings us back to the wisdom of tenderness. Jean Vanier says that his work, like the work of other people -- his great, beloved, late friend Mother Teresa -- is never in the first instance about changing the world; it's in the first instance about changing ourselves. He's says that what they do with L'Arche is not a solution, but a sign. Compassion is rarely a solution, but it is always a sign of a deeper reality, of deeper human possibilities.
同情也可以是這樣的。 這是Jean Vanier. Jean Vanier參與建立了L'Arche社區, 這一組織遍佈全世界, 它致力於關注 精神殘疾患者的生活, 其中大部份都是唐氏綜合癥患者。 JeanVanier所建立的社區, 就如同他自己一樣, 向世界散髮著溫柔之香。 “溫柔”是另一個 需要語言學復活的詞語。 在這個世界上 我們花費大量經歷驅動自己積極進取, 我也不例外。 同情也可以具有相同的品質。 但是,我再三強調的是,鮮活的同情 把我們帶回到那個以溫柔為智慧的時代。 Jean Vanier說 他的工作 就如同其他人的工作一樣—— 比如他偉大的、令人敬愛的,剛剛去世的Teresa修女—— 首先關注的不是改變世界, 而是改變我們自身。 他說,L'Arche所做的工作 並不是提供一種解決辦法,而只是展示一種象徵。 同情極少提供解決辦法, 但它總可以是一個象徵, 象徵著我們對現實、對人性有更加深入理解。
And compassion is unleashed in wider and wider circles by signs and stories, never by statistics and strategies. We need those things too, but we're also bumping up against their limits. And at the same time that we are doing that, I think we are rediscovering the power of story -- that as human beings, we need stories to survive, to flourish, to change. Our traditions have always known this, and that is why they have always cultivated stories at their heart and carried them forward in time for us. There is, of course, a story behind the key moral longing and commandment of Judaism to repair the world -- tikkun olam.
同情在更廣闊的領域中 被實踐, 被一個個故事和象徵所實踐、展示, 而不是被統計數據和各種策略所實現。 我們當然也需要那些東西, 但是我們偶爾也會觸及它們的極限。 我們做著統計、策略, 但同時我們也重新發現故事的力量—— 作為人,我們需要故事 來生存,來發展, 來改變。 我們的傳統深知這一點, 這就是爲什麽它總是把故事熟記於心, 并將給我們聽的原因。 有一個故事 在這個故事背後 根植著猶太教 修復世界的道德根據,tikkun olam。
And I'll never forget hearing that story from Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who told it to me as her grandfather told it to her, that in the beginning of the Creation something happened and the original light of the universe was shattered into countless pieces. It lodged as shards inside every aspect of the Creation. And that the highest human calling is to look for this light, to point at it when we see it, to gather it up, and in so doing, to repair the world. Now this might sound like a fanciful tale. Some of my fellow journalists might interpret it that way. Rachel Naomi Remen says this is an important and empowering story for our time, because this story insists that each and every one of us, frail and flawed as we may be, inadequate as we may feel, has exactly what's needed to help repair the part of the world that we can see and touch.
當Rachel Naomi Remen醫生講給我這個故事時, 我印象深刻。 她祖父講給她,她又原樣講給我。 在創世之初, 突然間, 宇宙的元初之光 被打碎成千千萬萬個碎片。 它就以碎片的形式 存在與被造物的每一方面之中。 人類最高的使命 就是去找尋那光,一看到就指出給他人看, 去收集那光, 就這樣修復世界。 這聽起來好像一個幻想故事。 我的一些同行可能就會以此詮釋這個故事。 Rache Naomi Remen說 對於我們的時代 這是一個重要的具有力量的故事, 因為故事告訴我們 我們每一個個體, 儘管我們自身可能很脆弱,也有很多過失, 儘管我們可能覺得自己非常無力, 其實我們每個人都擁有 那份可以修復世界的力量, 我們可以真切的看到,觸到這份力量。
Stories like this, signs like this, are practical tools in a world longing to bring compassion to abundant images of suffering that can otherwise overwhelm us. Rachel Naomi Remen is actually bringing compassion back to its rightful place alongside science in her field of medicine in the training of new doctors. And this trend of what Rachel Naomi Remen is doing, how these kinds of virtues are finding a place in the vocabulary of medicine -- the work Fred Luskin is doing -- I think this is one of the most fascinating developments of the 21st century -- that science, in fact, is taking a virtue like compassion definitively out of the realm of idealism. This is going to change science, I believe, and it will change religion.
