The idea "happiness," to be sure, will not sit still for easy definition: the best one can do is to try to set some extremes to the idea and then work in toward the middle. To think of happiness as acquisitive and competitive will do to set the materialistic extreme. To think of it as the idea one senses in, say, a holy man of India will do to set the spiritual extreme. That holy man' idea of happiness is in needing nothing from outside himself. In wanting nothing, he lacks nothing. He sits immobile, rapt in contemplation, free even of his own body. Or nearly free of it. If devout admirers bring him food he eats it, if not, he starves indifferently. Why be concerned? What is physical is an illusion to him. Contemplation is his joy and he achieves it through a fantastically demanding discipline, the accomplishment of which is itself a joy within him.
當然，給“幸福”這個概念下定義絕非易事:最好的辦法是盡量設定此概念的一些極端，然后將它們折中。把幸福看成獲取財物和相互攀比，可以算是設定了物質享樂主義的一個極端；把幸福看成是一個人，比如一個印度的圣人，所感知的信念，則是幸福在精神上的一個極端。圣人的幸福概念是對身外之物一無所求。既無所求，亦無所匱。他靜坐修行，陷于冥冥沉思，甚至超脫或者幾乎超脫自己的肉體。若有虔誠的信徒奉上食物，圣人納用；若無供奉，他忍饑挨餓，漠然置之。何必為此操心？物質的東西對他而言不過是虛幻。冥思是他的快樂所在，他 通過要求極高的修行獲得快樂，這種修行的完成本身便是他內心的快樂。
Is he a happy man? Perhaps his happiness is only another sort of illusion. But who can take it from him? And who will dare say it is more illusory than happiness on the installment plan?
他是個幸福的人嗎？也許他的幸福只是另一種虛幻，但誰能把幸福從他那里奪走呢？誰又敢說他的幸福比從分期付款計劃中獲得的幸福更虛無縹緲呢？
But, perhaps because I am Western, I doubt such catatonic happiness, as I doubt the dreams of the happiness-market. What is certain is that his way of happiness would be torture to almost any Western man. Yet these extremes will still serve to frame the areas within which all of us must find some sort of balance. Thoreau—a creature of both Eastern and Western thought—had his own firm sense of that balance. His aim was to save on the low levels in order to spend on the high.
然而，或許因為我是西方人，我對這種緊張性的幸福持懷疑態(tài)度，正如同我懷疑幸福市場的夢想一樣。可以確信的是，他的這種幸福方式對于幾乎任何一個西方人來說都是一種折磨。盡管如此，我們仍然可以利用這些極限來劃定某些范疇，在這些范疇內我們所有人都得找到某種平衡。梭羅——一個東西方思想交融的人物——對于那種平衡有自己堅定不移的認知。他的目標是在低層次上節(jié)約以便用于高層次上的追求。
來源:可可英語 http://www.ccdyzl.cn/daxue/201908/591391.shtml
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