Why Aren’t We Happy？

Why Aren’t We Happy？

Xue Mo

Why aren’t we happy? Because our minds are bound up by various concepts and ideas from outside. For example, he is rich and I am poor, or he is well known and I am a nobody. We call this a binary opposition. It comes from the differentiation in your mind, also known as the differentiating mind. When the Japanese saw that China was so large and so rich, they were not happy about it and they made war with a view to building up the so-called “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” They took Nanjing and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese. When Hitler had the differentiating mind, he thought other countries and peoples (especially the Jews) so offensive that he wanted to get rid of them. Therefore, he put millions of Jews into concentration camps. When a politician has the differentiating mind, he may become a brute, a demon, a fiend. When a person has it, he may seem another person. In fact, the differentiation is a false image or illusion created by our mind when we are faced with the world.

What is illusion? For example, when you find that John Doe has, say, ten thousand yuan while you are penniless, you will envy him greatly. But is John Doe really rich? No, not really. It is your differentiating mind that makes him rich. When compared with a millionaire, he is poor. Likewise, compared with a billionaire, the millionaire is poor; compared with a trillionaire, the billionaire is poor. So, the “rich” man you envy is actually not rich. You envy him because you haven’t got what he has; Once you have, you will find that you and he are not that different. Therefore, differentiation is merely a conceptualization, something within your mind rather than an objective existence. So we call it a concept and we talk frequently about concept transition. This type of concepts is also known as obsession.

When a guy has a crush on a beautiful girl, he will court the girl heatedly. The girl said “I love you” to that guy thirty years ago, but perhaps she soon forgot about it completely. What’s more, she probably has said “I love you” to many boys. But this ignorant man is lovesick and can’t eat nor sleep well. Every time he thinks about her words, he is moved to tears. He has lost interest in other girls and he can’t focus on his work. This is obsession. Why is it so? Because the moment the girl said the words has long past, like a dream gone forever. But the guy is obsessed with the long-gone and nonexistent moment. A lot of people are deeply affected by love letters for all their lives. They don’t understand that a love letter is the product of the petty emotions of somebody at a certain moment on a certain day many years ago. The moment she sets down her emotions on paper, they melt away like a flake of snow in the sun. But the guy is obsessed with those emotions for all his life. All the things you are obsessed with don’t exist in reality. We are obsessed with them all the same, because we think they exist. When we come to understand that they don’t exist, we will be able to lay them aside.

Let me give you another example. Now I am a first-grade writer. But before that, for more than ten years, I didn’t have any title. I know the title is meaningless when death comes, though it will bring me a lot of money. I also know that, when there is no problem for me to survive, when I have some extra money to buy books, money is a matter of statistics to me. Soon after I became a professional writer, my danwei secured a title for me. What I needed to do is take a computer skills examination and I even didn’t need to pass it. However, I didn’t go and the title became invalid. A colleague at the personnel division criticized me for not taking the exam, and I told him that was my way of doing things. I said, “What’s the use for so much money?” But he told me that I should have appreciated their efforts. People at the personnel division had done a lot to secure that title for me. As a result, the next time they offered me a title, I cooperated. That’s why I am a first-grade writer now. For many years, I’ve had no idea about titles.

I have a specimen of a skull in my house. It reminds me that I may become a skull like that at any moment. When the Wenchuan earthquake struck Sichuan, though it lasted for only a few seconds, it shattered the obsessions of nearly a hundred thousand people. These people left this world with regret. Some of them may have wanted to tour around our beautiful country or go to Japan to see the cherry blossoms, but they didn’t make it because they were busy pursuing an object of desire. A man may have wanted to say “Dad, I love you” to his father, but he died before he could say it. He may have wanted to take his daughter to enjoy country scenery in spring, but he lost the chance forever. He may have wanted to write an article and leave his insights about this world to readers around the world, but there was no time. With a loud crash, his article was buried for good. He may have very much wanted to treat well a friend whom he had hurt. He may have wanted to say sorry to this friend: “I’m sorry to have hurt you. Please forgive me.” But Nature didn’t give him one more chance; He may have wanted to read a book that he though would be a great regret if he didn’t. However, he may have been investing in stocks or doing something else, thus missing the chance to read the book. In a word, these people may have wanted very much to do something, but with the loud crash, they failed to make it. Their lives vanished like small insects flying across the vast sky, leaving no trace at all. We saw the human bodies disappear one by one in quick succession. The huge ruins have buried not only many lives, but the many things that those lives were after, together with their regrets. That’s that.

