For the whole society, the whole human race, the whole world, is it or is it not better that you have been here? If you have not been able to do this, then you have not brought about anything of genuine value. What we call something of genuine value is the spirit of benefitting living beings. It is only when you have done things which genuinely benefit living beings that you have been able to bring about something of genuine value from the standpoint of the whole universe and all living beings.
所谓的心灵成长，就是让自己的心变得越来越博大。有一天，当你不再计较个人得失，无条件地为他人着想时，你也就实现了一种佛家所说的“无缘大慈，同体大悲”。这时，你就从一只蚂蚁变成了一头大象。
What we call bringing the mind and spirit to full maturity is enabling your own mind to become more and more broad and profound. One day, when you are no longer calculating individual gains and losses, and you are unconditionally concerned for other people, then you will achieve realization of what in Buddhism is called “unconditional great compassion, the great mercy of sharing the same essence with all beings.” Then you will change from an ant into an elephant.
在你仍是一只蚂蚁的时候，你也许很难明白大象的心，你或许还不明白，真正的成长代表着什么。你可能会认为，时常陪在父母的身边、为子女提供优越的生活环境，这就是你的人生目标。但是，你明白他们需要什么吗？你能帮助他们得到那些自己真正需要的东西吗？恐怕不能。因为，当你还没有成为大象的时候，你无法真正地读懂他们的心，你也不能真正地读懂自己。
While you are still an ant, it may be hard for you to understand the mind of an elephant. You maynot yet be able to understand what genuine maturity represents. You may think that your aim in life is to be constantly at your parents’ side, and to provide your children with an excellent environment to live in. But do you understand what they need? Are you able to help them get the things that they truly need? Probably you can’t. This is because, before you have matured into an elephant, there is no way for you to correctly interpret their minds, and you cannot correctly interpret yourself either.
人类的所有追求，目的都是为了快乐。无论做什么，都是为了得到快乐。画家画画，演奏家演奏，作家写作，孩子在沙滩上撒野，都是为了得到快乐。小车、楼房、钞票的出现，也是因为人类想得到快乐。但真正的快乐太简单、太质朴，所以很多人都忽略了它，去外面的世界寻求一种更像“快乐”的东西，这就像你在心外的世界寻找你的心一样，了不可得。如果你找不到自己需要的东西，又怎么能把它带给你爱的人呢？
In everything that humans pursue, the goal is happiness. No matter what they do, it is always to get happiness. Painters paint, actors act, writers write, children frolic at the seashore – it’s all to get happiness. Cars, buildings, money – all this appears because human want to get happiness. But true happiness is too simple, too plain, and so many people overlook it, and instead go to the external world seeking something that is more like “happiness.” This is like you seeking for your mind in the world outside you mind – you will never find it. If you cannot find the thing you need, how can you give it to the people you love?
你需要的长大，不只是生存技能上的长大，而是一种更加本质的成长——心灵的成长。当你的心灵足够强大的时候，你就会拥有一种清醒，一种“众人皆醉我独醒”的清醒和自信。
The maturity you need is not just the maturity at the level of survival skills, but a more fundamental maturity – the maturity of the mind and spirit. When your mind and spirit are strong enough, then you will have a lucid clarity, a lucid clarity and self-confidence – “everyone in the crowd is drunk, but I alone am sober.”
这时候，你会发现，赚了多少钱，拥有多少粉丝，有多少人知道你的名字，都没有真正的意义。除了个别福大的，名字啥的，都比身子烂得快。一茬一茬人死去了，谁记得他们在哪个公司里做过事？谁记得他们是经理还是小职员？谁记得他们开的小车是啥牌子？谁又记得他们住的楼房有多少平方？没人记得。你的存在就像苍蝇划过虚空一样，留不下任何痕迹。因为你没有创造一种不会被岁月毁掉的价值。那价值，佛家称之为功德。
Then you will discover that no matter how much money you make, how many fans you have, how many people know your name, none of this has any real meaning. Except for something with special merit no matter what it is called, it all decays faster than the body. Generation after generation of people die, and who remembers what companies they worked for? Who remembers if they were managers or ordinary employees? Who remembers what make of car they drove? Who remembers how large the apartments where they lived were? No one remembers. Your existence is like a fly streaking through empty space: it cannot leave any traces. This is because you have not created anything of value that will not be destroyed by time. That thing of value is what Buddhism calls merit.
