cherished-金杰
人生的两大真谛（
Suigenlia
试译）<
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The art of living is to know
when to hold fast and when to let go. For life
is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to
its many gifts even while it ordains
their eventual relinquishment. The
rabbits of old put it this way:
comes
to this world with his first clenched, but when he
dies, his hand is
open.
Surely we ought to hold fast to life
for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty
that breaks through every pore God’s
own earth. We know that this is so,
but
all
too
often
we
recognize
this
truth
only
in
our
backward
glance
when
we
remember
what
it
was
and
then
suddenly
realize
that
it
is
no
more.
We remember a beauty that faded, a love
that waned. But we remember
with far
greater pain that we did not see that beauty when
it flowered, that
we failed to respond
with love when it was tendered.
A recent experience re-taught me this
truth. I was hospitalized following a
severe heart attack that had been in
intensive care for several days. It was
not a pleasant place.
One morning, I had to have some
additional tests. The required machines
were located in a building at the
opposite end of the hospital, so I had to
be wheeled across the courtyard on a
gurney.
As we emerged from
our unit, the sunlight hit me. That's all there
was to
my experience. Just the light of
the sun, and yet how beautiful it was
-
how warming, how sparkling, how
brilliant!
I looked to see
whether anyone else relished the sun's golden
glow, but
everyone
was
hurrying
to
and
fro,
most with
eyes
fixed on
the
ground.
Then I remembered how often I,
too, had been indifferent to the grandeur
of
each
day,
too
preoccupied
with
petty
and
sometimes
even
mean
concerns to respond to
the splendor of it all.
The
insight
gleaned
from
that
experience
is
really
as
commonplace
as
was the experience itself: life's gifts
are precious-but we are too heedless
of
them. Here then is the first pile of life's
paradoxical demands on us:
Never
too
busy
for
the
wonder
and
the
awe
of
life.
Be
reverent
before
each dawning day.
Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute.
Hold
fast
to
life...
but
not
so
fast
that
you
cannot
let
it
go.
This
is
the
second side of life's coin, the
opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept
our losses, and learn how to let go.
This
is
not
an
easy
lesson
to
learn,
especially
when
we
are
young
and
think that world is ours
to command, that whatever we desire with the full
force of or passionate being can, may,
will, be ours. But then life moves
along to confront us with realities,
and slowly but surly this second truth
dawns upon us.
At
every
stage
of
life
we
sustain
losses-
and
grow
in
the
process.
We
begin
our
independent
lives only
when
we
emerge
from
the
womb
and
lose
its
protective
shelter.
We
enter
a
progression
of
schools,
then
we
leave our mothers and fathers and our
childhood homes. We get married
and
have children and then have to let them go. We
face the gradual or
not so gradual
waning of our own strength. And ultimately, as the
parable
of the open and closed hand
suggests, we must confront the inevitability
of
our
own
demise,
losing
ourselves,
as
it
were,
all
that
we
were
or
dreamed to be.
But why should we be reconciled to
life's contradictory demands? Why
fashion things of beauty when beauty is
evanescent? Why give our heart
in love
when those we love will ultimately be torn from
our grasp?
In
order
to
resolve
this
paradox,
we
must
seek
a
wider
perspective,