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我们为什么不快乐？

雪漠

我们为什么不快乐？我们不快乐的原因是，我们的心灵被外面流行的诸多概念给束缚了。比如他很富有我很贫穷，他很有名我默默无闻。我们将此称之为“二元对立”。“二元对立”就是你的心灵有一种分别存在，也叫分别心。当日本人看到中华民族那么富有，那么地大物博的时候，他们的心里很不平衡。于是，他们就发动战争，要建立所谓的大东亚共荣圈，进入南京把中国人几十万几十万地屠杀。当希特勒有了这种分别心时，他会觉得别的国家都不顺眼，尤其觉得犹太人太不顺眼，要把他们消灭掉，然后就把犹太人几百万几百万地放进集中营。当一个政治家有这种分别心的时候，他就可能是一个暴徒、魔王、恶鬼。当我们个人有这种分别心的时候，就可能变得不是我们自己了。而事实上，这种分别，仅仅是面对世界时产生的一种假象和幻觉。

什么是幻觉呢？举个例子：当你看到身边的张三太富了，他有10万元钱，而你却身无分文的时候，你会非常地羡慕他。那么张三是不是真正富有呢？不是。他的富有是因为你的分别心造成的。因为他相对于有百万元的人，又是一个穷人。百万富翁相对于千万富翁而言又是一个穷人，千万元的富翁相对于亿万富翁又是穷人。所以，每一个人羡慕那个“富人”时，其实他并不富有，仅仅是因为你自己没有得到那些东西。当你得到那些东西的时候，你会发现和他差不多。因此，这种分别是一种概念，是你心内的一个东西，它不是一种客观的存在，我们称之为观念。所以，我们经常说转变观念。这种观念也被称之为执著。

当一个人爱上一个漂亮女孩的时候，他会拼命地追她。当这个女孩子在三十年前对他说过一句“我爱你，亲爱的”后，可能她说完就忘记了。而且，她可能和无数个男孩说过“我爱你，亲爱的”。但这个莫名其妙的男人却得了相思病，他吃不香睡不好，总是被这句话感动得热泪盈眶，再也看不上别的女人，也不好好地工作。这就叫执著。为什么？因为，那个女孩子说那句话时的那个“当下”早就已经过去了，像做梦一样过去了。他却执著于那个已经早已消失、不再存在的瞬间。很多人捧着情书把自己感动了一辈子，却不知道那个情书是在多少年以前，对方在某一年的某月某天某一个瞬间，偶然产生的一点点情绪。当她把这个情绪写到了纸上的时候，她的那点情绪就像太阳下的雪花一样，早就消融了。而你却执著于这个情绪一辈子。所有你执著的这些东西，本质上并不存在，只是我们自己觉得它存在，所以就执著它。当我们明白它并不存在的时候，你就会放下它。

举个例子，我现在是国家一级作家。在我成为一级作家之前，大概有十多年时间没有这个职称。因为我明白当死亡来临的时候，职称是没有意义的――虽然我知道职称会给我带来很多钱。但是，我还明白当我的生存问题解决之后，能吃饱穿暖还能够买书的时候，钱对我只是一个数字。我刚刚当上专业作家时，我们单位给我弄了一个职称，让我去考一下计算机并且不需要及格，只要考一下就行。我没有去考，最后这个职称就作废了。于是，我们人事科的人说你怎么可以这样。我说我就是这样，因为钱多了没有用。然后他说你必须珍惜我们的劳动，我们人事处的人帮你做这个职称花费了那么多的劳动。所以，后来他们给我报职称的时候，我就配合了他们。因此，我今天才是一级作家。在过去很多年期间，我没有职称这个概念。

我的家里放着一个死人头骨做的标本。我明白我随时可能变成这个头骨标本。当汶川大地震用几秒钟的时间降临到四川的时候，把近十万人心中的诸多执著破除了。他们带着遗憾离开了这个世界。他们中的一些人，可能还想看看祖国的大好河山，想去日本看看樱花，但是他可能因为追逐某个欲望而没有去成；可能他很想对爸爸说一声“爸爸我爱你”，但还来不及说就死了；他可能很想带着他的女儿去看一下郊外的春天，但是他的女儿直到她爸爸死亡的那一刻，也没有机会去看春天；他很可能想写一篇文章，写给这个世界，留下这辈子对这个世界的一点感悟，但是来不及了。“轰隆”一声之后，把这篇“文章”埋葬了；他更可能想善待一个他伤害过的朋友。他想对这个朋友说声“对不起，我伤害过你，请原谅我吧”，但是大自然不会再给他机会了；他可能很想读一本书，觉得这辈子不读这本书是一个遗憾，但是因为炒股或者干别的事情，错过了读这本书的机会，从此他没有机会再读这本书了。人们可能非常想做一件事情，但那声“轰隆”的巨响之后，他这辈子没有做成过什么象样的事，他的生命像苍蝇飞过虚空一样过去了，没有留下任何痕迹。我们看到的一个又一个的肉体很快就不见了。那个巨大的废墟不仅把许许多多的生命掩埋了，也把他们追求的东西掩埋了，还有他们的遗憾。就这么简单。

声明：本文系文化志愿者试译，非专业人才翻译，错误定然不少，如出现疏漏及错误，敬请读者见谅。如有任何翻译上的建议及修正意见，欢迎及时与我们取得联系，我们会加以校对、修改，并希望有专业才能的朋友也能加入我们志愿者群体中来。

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