致敬一行禅师——在禅师的Blue Cliff Monastery遇到可爱的陌生人们 by Yuan

原文链接 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/YqB9kB6rWNHESFpxvfAP0A

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The last day of 2021 for me was a rainy day. I left New York City by myself. My physical destination was Blue Cliff Monastery, a meditation center established by Thay Thich Nhat Hanh in update New York. He was a great Buddhism master from Vietnam. If you’re not familiar with this name in Vietnamese, you’d either know his famous book Old Path, White Cloud in China or his name Shi Yi Xing in Chinese (Yi Xing literally means “one action” in Chinese). 

2021年的最后一天，对于我来说是一个雨天，我一个人离开了纽约市。我的目的地是蓝崖寺，这是Thich Nhat Hanh在纽约上州设立的冥想中心。Thich Nhat Hanh是一位伟大的越南佛教大师，如果你不熟悉这个名字的越南语，你应该会知道他的名著《故道白云》（或译为《佛陀转》），或者知道他的中文法号释一行（Nhat Hanh是“一行”的意思）。

On my way to the great master’s zen place, I was nowhere near the word ZEN. Like I said before, my physical destination was Blue Cliff. Yet I was lost in trying to find my spiritual home. Three things led to my loss. 

在去大师禅堂的路上，我离“禅”这个字还非常的远。就像我之前说的，我的目的地是蓝崖寺，然而，我在试图寻找我精神家园时却迷失了方向。有三件事导致了我的失败。

First, I was so ready to be home-bound after seeing the person I want to see in New York and saying what I want to say. Yet, due to the rampant break of Omicron, the flights back to China were either canceled or way too expensive for me to afford. My heart was already sent away from where I was then. But physically, I was trapped in New York. 

第一，我在纽约见到想见的人并说出想说的话之后，就已经准备好回家了。然而，因为奥密克戎的猖獗，回家计划被迫中断，回中国的航班要么被取消，要么就是太贵负担不起。我的心其实已经离开了当时所在的地方。但在身体上，我被困在了纽约。

Second, I was having a fever with a severe headache and runny nose. All symptoms were suggesting that I was possibly a recent victim of Omicron, a new variant of COVID-19 that was raging in New York. Even though the testing kit told me I was negative, I couldn’t control my paranoid mind to go to crazy town, pessimistically ruminating “What if this? What if that?” and concluding that I was nothing but a liability. 

其次是，我发烧了，并伴有剧烈的头痛和流鼻涕。所有症状都表明我应该是奥密克戎的受害者，这是一种在纽约肆虐的新冠变种病毒。尽管新冠自测棒的结果是阴性，但我还是控制不住偏执地疯狂幻想，悲观地思考“如果真得了，咋办呢？万一呢？”，最后的结论是自己什么也不是，只是一个累赘。

Third, on my way to Blue Cliff, I missed a transit bus from Newburgh to Middletown. I was too shy to ask for help and was too cheap to take a taxi to the monastery. I trapped myself in this realistic dilemma. In fact, I was on time for the bus. It was the bus driver that didn’t see me in the stop, so it ran off on me with no mercy to my soaked clothes, my fever-laden head, and my drenched heart. So missing that bus was the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. I was left by everybody. There was the only thing left on my mind—the scariest thing of one’s life, despair. Oh, also, I broke my glasses. So I was half-blind. It was like the universe was working against me. 

第三，在去蓝崖寺的路上，我错过了从纽堡到米德尔顿的中转巴士。我太害羞而根本不敢寻求帮助，并且又吝啬于打车费，我把自己困在这个两难之境。但事实上，我是准时在等车的。但是巴士司机并没有看到在车站等车的我，毫不留情地一脚油门走了，留下我湿漉漉的衣服、发烧的脑袋和湿透的心。错过那辆巴士是压垮我的最后一根稻草，我好像被所有人抛弃了，我脑子里只剩下一个东西——人生中最可怕的东西：绝望。哦，还有，我的眼镜还被我弄坏了，所以我是半盲着的，就好像整个宇宙都在与我作对。

Tears flooded my eyes. To this day, I was still befuddled by how I chose to beat myself up like this, especially considering I was basically a homeless couch surfer for the last two years in China. I was well trained in making the best of what comes to me in life, no matter it’s mishaps or good fortunes. Yet, on the other shore of the Pacific, in that bus stop in New Burgh, I turned myself into another person. A person I sympathize towards to the point of despising him at the same time. 

泪水淹没了我的眼眶。直到今天，我仍对我为何选择这样虐待自己感到困惑，特别是考虑到我在中国的过去两年基本上是一个无家可归的沙发客。我受过良好的训练，随遇而安于生活的一切起伏是我最擅长不过的了，无论是霉运，还是好运。然而在太平洋的彼岸，在纽堡的巴士站，我完全把自己变成了另一个人，一个我同情到鄙视他的人。

Now, let’s fast forward. 10 days later. As I was making one first step out of Blue Cliff Monastery and thinking about who I’d become, the crybaby in the above paragraphs was gone. To be more exact, he was resting in peace. How? I pay my tribute to lots of strangers I have met and haven’t met at Blue Cliff, including Thich Nhat Hanh. 

现在，让我们快进吧。十天后。当我迈出蓝崖寺的第一步，想着我会成为什么样的人时，上面几段中的爱哭鬼早已经消失不见。更准确地说，他安详的睡着了。怎么做到的呢？于此，我要向我在蓝崖寺认识的和未曾谋面的许多陌生人致敬，包括一行禅师。

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