作品原文

曾奇峰 《为心灵算计》

一次，我去另外一个城市，拜访一位比我年长几岁的朋友。在我们的朋友圈子中，大家都很喜欢他，觉得他的最大的特点是超然淡定，有着一般人没有的洒脱。跟他在一起，再浮躁的人都会被感染一些静气。我在他家住了几天。每天晚饭后就在他的书房里喝茶聊天。聊的内容天南海北、无所不包。
有时候两个人好长时间都不说话，我就看着他慢慢地往壶里倒水、往杯里沏茶。我问他，你从骨子里的透出来的那份洒脱是怎么修炼出来的？他说，我给你看一样东西。他从书柜最底层的一个文件盒里拿出一张纸递给了我。这是一张A4的打印纸，因为时间久远，颜色明显地发黄，纸上写满了字。他告诉我，这是他24岁生日那天写下的东西。我知道，那时他在一所大学读研究生。我认真地看起来：
一、宿舍里有两个人没有买开水瓶，用完了我水瓶中的水又不去打水。我决定把我的水瓶和他们共用两年，还给他们打两年的开水。如果水用完了没水喝，我就喝自来水；没有热水洗，我就用冷水洗。我不愿意变成他们的行为的监督员，更不愿意因为他们不拘小节而生气。
二、买小东西、买菜，绝不讨价还价。平均一天损失三毛，一年约损失100，这个损失我认了。
三、买衣服，不还价损失太大，不行。叫上女朋友一起去买，还价对她来说是乐趣，对我不是。
四、坐公共汽车，决不抢座位，只要有一个人站着，空座位离我再近也不坐。
五、别人找自己借东西，能借尽量。
没看完，我就直截了当地说，这些事情太过琐碎，而且有些做法的深层动机也有问题，比如有可能是内心害怕跟别人发生冲突。我相信，和谐的人格与深刻的内省有关，而与这些婆婆妈妈的事情无关。
他听后笑了，说，我不想说服你，但是你想想，生活就是由很多琐碎组成的。上面那些琐碎，也可以举一反三，变成很多的琐碎。把这些琐碎先算清楚，才可能有时间和精力算计其他不琐碎的事情，对不对？我并不害怕冲突，而是要自己从小的、琐碎的冲突中脱身。我算计的、看重的不是金钱或者冲突，而是内心的自由。
他给我讲了一个故事。孔子的一个弟子，有辆豪华马车，大约相当于现在一个人有一辆奔驰600。另一个人家里有点事，想借他的马车，但不敢开口。这个弟子听说以后，就把马车烧掉了，他说，我有一辆马车，别人借都不敢借，那我还留着干什么？他接着告诉我，他曾经有个价值3000元的、专业级别的照相机，在他想通那些琐事之前，他总是偷偷地用它，生怕别人知道以后找他借，借也不是，不借也不好。
想通了那些以后，他就把相机放在寝室没上锁的抽屉里，谁想用谁就用，直到那相机 “寿终正寝”为止。
3000元买到了心灵的自由和安宁，这有什么不划算的。我笑了。那天晚上，他并没有完全说服我。不过，后来我坐公共汽车的时候发现，有座位不坐，感觉也很好。因为站着的时候视野更宽更广，可以看到更多的人和风景。

作品译文

Inner Peace Is What Counts
Zeng Qifeng

One day I headed off to another city to see a close friend of mine. He is several years my senior and I, like everyone else who knows him well, adore him for his freedom from vulgarity and ease of manner. He seems to have no ordinary mortal's cares. In his company, even a most irascible person will feel tranquilized. During the several days of my stay at his house, the two of us would shut ourselves up in his study after dinner in the evenings and chat about a variety of things while sipping tea.
Sometimes we would fall into a long, thoughtful silence, as I watched him pour steaming water into the teapot and then fill our respective cups with the freshly infused tea. "Tell me how you made yourself into what you are—a graceful and serene person from the inside out," I once entreated him. "Well, I'll show you something," he answered. With that, he produced a sheet from a file box on the bottom shelf of his bookcase and handed it over to me. It was a piece of A4 paper, plainly yellowed by time, with words written all over it. This, he explained, was what he had jotted down on his 24th birthday, when I knew he had been working towards his M.A. degree at a university. I began reading carefully:
1. Two of my dorm pals never bought thermos bottles for themselves, and they don't bother to fetch some more water when they've used up mine. I decided, therefore, to let them share my bottle throughout the next two years and to fetch water for all three of us without complaining. In case I'm thirsty but find the bottle empty, I'll make do with tap water. Without hot water to wash up, I'll use cold water instead. No matter what, I won't force the role of "conduct monitor" upon myself, let alone get angry at their petty negligence.
2. I'll never waste time bargaining at a marketplace over the prices of farm produce and other major necessities. That way, I'll lose 0.3 yuan a day and about 100 yuan a year, but it's a loss I can bear.
3. When it comes to buying clothes, refusing to bargain will incur too heavy a loss for me. In that case I'll take my girlfriend along, because bargaining is fun for her, not for me.
4. During a bus ride I'll never try to grab a vacant sea. Even if only one fellow passenger remains standing, I won't take that seat however close to me it is.
5. Lend things to others whenever I can.
My patience wore out before I finished reading. "Too trivial," I frankly remarked. "And some of your coping tactics can perhaps be attributed to undesirable inner motives, like a cowardly fear of conflicts with people." In my heart of hearts, I was certain that a harmonious personality is forged through one's devotion to soul-purification rather than boring trifles like these.
My friend said with a chuckle, "I won't force you to change your view, but when you think more about it, isn't life largely made up of a jumbled mass of trifles? What I showed you just now are only a few of them. In fact, they forever keep on multiplying themselves. Only when you've figured this out can you concentrate your time and energy on truly important things, right? Whereas I'm no abhorrer of conflicts, I do want to keep myself out of small harassments' way. What I set store by is no material gains from external conflicts, for example, money, but the peace of my inner being."
Then he told me a story. One of Confucius's disciples had a luxurious horse-drawn carriage roughly equivalent to a current-day Benz 600. One day, somebody needed to use it due to some domestic emergency, but was too afraid to bring up the matter. On hearing this, the disciple set the vehicle ablaze without qualms. Seeing the perplexity on fellow disciples' faces, he explained, "If nobody dared to borrow the stupid thing anyway, what business had I keeping it?!" After telling the story, my friend said that, for a time, he had been the owner of a professional photographer's camera worth 3,000 yuan. Before he sorted out life's major and minor concerns, he had always used it stealthily lest others should land him in a dilemma by trying to borrow it every now and then.
Once he saw things in a new light, he simply left the camera in an unlocked drawer in his dormitory so anybody might use it at any moment, until it had exhausted its service life altogether.
For a mere 3,000 yuan, he had got the most prized peace and quiet of his heart. So what was there to be sorry about? I couldn't help smiling. My friend didn't totally convince me that evening. However, I was surprised to find, sometime later, that I did feel just as good when I chose not to take a seat on a bus. Standing there gave me a much broader view, enabling me to look at more passing people and scenery.