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這個房間看起來似乎容納了600人,但事實上人數更多,因為當中每一個人都擁有眾多性格。我有兩個主要性格,從我是個小女孩時開始,在內心互相衝突和對話,我把它們叫做「秘士」和「鬥士」。我出生在一個家庭,對政治積極,且是理智的無神論者。我的家庭有個公式,像這樣;如果你很聰明,就不會有神靈的想法。我是家中怪胎,是個奇怪的小孩,希望能深入討論,關於可能存在於超越我們感官意識之外的世界。我想知道,我們人類所見、所聽、所想的,是否是事實完整而準確的面貌。為了尋找答案,我參加天主教彌撒,跟隨我的鄰居,我讀沙特和蘇格拉底。然後,一件奇妙的事發生了。當我讀高中時,來自東方的大師開始遍及美國,我對自己說,「我想成為他們其中之一。」
從那時起,我一直在神秘的道路上前進,試圖看到超凡的世界,即愛因斯坦所言,「日常知覺的視覺錯覺。」這句話是什麼意思呢?我會告訴你們。現在吸一口這房間裡的清新空氣,看看這個奇怪、像水底世界、看起來像珊瑚礁的東西,事實上是人類的氣管,而這些彩色球體是微生物,它們事實上正在這房裡四處遨遊,此時此刻,就在我們四周。如果我們忽視這個簡單的生物,以目前最小的次原子層級和最大的宇宙層級來看,想像一下我們錯過了什麼。我身為「秘士」身份的歲月,使我對幾乎我所有的假設產生疑問,它們讓我成為一個驕傲的不知論者。
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以下為系統擷取之英文原文
This room may appear to be holding 600 people, but there's actually so many more, because in each one of us there is a multitude of personalities. I have two primary personalities that have been in conflict and conversation within me since I was a little girl. I call them "the mystic" and "the warrior." I was born into a family of politically active, intellectual atheists. There was this equation in my family that went something like this: If you are intelligent, you therefore are not spiritual. I was the freak of the family. I was this weird little kid who wanted to have deep talks about the worlds that might exist beyond the ones that we perceive with our senses. I wanted to know if what we human beings see and hear and think is a full and accurate picture of reality. So looking for answers, I went to Catholic mass; I tagged along with my neighbors. I read Sartre and Socrates. And then a wonderful thing happened when I was in high school: Gurus from the East started washing up on the shores of America. And I said to myself, "I wanna get me one of them."
And ever since, I've been walking the mystic path, trying to peer beyond what Albert Einstein called, "the optical delusion of everyday consciousness." So what did he mean by this? I'll show you. Take a breath right now of this clear air in this room. Now, see this strange, underwater, coral reef-looking thing? It's actually a person's trachea. And those colored globs are microbes that are actually swimming around in this room right now, all around us. If we're blind to this simple biology, imagine what we're missing at the smallest subatomic level right now and at the grandest cosmic levels. My years as a mystic have made me question almost all my assumptions. They've made me a proud I-don't-know-it-all.
