《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 8 (14):遇見精神導師

In the meantime, though, I had to go on this trip to Indonesia.

不過，我同時得去一趟印尼。

Which happened, again, because of a magazine assignment. Just when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself for being broke and lonely and caged up in Divorce Internment Camp, an editor from a women's magazine asked if she could pay to send me to Bali to write a story about Yoga vacations. In return I asked her a series of questions, mostly along the line of Is a bean green? and Does James Brown get down? When I got to Bali (which is, to be brief, a very nice place) the teacher who was running the Yoga retreat asked us, "While you're all here, is there anybody who would like to go visit a ninth-generation Balinese medicine man?" (another question too obvious to even answer), and so we all went over to his house one night.

又是一次雜誌社的指派工作。正當我爲自己的崩潰和寂寞自憐自艾、被關在“離婚戰俘營”的時候，一位女性雜誌編輯詢問能否出錢派我去巴厘島寫一篇有關瑜伽假期的文章。我報以一連串與“豆子是綠色的嗎？”“詹姆士•布朗（JamesBrown）會跪着唱歌嗎？”等同類的問題回問她。我抵達巴厘島（簡而言之，一個很好的地方）時，舉辦瑜伽營的老師問我們：“你們在這裏的時候，有沒有人想去拜訪一位傳承到第九代的巴釐藥師？（又一個明顯用不着回答的問題。）於是有天晚上，我們全部去了他家。

The medicine man, as it turned out, was a small, merry-eyed, russet-colored old guy with a mostly toothless mouth, whose resemblance in every way to the Star Wars character Yoda cannot be exaggerated. His name was Ketut Liyer. He spoke a scattered and thoroughly en-tertaining kind of English, but there was a translator available for when he got stuck on a word.

這才發現，藥師是個瘦小、眼神歡樂、赤褐色的老傢伙，幾乎沒有牙齒，說他各方面都像《星際大戰》裏的猶大（Yoda）並不誇張。他名叫賴爺（Ketutliyer），講一口零零碎碎、很具娛樂效果的英語，若碰上說不出哪個字的時候，則有翻譯幫忙。

Our Yoga teacher had told us in advance that we could each bring one question or problem to the medicine man, and he would try to help us with our troubles. I'd been thinking for days of what to ask him. My initial ideas were so lame. Will you make my husband give me a divorce? Will you make David be sexually attracted to me again? I was rightly ashamed of myself for these thoughts: who travels all the way around the world to meet an ancient medicine man in Indonesia, only to ask him to intercede in boy trouble?

我們的瑜伽老師事先已告訴我們，每個人可以向藥師提一個問題，他會盡力幫我們解決。我考慮了好幾天該問他什麼。我最初的想法很沒用：“能不能讓我先生同意離婚？“能不能讓大衛再一次迷戀我？”我該爲這些想法感到羞愧。有誰大老遠跑來印尼見一位老藥師，只爲了要他調解男人問題？

So when the old man asked me in person what I really wanted, I found other, truer words.

因此當老人親自問我，我想要什麼，我找到其他更真誠的話來說。

"I want to have a lasting experience of God," I told him. "Sometimes I feel like I understand the divinity of this world, but then I lose it because I get distracted by my petty desires and fears. I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God."

“我想要和神有終身的體驗，”我告訴他。“有時我覺得自己瞭解這世界的神靈，然後卻因爲一些小小的慾望和恐懼而分心，於是喪失了祂。我想一直與神同在。但我不想出家，或完全放棄世俗享樂。 我想學習如何活在世上享受生活的樂趣，卻同時能爲神奉獻。”

Ketut said he could answer my question with a picture. He showed me a sketch he'd drawn once during meditation. It was an androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer. But this figure had four legs, and no head. Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flowers. There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart.

賴爺說他能用一張圖片回答我的問題。他給我看一張某回他靜坐時畫下的草圖。圖上畫了個雌雄同體的人，合攏雙手，站着祈禱。但此人有四條腿，沒有頭。原本是腦袋的地方，只有蔓生的花葉。一 張微笑的小臉畫在心臟處。

"To find the balance you want," Ketut spoke through his translator, “this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have four legs, instead of two. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God."

“想找到你要的平衡，”賴爺透過翻譯說，“你必須變成這樣。你必須堅定地踩在地上，就像你有四條腿，不是兩條。這樣纔可能待在世上。但你不能透過腦袋看世界，而是透過心去看才成。如此纔可能瞭解神。”