《美食祈祷和恋爱》Chapter 8 (14):遇见精神导师

In the meantime, though, I had to go on this trip to Indonesia.

不过，我同时得去一趟印尼。

Which happened, again, because of a magazine assignment. Just when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself for being broke and lonely and caged up in Divorce Internment Camp, an editor from a women's magazine asked if she could pay to send me to Bali to write a story about Yoga vacations. In return I asked her a series of questions, mostly along the line of Is a bean green? and Does James Brown get down? When I got to Bali (which is, to be brief, a very nice place) the teacher who was running the Yoga retreat asked us, "While you're all here, is there anybody who would like to go visit a ninth-generation Balinese medicine man?" (another question too obvious to even answer), and so we all went over to his house one night.

又是一次杂志社的指派工作。正当我为自己的崩溃和寂寞自怜自艾、被关在“离婚战俘营”的时候，一位女性杂志编辑询问能否出钱派我去巴厘岛写一篇有关瑜伽假期的文章。我报以一连串与“豆子是绿色的吗？”“詹姆士•布朗（JamesBrown）会跪着唱歌吗？”等同类的问题回问她。我抵达巴厘岛（简而言之，一个很好的地方）时，举办瑜伽营的老师问我们：“你们在这里的时候，有没有人想去拜访一位传承到第九代的巴厘药师？（又一个明显用不着回答的问题。）于是有天晚上，我们全部去了他家。

The medicine man, as it turned out, was a small, merry-eyed, russet-colored old guy with a mostly toothless mouth, whose resemblance in every way to the Star Wars character Yoda cannot be exaggerated. His name was Ketut Liyer. He spoke a scattered and thoroughly en-tertaining kind of English, but there was a translator available for when he got stuck on a word.

这才发现，药师是个瘦小、眼神欢乐、赤褐色的老家伙，几乎没有牙齿，说他各方面都像《星际大战》里的犹大（Yoda）并不夸张。他名叫赖爷（Ketutliyer），讲一口零零碎碎、很具娱乐效果的英语，若碰上说不出哪个字的时候，则有翻译帮忙。

Our Yoga teacher had told us in advance that we could each bring one question or problem to the medicine man, and he would try to help us with our troubles. I'd been thinking for days of what to ask him. My initial ideas were so lame. Will you make my husband give me a divorce? Will you make David be sexually attracted to me again? I was rightly ashamed of myself for these thoughts: who travels all the way around the world to meet an ancient medicine man in Indonesia, only to ask him to intercede in boy trouble?

我们的瑜伽老师事先已告诉我们，每个人可以向药师提一个问题，他会尽力帮我们解决。我考虑了好几天该问他什么。我最初的想法很没用：“能不能让我先生同意离婚？“能不能让大卫再一次迷恋我？”我该为这些想法感到羞愧。有谁大老远跑来印尼见一位老药师，只为了要他调解男人问题？

So when the old man asked me in person what I really wanted, I found other, truer words.

因此当老人亲自问我，我想要什么，我找到其他更真诚的话来说。

"I want to have a lasting experience of God," I told him. "Sometimes I feel like I understand  the divinity of this world, but then I lose it because I get distracted by my petty desires and fears. I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God."

“我想要和神有终身的体验，”我告诉他。“有时我觉得自己了解这世界的神灵，然后却因为一些小小的欲望和恐惧而分心，于是丧失了祂。我想一直与神同在。但我不想出家，或完全放弃世俗享乐。 我想学习如何活在世上享受生活的乐趣，却同时能为神奉献。”

Ketut said he could answer my question with a picture. He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flowers. There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart.

赖爷说他能用一张图片回答我的问题。他给我看一张某回他静坐时画下的草图。图上画了个雌雄同体的人，合拢双手，站着祈祷。但此人有四条腿，没有头。原本是脑袋的地方，只有蔓生的花叶。一 张微笑的小脸画在心脏处。

"To find the balance you want," Ketut spoke through his translator, “this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God."

“想找到你要的平衡，”赖爷透过翻译说，“你必须变成这样。你必须坚定地踩在地上，就像你有四条腿，不是两条。这样才可能待在世上。但你不能透过脑袋看世界，而是透过心去看才成。如此才可能了解神。”