Hold fast, and let go .Understand this paradox, and you stand At the very gate of wisdom.

該抓就抓，該放就放, 明白這個道理，你就打開了智慧之門。

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 rabbis of old put it this way: "a man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open."

人生的藝術(shù)就是，要知道何時該緊緊把握以及何時該放棄。因為人生就是一對矛盾，它既讓我們要抓住人生的多種賜予，同時又迫使我們到頭來不得不放棄。正如前輩們所言：人出生時雙拳緊握而來，去世時卻是松手而去。

Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God's own earth. We know that is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when remember what it was and then suddenly realize that it is no more.

我們當(dāng)然應(yīng)該抓緊這神奇而美妙的生命，因為它的美，充滿了我們這片神圣土地的每一個角落。其實，這個道理我們都懂，可是我們卻常常只有在回首往事時，才突然覺醒意識到其中之美，可為時已晚，一切都時過境遷。

We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far great pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.

我們深深銘記的是褪色的美，消逝的愛。但是這種記憶卻飽含苦澀：我們痛惜沒有在美麗綻放的時候注意到它，沒有在愛情到來的時候給出積極的回應(yīng)。

A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care for days. It was not a pleasant place.

最近我自己的一個經(jīng)歷又令我悟出了這其中的道理。我因為嚴(yán)重的心臟病發(fā)作而住進(jìn)了加護病房，那可不是個好呆的地方。

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.

一天上午時分，我要接受幾項輔助檢查。因為檢查的器械在醫(yī)院對面的一幢建筑中，所以我就要穿過庭院，躺在輪床上被推到那里。

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 warning, how sparking, how brilliant!

就在從病房出來的那一瞬，迎面的陽光一下子灑在我的身上。我所感受的就只有這陽光，但它卻是如此美麗，如此溫暖，如此璀璨和輝煌！

I looked to see whether anyone else realized that sun's golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro, most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often, 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.

我看看周圍是否有人也沉醉在這金色的陽光中，而事實是大家都來去匆匆，大都目不斜視，雙眼只顧盯著地面。繼而我就想到我平常也太過于沉湎于日常的瑣碎俗物中，而對身邊的美景漠然，甚至是視而不見。

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.

從這次的經(jīng)歷中我所獲得的感悟，就像這個經(jīng)歷本身一樣并無什么奇特之處：生活的恩賜是珍貴的――只是我們對此留心甚少。

Here then is the first pole 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.

于是人生的第一個方面就是：不要太過于忙碌而忽視了人生的美好，和失去對生命的敬畏。虔誠地迎接每個黎明的到來。把握每個小時，抓住寶貴的分分秒秒。

Hold fast to life…but not so fast that you cannot let go.This is second side of life's coin, the opposite pole of its paradox: we must accept our losses, and learn how to let go.

緊緊地把握人生，但是又不能抓得過死，松不開手。這正是人生的另外一面，也就是矛盾的另外一面：我們要接受失去的一切，懂得如何放手。

This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the full force of our passionate being can, nay, will, be ours. But then life moves along to confront us with realities, and slowly but surely this second truth dawns upon us.

其實這個并不是容易做到的，尤其當(dāng)我們尚年輕時，自以為世界在我們的掌控之中，而不論什么，只要我們以滿腔熱情、全力以赴，就會心想事成！但是現(xiàn)實往往事與愿違，然后漸漸地這第二條真理接踵而來。

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 confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our own strength. And ultimately, as 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.

在人生的每個階段，我們都會承受失去――也因此成長起來。我們出生的同時也失去母體的保護，從那一刻我們開 始了獨立的生命。而后我們上 學(xué)，一級一級地升上去，接著又得離開父母和兒時的家。我們結(jié)婚生子，然后又眼睜睜地看著他們離去；我們遭遇父母及愛人的離逝。我們也要面臨自己逐漸，或者 突然的衰老。而最終，就像握手和松手的比喻那樣，我們必須面對自己不可避免的死亡。就這樣，我們失去了一切，包括我們已經(jīng)所擁有的和尚未實現(xiàn)的。

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?

但是我們?yōu)槭裁匆挠谶@種人生中矛盾的要求呢？為什么明知美是短暫的還要去創(chuàng)造美好？為何明知自己所愛的人會最終離我們而去，卻還要投入全身心地去愛？

In order to resolve this paradox, we must seek a wider perspective, viewing our lives as through windows that open on eternity. Once we do that, we realize that though our lives are finite, our deeds on earth weave a timeless pattern.

要解開這個矛盾我們就必須把眼光放開，像透過可以通向永恒的窗戶那樣來審視我們的生活。一旦這樣做，我們就會知道我們的生命雖然有限，可我們在地球上的作為卻在造就永恒?？荚嚧笳搲?。

Life is never just being. It's a becoming, a relentless flowing on. Our parents live on thought us, and we will live on though our children. The institutions we build endure, and we will endure though them. The beauty we fashion cannot be dimmed by death. Our flesh may perish; our hands will wither, but that which they create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come.

人生不僅僅是靜止的一生而已。它是在不斷變幻的，是一股不屈不撓的奔流。我們的父母通過我們得到生命的延 續(xù)，然后我們通過我們的子女得到 生命的延續(xù)。我們所創(chuàng)立的社會會保留下來，我們也與之長存；我們所崇尚的美不會因為我們的死亡就失去顏色。我們的身體會腐朽，我們的雙手會枯萎，但是我們 所創(chuàng)造的美、善和真卻可以永存而不朽。

Don't spend and waste your lives accumulating objects that will only turn to dust and ashes. Pursue not so much the material as the ideal, for ideals alone invest life with meaning and are of enduring worth.

不要將你的生命浪費在聚財斂物，他們只會變?yōu)閴m埃，化為虛無。與其追求物質(zhì)，不如追求理想，因為只有理想才會賦予生命以意義，也只有理想才會有長存的價值。

Add love to a house and you have a home. Add righteousness to a city and you have a community. Add truth to a pile of red brick and you have school. Add religion to the humblest of edifices and you have a sanctuary. Add justice to the far flung round of human endeavor and you have civilization. Put them all together, exalt them above their present imperfections, add to them the vision of humankind redeemed, forever free of need and strife and you have a future lighted with the colors of hope.

房子有了愛便成為了家。城市有了道義就成為社會。一堆紅磚碧瓦，一旦有了真理就成了學(xué)校。陋室有了宗教就成了圣堂。人類全方面的努力，有 了正義就成為了文明。把這一切全放在一處，完善他們，使之精益求精；而這一切，有了在人類獲得救贖后那永遠(yuǎn)無欲無求的遠(yuǎn)景，便成就了一個充滿希望的絢爛未 來。