When love conflicts with faith

Appendix: Listen to the wise voice

When love conflicts with faith

    Never try to seal the sunshine into your own pocket. It is important to understand that while we are bathing the sunshine and grow vigorously, we should also think about others. Don’t try to keep the sun to yourself alone.

In the novel The Blue Wolf Of The Tangut, I wrote a story about love and faith. The male lead, Dark Singer, who accomplished the pursuit of spirit and the female lead, ZiXiao, who was sublimated by love have surmounted the secular love affairs to reach a love made of faith.

After reading the book, some friends of mine came to me and asked “ Since Dark Singer is ZiXiao’s lover and her faith as well, does a believer could fall in love with what he believes in?” I have been asked with such questions for a long time. There is also a famous music film widely known through Western countries. The protagonist is a Chinese girl who fell in love with Jesus indeed. She composed many songs in tribute to her beloved Jesus. In many sentences in the lyrics, she surprisingly used words like darling. No wonder she really fell in love with Jesus. There are many other novels like this in Western cultures which write about believer’s love toward priest. It is said that the reason why many conventuals refused marriage all their lives is that they have already married themselves to the god or Jesus.

Although such kind of love is not encouraged explicitly in western countries, the songs composed by the girl are quite popular, which means the love is deemed as a sort of respectable behavior. Why? Because acknowledgement, appraisal as well as love and piety to the believer is the original motivation to believe, which is indispensible to all kinds of spiritual cultivation. Love only exists on the basis of acceptance of the personality of the person to believe. When the believer falls in love with the person believed, the feeling could be sublimated to transcendent emotion under due guidance. For instance, a friend of mine used such kind of method to rescue a lovelorn women stricken by depression. He managed to netchat with the girl who was susceptible to suicide over ten days, even in the name of love. And finally, she was infatuated with him. By virtue of the power of love, she stepped out of the shadow of the death and became a believer. This kind of behavior is accepted by Buddism. Vimalakirti Sutra-Chapter Buddha’s Path says: ‘Attraction is prioritized to make one enlightened into Buddha’s wisdom.‘ There was a very ferocious king in history. He slaughtered those who have different beliefs. To stop him, Guan Yin incarnated herself into a beauty and got married to the king. At last she succeeded in persuading him to force back the slaughters and get converted to Buddism.

However, if such method is not carefully planned and implemented, it will inadvertently arise worse exacerbation and agony. Then it is imperative that the believer discern the nuance between love and greed. Never think about keeping the sun to one’s own pocket. We must understand that we should bring the sunshine to more people when we could grow up healthily in the sun. When you are able to enjoy love without ravelment to it, you will know how to let go your earnest expectation to the one you believe. At this moment, the secular love has been transcended into the great love which becomes your tremendous worship and longing to a kind of spirit. If you manifest this love in behaviors to help your family, your friends and the society in strict meditation practice state, you will achieve wisdom and concentration power. Therefore, western people encourage everyone to love humanbeings like god. You know that everyone does not belong to himself alone. He belongs to his child, his parents, his family and the society. If one would rather carry out his own will than care about others, he is extremely selfish.

What if a believer fails to unbuckle his desire and expectation for love? Perhaps his belief foundation would collapse henceforward. People are worthy of pity because sometimes the steadfast-looking belief will easily fall out due to a whisker of misunderstanding. Nevertheless, the true confidence comes innate independent of any external conditions. There is no way that believers only have faith on condition that the person to believe belongs to them alone; or they will get disappointed and lose faith like someone dumped by the lover when they find the truth that the guru belongs to the world other than any single person. This is not the truth. But it is a question that how many people embrace such authentic confidence? Without such confidence, how one can obtain belief?

Those believers who are craving for the possession of the owner of belief do not have the true love toward the owner. The true love embodies unselfish contribution instead of exclusive possession. Some so called love only bears the label of love, but it is not actually. It is another form of selfishness which is just wrapped up with strong desire to possess and control others. This is the biggest greed bar none in the world, which must be eradicated. Once belief is eroded and rotten, it will become assistance to facilitate greed, fury and ignorance. If so, it is no longer belief any more but a kind of terrible peppery annoyance which should be trashed as wastes.

Perhaps some friends would think that in the book The Blue Wolf Of The Tangut, what White Light Clothing said to Dark Singer emits strong sense of expostulation. They think this is a disguised form of exclusive possession of idol and shackling a free spirit with her own moral expectation. Likewise, many believers also anticipate the person to believe to be as perfect as they imagine, even capable of apastia. In that book, White Light Clothing talked about a story in the fiction The Da Vinci Code that Jesus had a beloved woman in his life. Later, in order to safeguard something unshakable, his disciples strived to bury the historical facts with whopping efforts. They did this right because if they admitted such statements at that time, Jesus will not have so many followers. A man who owns woman or is owned by woman will belong to a single women forever. A man without entanglement with a single woman can win all the women. The first clan moved by Jesus must be women. It is the same situation with Van Gogh. If he possessed love or a beloved woman, he will never engrave such a great impression on the world. Therefore, White Light Clothing urged Dark Singer to abandon any woman for the sake of his Suo Salang.

Then why Dark Singer agreed to do so? Because he dreamed to provide the world with a singer living in their dreams. He does not need to live in people’s expectations, but he must have ambition in himself. He does not want to have a lifestyle in which he even despise himself. His beloved woman only exists in his dreams rather than true life. Or she could be some real existence who accidentally walks into his dream.