也许你曾经为自己的公司赚了不少钱，也曾经给家人提供了非常好的享受，但你利益的只是一些与你息息相关的人。对整个社会、整个人类、整个世界来说，有你是不是比没你更好呢？如果做不到这一点，你就没有实现一种真正的价值。所谓真正的价值是一种利众的精神，当你站在整个宇宙、所有众生的立场上，做一些真正利众的事情，你才能实现自己真正的价值。这种价值，能够脱离肉体的桎梏，一代又一代地传承下去，点亮一代又一代人心中智慧的火把，成为人类的有益营养。正如释迦牟尼，他的肉体消失了千年，但他的智慧至今照耀着人类的灵魂，这才是生命真正的意义。
Perhaps you have earned a lot of money for your company, and you have provided your family with great comfort, but the only ones you have benefitted are the people who are very closely connected with you. But for the whole society, the whole human race, the whole world, is it or is it not better that you have been here? If you have not been able to do this, then you have not brought about anything of genuine value. What we call something of genuine value is the spirit of benefitting living beings. It is only when you have done things which genuinely benefit living beings that you have been able to bring about something of genuine value from the standpoint of the whole universe and all living beings. This kind of value can get free of the bonds of the physical body, and be passed down generation after generation, lighting the torch of wisdom in people’s minds generation after generation, and becoming beneficial nourishment for the human race. Shakyamuni Buddha was like this: his physical body disappeared more than two thousand years ago, but his wisdom still illuminates the human spirit today. Only this is a life with true meaning.
十岁的时候，我就亲眼目睹了死亡，从此以后，对死亡的思考与恐惧，便一直跟随着我。我常常害怕死亡带走我生命的所有证据，那时候，我有没有活过，又有什么区别？于是我开始追问活着的意义。后来，佛陀割肉喂鹰、舍身饲虎的精神点亮了我的心灵，我终于明白一个人到底为啥活着，活着到底有啥意义。这意义，后来成了我衡量一切的标准：这个世界上有你，是不是比没你更好？我的写作也是如此。我不愿意浪费自己的宝贵生命，写一些我视为垃圾的东西。什么叫垃圾？不能给世界带来一点好处，既浪费我的时间，又浪费读者的时间，这就是垃圾。我不愿意写这种东西，那不是清高，而是一种选择。每个人在面对世界的时候，都应该清醒地做出自己的选择。
When I was ten years old, I saw death with my own eyes, and from that point on, I thought about death and feared it, and so it was always with me. I was always afraid that death would take away all evidence of my life, and at that point, what would be the difference if I had lived or not? So I began to inquire into the meaning of being alive. Later the Buddha’s spirit of feeding the birds and beasts with his own flesh illuminated my mind and spirit, and I finally understood what a person is ultimately living for, and what meaning being alive ultimately has. This meaning later became my standard for measuring everything: is your being in the world better than your not being in the world? It is also like this with my writings. I do not want to waste my precious time alive writing things I see as trash. What am I calling trash? If they cannot do the world a bit of good, if they waste my time and waste the readers’ time – this is trash. My not being willing to write this kind of thing is not being aloof; rather, it is a choice. When facing the world, each person must lucidly make his or her own choice.
但可惜的是，大部分人并不知道自己应该这样做，更不知道自己能够这样做。他们无时无刻不活在外部世界的奴役当中。尤其是一些聪明人，他们有太多的心计，太懂得玩弄一些把戏。他们用一些毫无意义的事情填充自己的生命，舍不得用哪怕一点点时间，来关注自己的内心，关注这个世界。他们太过专注于一种利益的游戏。我知道，他们跟我的乡亲们一样，都觉得“人死如灯灭。死了，就啥都没有了”。这种观点被唯物论者接受。那些怕日后“啥都没有了”的人，就利用手中职权大肆搜刮，于是有了好多贪官，有了好多为害社会的人。但好多忠实的唯物论者都不知道，他们大声吼出的观点，正是这群人肆意妄为的基点。
But what is too bad is that the majority of people do not know that they must do this, nor do they known they can do this. They live every hour and every minute as slaves to the external world. Intelligent people are especially this way – they do too much mental calculation, and understand too well how to juggle ideas. They fill their lives with totally meaningless things, and are reluctant to use even a little bit of time to focus on their own internal minds, and focus on the world. They are too exclusively focused on profitable games. I know that they are the same as people in my hometown, who all feel that “death is like a candle going out, and once you die, there is nothing there anymore.” This point of view is accepted by materialists. Those people who fear that after death “there is nothing there anymore” take advantage of any power and position they have to plunder wantonly, and thus there are so many greedy officials, and so many people harming society. But many sincere materialists do not know that the point of view they champion is precisely the foundation for many people’s unrestrained false behavior.