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當我的秘士部份像這樣嘰哩咕嚕說話的時候,我的鬥士部份就會翻白眼。她關心世上現時發生的事,她很擔憂,她說:「聽著,我很生氣,我知道一些事,我們最好立刻著手進行。」我將生命用於作為一名鬥士,致力於女性議題、從事政治運動、做一個環境鬥士。秘士與鬥士住在同一個身體內,這是有點瘋狂的做法。我總是被這些傑出人物吸引,他們努力奮鬥,獻身於人類,帶著鬥士的堅毅和秘士的優雅。像是馬丁•路德•金恩,他寫道,「我不可能成為我應該成為的人,直到你們成為你們應該成為的人。」他寫道,「這是真理的相關結構。」德雷莎修女,另一個神秘鬥士,她說,「世界的問題在於,我們把家庭的圈圈畫的太小了。」曼德拉奉行非洲ubuntu這個觀念,意思是,我需要你們來成就我,你們亦需要由我來成就。現在大家都喜歡引用這三位神秘鬥士的話語,彷佛他們帶著聖人基因出生,但我們事實上都有與他們相同的能力,我們需要即刻做他們的工作。
我對於我們所有的文化都將「道不同者」妖魔化深感不安,藉由我們的話語,造成我們之間最大的分歧。聽聽一些暢銷書的標題,來自於美國此地政治分立的兩派:「自由主義是一種精神失常」、「Rush Limbaugh是個胖大白癡」、「Pinheads 與 Patriots跟白癡爭論」。一般認為這是戲謔之語,但它們實際上是危險的。這裡有個標題,聽起來或許很熟悉,但其作者可能會讓你大吃一驚。「四年半的奮鬥,對抗謊言、愚蠢和懦弱。」作者是誰?這是希特勒的第一個標題,來自《Mein Kampf》,即《我的奮鬥》一書。這本書造成納粹黨興起,人類歷史上最糟的時代,無論在柬埔寨、德國或盧旺達。它們正是如此開始的,先是反對異己,然後變身成暴力極端主義。
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Now when the mystic part of me jabbers on and on like this, the warrior rolls her eyes. She's concerned about what's happening in this world right now. She's worried. She says, "Excuse me, I'm pissed off, and I know a few things, and we better get busy about them right now." I've spent my life as a warrior, working for women's issues, working on political campaigns, being an activist for the environment. And it can be sort of crazy-making, housing both the mystic and the warrior in one body. I've always been attracted to those rare people who pull that off, who devote their lives to humanity with the grit of the warrior and the grace of the mystic -- people like Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote, "I can never be what I ought to be, until you are what you ought to be. This," he wrote, "is the interrelated structure of reality." Then Mother Teresa, another mystic warrior, who said, "The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small." And Nelson Mandela, who lives by the African concept of ubuntu, which means I need you in order to be me, and you need me in order to be you. Now we all love to trot out these three mystic warriors as if they were born with the saint gene. But we all actually have the same capacity that they do, and we need to do their work now.
I'm deeply disturbed by the ways in which all of our cultures are demonizing the Other by the voice we're giving to the most divisive among us. Listen to these titles of some of the best-selling books from both sides of the political divide here in the U.S. "Liberalism is a Mental Disorder," "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot," "Pinheads and Patriots," "Arguing With Idiots." They're supposedly tongue-in-cheek, but they're actually dangerous. Now here's a title that may sound familiar, but whose author may surprise you: "Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice." Who wrote that? That was Adolf Hitler's first title for "Mein Kampf" -- "My Struggle" -- the book that launched the Nazi party. The worst eras in human history, whether in Cambodia or Germany or Rwanda, they start like this, with negative otherizing. And then they morph into violent extremism.
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這就是為什麼我發起一項新倡議,為了幫助我們大家,包括我自己,以阻止反對異己的趨勢。我瞭解我們都是忙碌的人,所以不要擔心,你可以在午休時間做到這一點,我把這個倡議叫做「邀道不同者共進午餐」。如果你是共和黨人,可以邀民主黨人共進午餐;或如果你是一個民主黨人,考慮邀共和黨人共進午餐。如果邀這些人共進午餐這個想法會使你失去食欲,我建議你從身邊開始,因為「道不同者」比比皆是,就在你四周。也許那個人是上清真寺的,或大街上的教堂、猶太教堂,或某個對人工流產跟你意見衝突的人,或你不相信全球暖化的連襟,任何生活方式嚇壞你的人,或某個觀點惹惱你的人。
幾個星期前,我邀保守派茶黨一位女士共進午餐,理論上她通過了我惱人的考驗。她是個激進右派,我是個激進左派,我們有一些方針,讓我們的談話保持愉快。你也可以使用它們,因為我知道你們都將會邀道不同者共進午餐。首先決定一個目標,瞭解一個你可能已將之負面定型到某團體的人。然後,當你們聚會前,都同意一些基本規則。我的茶黨午餐夥伴與我想出了這些:不要遊說、防衛或插話,保持好奇、健談、真誠,並傾聽對方。
我們由此開始。我們問了這些問題:與我分享一些你的生活經歷;你深切關注的問題為何?你一直想問另一派人什麼問題?我的午餐夥伴與我帶著一些非常重要的見解離開,我只想與你們分享一點,我認為它與任何地方人與人之間的問題都有關。我問她,為什麼她那一派針對我這一派作出這種無恥的指控和謊言?「什麼指控?」,她想知道。例如,我們是「一群精英主義者,道德敗壞的恐怖份子愛好者。」嗯,她震驚不已,她認為我這一派更常抨擊她那一派,我們說他們是沒大腦的持槍種族主義者。我們倆都很驚奇,因為這些標籤並不適用於任何我們認識的人。由於我們已經建立起一些信任,我們相信彼此的誠意。
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This is why I'm launching a new initiative. And it's to help all of us, myself included, to counteract the tendency to otherize. And I realize we're all busy people, so don't worry, you can do this on a lunch break. I'm calling my initiative, "Take the Other to Lunch." If you are a Republican, you can take a Democrat to lunch, or if you're a Democrat, think of it as taking a Republican to lunch. Now if the idea of taking any of these people to lunch makes you lose your appetite, I suggest you start more local, because there is no shortage of the Other right in your own neighborhood. Maybe that person who worships at the mosque, or the church or the synagogue, down the street; or someone from the other side of the abortion conflict; or maybe your brother-in-law who doesn't believe in global warming -- anyone whose lifestyle may frighten you, or whose point of view makes smoke come out of your ears.
