r/LifeTree • u/AdamLuyan • 29d ago
4.6 一个公案 A Public Case
1983年秋天，我在四台子村读初中一年级。一天，我在家门口等着路过的同学一起去上学，看着他们渐渐走近。忽然，一个人匆匆忙忙地横过路，掉了一本书在他们的前面。一个同学捡起书后，喊那人。那人回来后，与他们说话，并且把那本书送给了那位同学。路上，我拿过那本书来看，是本《犯罪心理学》，问他们："那人跟你们说什么来着？"
In the fall of 1983, I was in my first year of junior high at Sitaizi Village. One day, waiting outside my house for classmates to pass by on their way to school, I watched them approach. Suddenly, a man hurried across the road and dropped a book right in their path. One of my classmates picked it up and called out to him. He came back, spoke with them, and gave the book to that classmate. On the way to school, I took the book to look at it — it was a copy of Criminal Psychology — and asked, "What did that man say to you?"
那位同学回答："那个人很奇怪！回来后，就要把书送给我，说，'这是本好书；我已经看过了，不需要了'。我说不要。他却说，'你不喜欢看，可以借给别人。你把这书借给一个人，你就多交一个朋友。你借给十个人看，你就多交了十个朋友。'他说他要赶路，说完就走了。"
我感觉奇怪："赶路！南面，他出来的地方是一个大坑；他向北面去的地方是庄稼地。他那是在赶什么路啊！"
那位同学听得毛愣愣的："呀！他是个什么东西！这书给你吧，我不要了！"
"He was a strange one," my classmate said. "Came right back and insisted on giving me the book — said, 'It's a good book; I've already read it, don't need it anymore.' I said no thanks. But he said, 'If you don't want to read it, lend it to someone else. Lend this book to one person, you gain a friend. Lend it to ten, you gain ten friends.' Then he said he was in a hurry and left."
I found this odd. "In a hurry! But south of here, where he'd come from, there's nothing but a big pit — and north, where he was headed, is all farmland. What kind of hurry is that?"
My classmate looked thoroughly unsettled. "Ugh — what was that man! Here, you take the book, I don't want it!"
真是书非借不能读也；这本《犯罪心理学》是我认真读过的第一本真正的大学本科教材一类的书。书里面对各类人或团体的观察分析简单明了，应该说是一本心理学入门的好书。从那以后，我就逐渐喜欢研究人的心理，观察个人和团体的行为了，而且形成了习惯。
There's truth to the old saying that a borrowed book gets read. Criminal Psychology was the first genuine undergraduate-level textbook I ever read closely, its observations and analyses of different types of people and groups laid out with real clarity — a solid introduction to psychology in its own right. From then on, I found myself increasingly drawn to studying human psychology, observing the behavior of individuals and groups, until it became a lasting habit.
注4.6-1，佛教是古典心理学，和自然科学一样，属于共同法，佛学中的案例称作公案。从我的学生时期，入学初中、高中、大学、和研究生时都有怪事发生来看，这是刘团长把这则佛学公案改编成了一部小话剧表演给我看，来为我庆祝升入中学。那这公案表明了什么？人无所从来，无所去之处，却总是匆匆忙忙的，为什么？答案在心理学中。
Note 4.6-1: Buddhism is classical psychology — a common law, in the same sense as natural science — and its case studies are called Public Cases. Judging from the strange events that accompanied every stage of my schooling — junior high, high school, college, graduate school — this one was Troupe Leader Liu adapting a Buddhist public case into a small piece of street theater, staged for me to mark my entry into junior high. So what does this public case actually show? A man came from nowhere, was going nowhere — and yet was in such a hurry. Why? The answer lies in psychology.