但佛家不是这样认为。佛家相信六道轮回，相信生命的长河奔流不息。按照佛家的说法，人道属于三善道，积累相当的福报，才能做一回人。可见，人的生命时光是多么宝贵。浪费它，就是在浪费自己生生世世的心血与努力。
But Buddhists do not think this way. Buddhists believe in cycling through six planes of existence, and believe that the long river of life keeps flowing on without stopping. According to the Buddhist teaching, the human plane belongs among the three good planes of existence, and one can only be a human after accumulating the appropriate merit. Obviously the time a human is alive is very precious. If you waste it, then you are wasting lifetimes of your own painstaking efforts.
对于大部分人来说，意识到人生的短暂，总是在接近死亡的时候。原以为几十年的光阴，足够我们做好多事情，但眨眼间，我们就白了头发，佝偻了身体。这才发现，自己的活，仅仅是为了迎接死。这样的活到底有啥意义？电视剧里，有个五十多岁的老汉对他的儿子说，你爸爸活了一辈子，没啥梦想，一辈子就这样过去了。大多数人都是这样的。但他们不知道，自己可以有另一种活法。啥活法？参透这世界的如梦如幻，把握当下，做一些对世界有意义的事情，创造一种不会被岁月毁掉的价值。
For the majority of people, they only become conscious of how short life is when they are approaching death. Originally we think that several decades of time will be enough for us to do many thing, but in the blink of a eye, our hair turns white and our bodies stoop with age. Then we finally discover that our lives have just been an approach to death. Ultimately, what meaning does this kind of life have? In a television show, and old guy over fifty tells his son, “Your papa has lived his life, without any dreams, and his whole lifetime has gone by this way.” So many people are this way. But they do not know that they could have had another way of living. What way of living? Seeing through the dreamlike illusory quality of this world, and taking hold of the present moment, and doing things that have meaning for the world, and creating something of value that time cannot destroy.
当你明白了这一点，就会明白，所有的享受不过是一些虚妄的情绪与记忆，转眼就会消失。当你沉迷于它们的时候，你就会忘掉梦想，忘掉一种质朴的快乐。你会让那欲望的火时时舔着你的心。其实，别人的评价也罢，个人的得失也罢，都是虚幻无常的东西。即便它们能够给你带来快乐或者痛苦，也不过是你自心的显现。世界上纷繁的现象和境界无不是你真心的映照和化现，无不是你本来空寂明朗的那个“心体”所生起的妙用。当我们的心体生起妙用时，会随缘映照出“染”和“净”两种化境。“染”者，妄心化现的诸种境界；净者，没被污染的真心化现的诸种境界。当你明白这一点，见到自性真心的时候，你也就明白了世间的真相。
When you have clearly understood this point, then you will understand that all enjoyments are only empty false emotions and memories, that will disappear in the blink of an eye. When you are indulging in them, you will forget your dreams, and forget a kind of plain and simple happiness. You will let the flames of those desires constantly lick at your mind. In fact, no matter how other people evaluate them, no matter whether the individual gains or loses, these are all empty illusory impermanent things. Even if they can bring you pleasure or pain, they are only manifestations of your own mind. All the complex apparent phenomena and realms of experience in the world are reflections and manifestations of your true mind. They are all the wondrous functioning generated by your inherently empty and still and clear “mind essence.” When our mind essence generates wondrous functioning, then, according to circumstances, it reflects two kinds of manifested objects, “defiled” and “pure.” The “defiled” ones are the various kinds of realms manifested by the false mind. The pure ones are the various kinds of realms manifested by the undefiled true mind. When you understand this point, and see the true mind of inherent nature, then you will also understand the true characteristic of the world.
你的明白会一天天照亮你生命的旅程，为你指引方向。你就这样一步一步、踏踏实实地走下去，总有一天，你的心量会大到能够容下整个世界，将世界上的一切都化为你心灵的养分，让你的心从脆弱不堪的幼苗，成长为坚不可摧的大树，再从枝丫里绽放出美丽的花朵，用自己的芬芳温暖整个世界。这个时候，你才真正从一个孩子，成长为一个能够自主的大人。
Your clear understanding will illuminate the course of your life everyday, and point out your direction for you. Then you will go on like this step by step, and keep going with steadfast assurance, the day will come when your mind’s capacity gets big enough to be able to encompass the whole world, and transform everything in the world into nutrients for your mind and spirit. It will let your mind go from a fragile immature sprout to mature into a solid unbreakable great tree, with beautiful flowers blooming from its branches, and warming the whole world with its fragrance. At this point you at last truly mature from a child into an adult who can be autonomous.