A couple of weeks ago, I took a Conservative Tea Party woman to lunch. Now on paper, she passed my smoking ears test. She's an activist from the Right, and I'm an activist from the Left. And we used some guidelines to keep our conversation elevated, and you can use them too, because I know you're all going to take an Other to lunch. So first of all, decide on a goal: to get to know one person from a group you may have negatively stereotyped. And then, before you get together, agree on some ground rules. My Tea Party lunchmate and I came up with these: Don't persuade, defend or interrupt. Be curious, be conversational, be real. And listen.
From there, we dove in. And we used these questions: Share some of your life experiences with me. What issues deeply concern you? And what have you always wanted to ask someone from the other side? My lunch partner and I came away with some really important insights, and I'm going to share just one with you. I think it has relevance to any problem between people anywhere. I asked her why her side makes such outrageous allegations and lies about my side. "What?" she wanted to know. "Like we're a bunch of elitist, morally corrupt terrorist lovers." Well she was shocked. She thought my side beat up on her side way more often, that we called them brainless, gun-toting racists. And we both marveled at the labels that fit none of the people we actually know. And since we had established some trust, we believed in each other's sincerity.
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我們同意,當我們目睹這種反對異己的言論時,會在我們的社群發聲。這會造成傷口,並潰爛成偏見,然後利用這些偏見煽動。在午餐尾聲,我們感謝彼此敞開心胸,我們都不曾試圖改變對方,但我們也沒假裝我們的分歧在一頓午餐後就會消融。相反的,我們一起踏出第一步,放下我們的下意識反應,到達ubuntu的境地。這是唯一的境地,在此,我們看似最棘手問題的解答將會被發現。
你該邀請誰共進午餐?當你下次發現自己有反對異己的行為時,這就是你的線索。午餐中可能發生什麼事?天堂會開啟、「四海一家」會從餐廳音響系統流洩而出嗎?大概不會。因為達到 ubuntu境地是緩慢的,也很困難。它是兩個人放下偽裝、坦誠相待,它是兩個人、兩個鬥士,放下他們的武器,向彼此伸出友誼之手。這是偉大波斯詩人Rumi所寫,「在對錯的想法之外,有一個美好境地,我們在那裡相見。」
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We agreed we'd speak up in our own communities when we witnessed the kind of otherizing talk that can wound and fester into paranoia and then be used by those on the fringes to incite. By the end of our lunch, we acknowledged each other's openness. Neither of us had tried to change the other. But we also hadn't pretended that our differences were just going to melt away after a lunch. Instead, we had taken first steps together, past our knee-jerk reactions, to the ubuntu place, which is the only place where solutions to our most intractable-seeming problems will be found.
Who should you invite to lunch? Next time you catch yourself in the act of otherizing, that will be your clue. And what might happen at your lunch? Will the heavens open and "We Are the World" play over the restaurant sound system? Probably not. Because ubuntu work is slow, and it's difficult. It's two people dropping the pretense of being know-it-alls. It's two people, two warriors, dropping their weapons and reaching toward each other. Here's how the great Persian poet Rumi put it: "Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I'll meet you there."