An early Course stumbling block is the idea “I am not a body.” How can I not be a body when I so intensely experience pain and pleasure? When I cut myself I bleed. When I break a bone, it has to be set. My body will die. So why, then, do we have this body at all, if that is not what we are? To communicate, to ourselves and others. While we are in the dream, any pain experienced by the body or the psyche is simply communication about what needs to be healed.
「我不是一具肉體」是剛開始操練奇蹟課程容易卡住的觀念。我這麼切身地經驗到痛苦和愉悅，怎會不是一具肉體呢？我割傷了，就會流血；骨折了，就得接合；我的肉體是會死亡的。如果我們不是肉體的話，那到底為什麼我們要有這具肉體呢？是為了傳遞訊息，傳遞訊息給自己與別人。在夢裡，肉體或心理所經驗到的任何痛苦只是在傳遞訊息，讓我們知道哪裡需要治癒。
Last September my column was entitled “The Purpose of Pain.” I quote: “Being overwhelmed by pain of any kind can be the beginning of healing, because it brings us to our limits of suffering. It can become a turning point……Growth need not be painful. It is the resistance to the growth that creates the pain. If we pay attention to the pain, we have a glimpse of our resistance— then we invite in the Holy Spirit to turn the pain into growth. We can choose pain, or we can choose peace.”
去年9月我專欄的題目是「痛苦的目的」，其中我提到一段話：「被痛苦淹沒時，可能成為治癒的開始，因它把我們帶到我們所能忍受的極限，它可以是個轉捩點……成長是無需痛苦的，抗拒成長才會產生痛苦。此時我們若注視這個痛苦，便能瞥見我們的抗拒，於是給了我們一個機會邀請聖靈介入，將痛苦轉為成長。痛苦或平安，全在我們的選擇。」
Sounds true to me, even now. But it was mostly a head trip at that point. The day after I wrote it, I lifted a 50-lb box (I know, I know, I should have bent my knees……) and immediately knew it was a mistake. What followed was six weeks of intractable back pain. I found the words in the above quote to be “true but not helpful.” I had been writing about emotional pain, primarily, and now I was faced with the stubbornness of physical pain, and the opportunity to invite in the Holy Spirit to turn the pain into growth, and to choose peace instead.
即便是現在，這段話對我而言，仍舊一點也沒錯。那一番話簡直就是故事的序幕：在我寫了那段話的隔天，我提起了一個50磅的箱子（我知道，我知道，我該彎膝蓋的…），我很快就知道糟了。接著就是6個禮拜棘手難癒的背痛。我發現先前所說的那段話「很正確，但卻使不上力」。往常我寫的多半是有關情緒上的痛楚，而此刻我面對的是頑強的肉體上的疼痛，以及邀請聖靈介入將痛苦轉為成長與重新選擇平安的機會。
I tried to do that, over and over. It didn’t help one bit. I tried not resisting, but I didn’t really understand what that meant. My resistance, I felt, didn’t cause the pain. My injured back caused the pain. Finally I went to my friend and mentor John Miller, who understands healing, and told him of my misery. His first gift to me was to immediately see and know the absolute truth of my being, which was my perfection as a child of God and a part of God, and to keep on knowing it no matter what picture I presented to him. Then he explained to me how to deal with intractable physical pain. Stop resisting. He didn’t use metaphysical metaphors about what my back pain meant, or what spiritual growth I was resisting. He just said stop resisting the pain. He said go into the pain, experience it fully, allow it to just be. He said the way out of pain is straight through it. And everything in me resisted that idea.
一次又一次的，我嘗試重新選擇，但一點用也沒有。我試著不抗拒，但我著實不懂那是什麼意思。我覺得，導致我疼痛的根本就不是我的抗拒，而是我受傷的背。最後，我去找我那位深諳治癒之道的良師益友John Miller，並告訴他我的遭遇，他給我的第一份禮物是要我立即去看、去體認我真實不虛的實存，那是我身為上主之子與上主的一部份的完美本質，而且要我不斷地體認它，不論我向他訴說的情況有多慘。接著，他告訴我因應棘手的肉體疼痛之道，即是不要抗拒。他沒有用抽象的理論來分析我背痛的原因或隱喻我在抗拒哪一類心靈成長。他只是要我不再抗拒疼痛。他告訴我，進入那個痛，全然體驗它，允許它呈現它的模樣。他說道，出離痛苦的方法就是直接穿越它。但那個時候我體內每個細胞都在抗拒這個想法。
But there was nothing else to do. That night, when I woke up with the first of the back spasms, my reaction was typical: I stiffened my whole body, afraid to relax, knowing when I did the pain was worse. But this time I decided to try John’s suggestion. I invited and allowed the pain to do whatever it would do, let my whole body go limp, felt the pain accelerate, and the next thing I knew I was waking up again with a new bout. I did the same thing that time, with the same result. Each time I woke up in pain, I went into it and through it, and drifted right back to sleep. The next night I didn’t wake as often. And within a few days I noticed that I wasn’t aware of my back any more. I had learned an important lesson, this time in my body rather than in my head.
