I love all these people, automatically and unconditionally. I even love the pain-in-the-ass ones. I can see through their neuroses and recognize that they're just horribly afraid of what they're going to face when they go into silence and meditation for seven days. I love the Indi-an man who comes to me in outrage, reporting that there's a four-inch statue of the Indian god Ganesh in his room which has one foot missing. He's furious, thinks this is a terrible omen and wants that statue removed—ideally by a Brahman priest, during a "traditionally ap-propriate" cleansing ceremony. I comfort him and listen to his anger, then send my teenage tomboy friend Tulsi over to the guy's room to get rid of the statue while he's at lunch. The next day I pass the man a note, telling him that I hope he's feeling better now that the broken statue is gone, and reminding him that I'm here if he needs anything else whatsoever; he re-wards me with a giant, relieved smile. He's just afraid. The French woman who has a near panic attack about her wheat allergies—she's afraid, too. The Argentinean man who wants a special meeting with the entire staff of the Hatha Yoga department in order to be counseled on how to sit properly during meditation so his ankle doesn't hurt; he's just afraid. They're all afraid. They're going into silence, deep into their own minds and souls. Even for an experi-enced meditator, nothing is more unknown than this territory. Anything can happen in there. They'll be guided during this retreat by a wonderful woman, a monk in her fifties, whose every gesture and word is the embodiment of compassion, but they're still afraid because—as lov-ing as this monk may be—she cannot go with them where they are going. Nobody can.
我自动自发、无条件地喜欢这些人。我甚至喜欢那些讨厌鬼。我能看穿他们的神经质，知道他们只是恐惧七天的静修禅坐开始时即将面对的事情。我喜欢气冲冲地跑来找我的印度男子，说他房间里有一尊十三厘米高的象头神雕像缺一条腿。他怒气冲天，认为这是凶兆，要人移走雕像——最好由婆罗门祭司举行“合乎传统”的法会。我安慰他，听他的责骂，而后派我的野丫头朋友图丝去那人的房间，趁他吃午饭时移走雕像。隔天我递给他一张纸条，说雕像移除后，但愿现在他感觉好些，我让他知道若有其他需求时请来找我；他赏给我一个放心的笑容。他只是恐惧罢了。对小麦过敏而惊惶失措的法国女人，她也是恐惧。有位阿根廷男人，想召集整个阴阳瑜伽部门来建议不伤脚踝的禅坐姿势，他也是恐惧。他们都只是恐惧。他们即将静坐，进入自己的心灵。即使对老练的禅坐者来说，这也仍是未知的领域。任何事都可能发生。静修期间，他们将由一个了不起的女子引导，这位五十多岁的女僧，其一言一行都是慈悲的化身，可是他们依然恐惧，因为——这位女僧尽管慈爱——她却无法陪同他们前往他们要去的地方。谁也不能。

As the retreat was beginning, I happened to get a letter in the mail from a friend of mine in America who is a wildlife filmmaker for National Geographic. He told me he'd just been to a fancy dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, honoring members of the Explorers' Club. He said it was amazing to be in the presence of such incredibly courageous people, all of whom have risked their lives so many times to discover the world's most remote and dangerous mountain ranges, canyons, rivers, ocean depths, ice fields and volcanoes. He said that so many of them were missing bits of themselves—toes and noses and fingers lost over the years to sharks, frostbite and other dangers.
静修开始时，我碰巧接到美国一位朋友寄来的信；他的工作是为《国家地理杂志》拍摄野生动物影片。他说自己刚去纽约的华道夫—亚斯托里亚（Waldorf-Astoria）饭店参加为探险家俱乐部（Explorers'sClub）成员所举办的晚宴。他说面对这些勇敢无比的人，让人惊叹。这些人都曾多次冒着生命危险，去探勘世界上最偏远、最险峻的山脉、峡谷、河川、海底、冰原和火山。他说许多人少了身上某些部位——多年来因鲨鱼、冻疮和种种危险而失去的脚趾、鼻子、手指。

He wrote, "You have never seen so many brave people gathered in one place at the same time."
他写道“你从没看过这么多勇敢的人同时聚在同一个地方。”

I thought to myself, You ain't seen nothin', Mike. Eat, Pray, Love
我心想，“你什么都没看见呵，麦克。”