像這樣的故事, 這樣的象徵, 在這樣一個渴求將同情 給予眾多不幸的世界, 在一個不幸足以將我們擊垮的世界, 這樣的故事和象徵無疑是有力的武器。 Rache Naomi Remen 自己實際上就在將同情 重新置於與科學並重的位置上, 就在她所從事的醫學領域, 通過訓練新的醫生。 Rache Naomi Remen 的這種趨勢 這種在醫學領域中 樹立道德的趨勢—— Fred Luskin在做同樣的事—— 在我看來,是21世紀 最令人折服的貢獻之一—— 科學 正將同情這樣的道德品質 剝離出理想主義。 我相信,這將會改變科學, 亦將會改變宗教。
But here's a face from 20th century science that might surprise you in a discussion about compassion. We all know about the Albert Einstein who came up with E = mc2. We don't hear so much about the Einstein who invited the African American opera singer, Marian Anderson, to stay in his home when she came to sing in Princeton because the best hotel there was segregated and wouldn't have her. We don't hear about the Einstein who used his celebrity to advocate for political prisoners in Europe or the Scottsboro boys in the American South.
但是,這裡有一張面孔 來自20世紀科學界。 他關於同情的探討 也許會讓你感到吃驚。 我們都知道愛因斯坦, 他發現了E=mc二次方。 然而我們卻並不熟悉這樣的一個愛因斯坦: 非洲裔美國歌手Marian Anderson 因種族隔離而無法入住Princeton當地賓館時, 愛因斯坦邀請她 住在自己的住所裡; 愛因斯坦以自己的影響來宣揚 釋放歐洲的政治犯 和美國南部 Scottsboro男孩兒。
Einstein believed deeply that science should transcend national and ethnic divisions. But he watched physicists and chemists become the purveyors of weapons of mass destruction in the early 20th century. He once said that science in his generation had become like a razor blade in the hands of a three-year-old. And Einstein foresaw that as we grow more modern and technologically advanced, we need the virtues our traditions carry forward in time more, not less. He liked to talk about the spiritual geniuses of the ages. Some of his favorites were Moses, Jesus, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Gandhi -- he adored his contemporary, Gandhi. And Einstein said -- and I think this is a quote, again, that has not been passed down in his legacy -- that "these kinds of people are geniuses in the art of living, more necessary to the dignity, security and joy of humanity than the discoverers of objective knowledge."
愛因斯坦堅信 科學可以超越 民族和種族的分歧。 但他親眼見到物理學家和化學家 在20世紀早期 成為大規模殺傷性武器的批發商。 他曾說,在他的年代, 科學成爲了3歲孩童手中 揮舞的利刃。 愛因斯坦還預見 時代越現代, 科技越進步, 我們就越需要 傳統中的 道德品質。 他喜歡談論各個時代的精神領袖, 其中有摩西, 耶穌,釋迦牟尼,圣方濟各, 甘地——他憧憬他的同時代人甘地。 愛因斯坦說—— 我想這也是一句引言, 也是一句埋沒在它眾多文獻中的引言—— “這些人 是生存藝術的天才, 對於人性的尊嚴、安全和愉悅, 比起客觀知識的發現者 我們更加需要他們。”
Now invoking Einstein might not seem the best way to bring compassion down to earth and make it seem accessible to all the rest of us, but actually it is. I want to show you the rest of this photograph, because this photograph is analogous to what we do to the word "compassion" in our culture -- we clean it up and we diminish its depths and its grounding in life, which is messy. So in this photograph you see a mind looking out a window at what might be a cathedral -- it's not. This is the full photograph, and you see a middle-aged man wearing a leather jacket, smoking a cigar. And by the look of that paunch, he hasn't been doing enough yoga. We put these two photographs side-by-side on our website, and someone said, "When I look at the first photo, I ask myself, what was he thinking? And when I look at the second, I ask, what kind of person was he? What kind of man is this?"