不過，似乎也沒有其他可行之道。那天夜裡，第一次因背痛發作而醒來時，我的本能反應又是：全身僵直，不敢放鬆，心裡清楚這樣背痛會更嚴重。這一次，我決定試試John的建議，我接納這個疼痛，允許它呈現它的樣貌，我讓自己全身軟趴趴的，感受疼痛的加劇。接著，我又因著另一次的背痛而醒來。當它發作時，我以同樣的心態面對，結果也仍舊相同。每回我在疼痛中醒來，我就進入那個痛，穿越它，然後漸漸入睡。隔天晚上，我就沒有醒來那麼多次了。幾天後，我發現我竟然都沒注意到我的背了。這給我上了寶貴的一課，但這一次是透過身體，而非腦子。
I have applied this lesson in my life to various kinds of emotional pain— fear, grief, frustration and so on. When I resist I intensify. I can do a “spiritual bypass” around the emotion, quote the Course, and choose joy instead of pain. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I have to turn into the skid, even though it feels like turning in the wrong direction, in order to regain my right direction. Sometimes in the past I have had to allow myself to be depressed until it was over, recognizing that the Holy Spirit was unraveling something inside me that needed to be released. I never knew exactly what that something was, but I knew afterward that it was an important healing of my mind, and that I had to be injected with a paralytic drug—depression—to keep myself still while the healing was accomplished.
我也把我這生命中的一課運用到各種情緒的痛苦上，諸如恐懼、悲傷和挫敗等等。我若抗拒，它更強烈。我可在情緒旁邊開一條「心靈的疏導管」，套句奇蹟課程的話，轉而選擇喜悅而非痛苦。有時能奏效，有時不然。有時我得打滑一下，好似偏向了，卻把我帶回正軌。有時我得允許自己消沈一陣子，直到它自個兒結束為止，因為我知道聖靈正在清理我內需要釋放的東西。我當時並不清楚那是什麼，但事後自會明瞭，那是我心靈非常重要的一個治癒過程；我也明瞭了，我必須挨這一劑無力針（也就是消沈一陣子），讓自己靜下來，不再躁動，治癒才可能完成。
“The course does……aim……at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.”
“The Holy Spirit……merely teaches you how to remove the blocks that stand between you and what you know.”
What are our blocks? Our guilt, our grievances and rage, our ungrieved losses, our fear, our resistance. Sometimes that Holy Spirit speaks through a friend, like John, to tell me what I need to do to remove the block and remember the truth of my wholeness. Sometimes the Holy Spirit stands in silent attendance while I go through the emotions without judging myself, allowing all that is not love to come up and be released.
「本課程旨在清除所有妨礙你體驗到愛的障礙；愛是你與生俱來的稟賦。」（導言p.1）
「聖靈只能教你如何去除蒙蔽你真知的障礙。」（T-14, IV 9:5, p262）
那麼，我們的障礙又是什麼？就是我們的內疚，我們的悲傷以及憤怒，我們尚未撫平的創傷，我們的恐懼，我們的抗拒。有時聖靈會透過像John這樣的朋友向我發言，告訴我如何移除障礙，要我記得我真實不虛的圓滿本體。有時聖靈則只是默默地在我身邊，陪著我不帶批判地渡過各種情緒，允許所有不屬於愛之物浮現，然後釋放。
Jesus has said that each tear shed saves a thousand years. So I am determined to release my blocks to the awareness of Who I Am, even if it means at times going through emotional “pain.” A block stays blocked when it is suppressed, denied, resisted and protected. I suppress, deny, resist and protect out of fear and guilt. The Holy Spirit can help me with the fear and guilt, because “Remembrance of reality is in Him [the Holy Spirit], and therefore in [me].” Sometimes I shed tears of grief, and sometimes of joy. Sometimes they are both at the same time. And each one saves a thousand years.
耶穌說過，每滴眼淚都為我們省下千年光陰。我決心釋放所有妨礙我體驗到我本來面目的障礙，即使這意謂著有時得穿越情緒上的「痛苦」。障礙若被壓抑、否認、抗拒或保護，它便仍舊卡在那裡。我之所以會壓抑、否認、抗拒或保護，都是出於恐懼與內疚，聖靈則會幫助我面對我這個恐懼與內疚，因為「對真理的記憶存在祂（聖靈）內，因此也存在我內」。我的眼淚有時因悲傷，有時因喜悅，有時悲喜交集。而每一回都為我省下了千年的光陰。
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