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附录：聆听智慧的声音

当爱与信仰纠结

    别想将太阳放入自家口袋。要明白，我们沐浴阳光，健康成长，也要让更多的人晒晒太阳。别总是想要独占那太阳。

在小说《西夏的苍狼》中，我讲了关于爱与信仰的故事，这个故事中的男女主角——完成了灵魂追索的黑歌手，与因爱而升华灵魂的紫晓——超越世俗的男女之爱，实现了一种信仰之爱。

有的朋友后来问我，黑歌手既是紫晓的爱人，又是她的信仰，那么信仰者真的能爱自己的信仰对象吗？这个问题，一直有人在追问。西方也流传着一部音乐片，主人公是一个中国少女，她就爱上了耶稣。她创作了许多歌曲，每一首歌都赞美耶稣，深爱耶稣。其中许多地方，竟然也用了世俗的“夫君”之类的词。她想来是真的爱上了耶稣。西方有许多这样的小说，也写了信仰者对神父的爱。据说，许多修女之所以一生不结婚，其心中，已将自己嫁给了上帝或是耶稣。

虽然西方并不明确提倡这种情感，但那位少女的歌很受欢迎，说明它是作为一种值得赞美的行为来传播的。为什么呢？因为，对信仰者的认可、赞美甚至爱和虔诚，是最原始的信仰动力，所有形式的心灵修炼都需要它。没有对被信仰者人格上的认可，就没有爱。当信仰者爱上被信仰者的时候，要是引导得法，这种情感就会升华为“出世间的情感”。比如，我的一位朋友，就这样救过一位因失恋患了抑郁症的女子。他连续十多天地跟那位想自杀的女子在网上聊天，甚至以爱的名义亲近她，最后，她爱上了他。借助这种爱的力量，她终于走出了阴影，摆脱了死神的困扰，最后成了信仰者。这种方法，佛家也是认可的。《维摩诘经·佛道品》就说：“先以欲勾之，后令入佛智。”历史上有位残忍成性的国王，他因为信仰的不同而大开杀戒，观世音菩萨就化为美女，跟他结婚，最终终于令他放下屠刀，皈依了佛道。

不过，要是处理得不好，这也可能会成为堕落或者痛苦的开始。这时候，就需要信仰者分清爱与贪婪之间的区别，别想将太阳放入自家口袋。要明白，我们沐浴阳光，健康成长，也要让更多的人晒晒太阳。别总是想要独占那太阳。爱与贪婪不一样，爱是可以升华和转化的。当你爱但不执著的同时，也就放下了对爱慕对象的那份期待，这时，世俗的爱就变成了对某种精神巨大的敬畏和向往，这是一种大爱。把这种爱用于行动，用于亲人，用于周围的人，用于社会，并且精进地修习禅定，慢慢地你就会有智慧和定力。以是原因，西方总是提倡要像爱上帝那样爱人类。要知道，每个人都不是自己的。他属于孩子，属于父母，属于家人，属于社会。只想按自己的意愿行事的人，无疑是自私的。

如果信仰者无法放下对爱的贪婪与期待，又会怎么样呢？他信仰的殿堂也许会因此而倒塌。因为，世人很可怜。有时候，那自以为不可动摇的信仰，只消有一点点误解，就会崩塌。但真正的信心是本自俱足，不假外求的，它不需要任何外界的条件。不是说被信仰者只属于自己的时候，他们就信仰之；当他们发现对方并不完全属于自己一人，而是属于这个世界时，就失落空虚，像失恋者那样自暴自弃。不是这样的。但是，试问，有多少人有这种无伪的信心？没有这种信心，又怎能谈得到信仰？

贪婪地想要占有信仰对象的那些信仰者，他们对信仰对象的爱，其实也不是真正的爱。真正的爱，是无私的奉献，而不是独占。有些所谓的爱可能有爱的名义，但其实不是爱，而是一种变相的自私。它有着极强的占有欲和控制欲。这是世上最大的贪，是必须要清除的。信仰一旦变质，就会成为贪嗔痴的助缘。这时，它就不再是信仰，而是一种可怕的热恼，是必须清除的垃圾。

也有朋友觉得，《西夏的苍狼》中，白轻衣对黑歌手说出的那番劝诫意味极重的话，是变相地对偶像进行独占，是在用自己的道德期待来束缚一个自由的灵魂。但是我告诉他，黑歌手是甘愿做白轻衣期待的那类人的。事实上，好多信仰者都像白轻衣那样，要求被信仰者尽可能地像自己期望的那样完美，甚至不食人间烟火。在《西夏的苍狼》里，白轻衣谈到了小说《达·芬奇密码》中的一个情节，说耶稣本来有心爱的女人。后来，他的传承者为了维护某种不可动摇的东西，花费了许多力量掩埋了那个历史事实。他们是对的。要是当时他们真的承认了这样一种说法，那么耶稣就不可能拥有这么多的信仰者。拥有女人或是为女人所拥有的男人，永远只属于那个体的女人。没有女人的人，才会赢得所有的女人。耶稣首先感动的，肯定是女人。梵高要是拥有了爱情或心爱的女人的话，他便没有现在那样深入人心了。所以，白轻衣要求黑歌手，为了你的《娑萨朗》，你甚至不可以有女人。

然而黑歌手自己又为什么甘愿呢？因为他想为世界贡献一个活在梦中的歌手。他不一定活在别人的期待里，但他必须对自己有期待。他不想活得连自己都看不起自己。他的女人，并不是活在生活中，而是活在他的梦里。除非她在某个时候进入了他的梦。

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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