援引愛因斯坦 看起來也許不是讓同情降下神壇 讓大眾望其項背的好辦法, 但事實卻正相反。 我想給你們看看 這張照片的餘下部份, 因為這張照片 恰恰為我們提供了一個方便的類比以闡明我們處理同情的方法—— 我們把它清理乾淨, 我們簡化它的深度和基礎 因為這些都容易造成麻煩。 就如同這張照片 大家看到心靈向窗口外望去 他注視的也許是教堂——其實不是。 這是一整張照片, 一個中年男人穿著皮夾克, 叼著雪茄。 看看他肚子上的贅肉, 就知道他沒做夠瑜伽。 我們把這兩幅照片並排放在網路上, 有人說,“當我看到第一張照片, 我想,他在思考什麽? 而當我看到第二張時,我想, 他是個什麼樣的人?”
Well, he was complicated. He was incredibly compassionate in some of his relationships and terribly inadequate in others. And it is much harder, often, to be compassionate towards those closest to us, which is another quality in the universe of compassion, on its dark side, that also deserves our serious attention and illumination. Gandhi, too, was a real flawed human being. So was Martin Luther King, Jr. So was Dorothy Day. So was Mother Teresa. So are we all. And I want to say that it is a liberating thing to realize that that is no obstacle to compassion -- following on what Fred Luskin says -- that these flaws just make us human.
其實,他是複雜的。 在某些關係中,他非常富有同情心, 而在其他一些領域 卻遠非如此。 其實,對我們最親近的人 我們往往最難富有同情心, 在同情領域,這一方面 往往被人忽視, 故而值得我我們深思。 甘地也並非完人。 馬丁路德金,Dorothy Day都並非完人。 Teresa修女也不是, 金無足赤,人無完人。 我想說的是, 意識到人人都可以富有同情心 是解放心智的。 Fred Luskin也說 缺陷造就了人性。
Our culture is obsessed with perfection and with hiding problems. But what a liberating thing to realize that our problems, in fact, are probably our richest sources for rising to this ultimate virtue of compassion, towards bringing compassion towards the suffering and joys of others. Rachel Naomi Remen is a better doctor because of her life-long struggle with Crohn's disease. Einstein became a humanitarian, not because of his exquisite knowledge of space and time and matter, but because he was a Jew as Germany grew fascist. And Karen Armstrong, I think you would also say that it was some of your very wounding experiences in a religious life that, with a zigzag, have led to the Charter for Compassion. Compassion can't be reduced to sainthood any more than it can be reduced to pity.
我們的文化總是沉迷于完美 千方百計掩飾問題。 但是,一個開放的態度是 意識到我們的問題 實際上就是我們最寶貴的財富, 這一財富使我們得以企及最完滿的同情, 使得讓同情 解除他人的苦難,帶給他人歡樂。 Rachel Naomi Remen因為終生 與Crohn疾患戰鬥而成為出色的醫生 愛因斯坦是人道主義者, 不是因為他關於時空與物質 精深的理論知識, 而是因為當德國遍佈法西斯主義者是他是猶太人。 Karen Armstrong,我想你們可能會說 這是你們宗教生活中 最為受傷的經歷之一 歷經曲折, 最終收穫了同情憲章。 同情,正如它不能簡單歸結為可憐一樣, 也不能歸結為聖人聖言。
So I want to propose a final definition of compassion -- this is Einstein with Paul Robeson by the way -- and that would be for us to call compassion a spiritual technology. Now our traditions contain vast wisdom about this, and we need them to mine it for us now. But compassion is also equally at home in the secular as in the religious.
所以,我想提出 同情的終極定義—— 一個混同Paul Robeson的愛因斯坦式版本—— 那就是 把同情當做一種靈性科技。 我們的傳統中 遍佈各種相關的智慧, 現在我們需要挖掘它們。 但是同情在世俗生活中 同樣如魚得水。
So I will paraphrase Einstein in closing and say that humanity, the future of humanity, needs this technology as much as it needs all the others that have now connected us and set before us the terrifying and wondrous possibility of actually becoming one human race.
我想借用愛因斯坦的名言來收場: 人性, 人性的未來, 需要這種科技, 就如同我們同時需要其他這一切 以使這一駭人卻又奇妙的可能性 變為現實: 即人類最終 能夠真正成為一個民族,能夠親如一家。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)