《美食祈禱和戀愛》Chapter 39 (84):住在道場
One of my first roommates at the Ashram was a middle-aged African-American devout Baptist and meditation instructor from South Carolina. My other roommates, over time, would include an Argentinean dancer, a Swiss homeopath, a Mexican secretary, an Australian mother of five, a young Bangladeshi computer programmer, a pediatrician from Maine and a Filipino accountant. Others would come and go, too, as devotees cycled in and out of their residencies.
一開始，我在道場的室友是一位中年、美籍非裔的浸禮會教徒和禪修指導老師，來自南卡羅萊納州。不久，我的其他室友包括阿根廷舞者、瑞士順勢療法師、墨西哥祕書、五個孩子的澳洲母親、年輕的孟加拉程序設計師、緬因州來的小兒科醫師和菲律賓會計師。還有其他信徒來來去去，做週期性的居留。This Ashram is not a place you can casually drop by and visit. First of all, it's not wildly accessible. It's located far away from Mumbai, on a dirt road in a rural river valley near a pretty and scrappy little village (composed of one street, one temple, a handful of shops and a population of cows who wander about freely, sometimes walking into the tailor's shop and lying down there). One evening I noticed a naked sixty-watt lightbulb hanging from a wire on a tree in the middle of town; this is the town's one street-lamp. The Ashram essentially creates the local economy, such as it is, and also stands as the town's pride. Outside the walls of the Ashram, it is all dust and poverty. Inside, it's all irrigated gardens, beds of flowers, hidden orchids, birdsong, mango trees, jackfruit trees, cashew trees, palm trees, magnolias, banyans. The buildings are nice, though not extravagant. There's a simple dining hall, cafeteria-style. There's a comprehensive library of spiritual writings from the world's religious traditions. There are a few temples for different types of gatherings. There are two meditation "caves"—dark and silent basements with comfortable cushions, open all day and night, to be used only for meditation practice. There's a covered outdoor pavilion, where Yoga classes are held in the morning, and there's a kind of a park with an oval walking path around it, where students can jog for exercise. I'm sleeping in a concrete dormitory.
這座道場不是讓你順道造訪的地方。首先，它位於不易通達的郊外。它的地點遠離孟買，在鄉間河谷的一條塵土路上，接近一個散亂的美麗小村莊（由一條街、一座寺院、幾個店家組成，還住了在街上隨意漫遊的牛，時而走入裁縫店裏躺下來）。一天傍晚，我留意到一盞光禿禿的六十瓦燈泡掛在鎮中央一棵樹的電線上；這是鎮上的街燈。道場基本上開拓了當地經濟，也是鎮上的驕傲。道場牆外的世界，是塵土與貧困。牆內則是灌溉的庭園，花壇，隱蔽的蘭花，鳥囀，芒果樹，波羅蜜樹，腰果樹，棕櫚樹，木蘭，榕樹。雖是不錯的建築物，卻不奢華。有一間自助餐廳式的簡單食堂。還有一間無所不包的圖書室，彙集世界各地的宗教作品。有幾間供各種聚會使用的寺院。有兩間禪修洞 ——黑暗寂靜的地下室，內有舒適的椅墊，日夜開放，僅供禪坐之用。有一座戶外涼亭，清晨的瑜伽課在此舉行。還有一座小公園，橢圓形步道環繞四周，供學員們慢跑。我睡在水泥建造的宿舍裏。During my stay at the Ashram, there were never more than a few hundred residents at any time. If the Guru herself had been in residence, those numbers would have swollen considerably, but she was never in India when I was there. I'd sort of expected that; she'd been spending a fair bit of time lately in America, but you never knew when she might show up anywhere by surprise. It's not considered essential to be in her literal presence in order to keep up your living Yogic master, and I've experienced that before. But many longtime devotees agree that it can also sometimes be a distraction—if you're not careful, you can get all caught up in the celebrity buzz of excitement that surrounds the Guru and lose the focus of your true intention. Whereas, if you just go to one of her Ashrams and discipline yourself to keep to the austere schedule of practices, you will sometimes find that it is easier to communicate with your teacher from within these private meditations than to push your way through crowds of eager students and get a word in edgewise in person.
我待在道場期間，未曾有過居住人數超過百名的時候。導師本人若下榻此地，人數隨即暴增，但我在印度時，她不曾返回此地。這早在我的預料內；近來她在美國待不少時間，可是你永遠不清楚她在何時會冷不防地出現。有她在不在身邊讓你持續學習，這並不重要。當然，能跟一位活生生的瑜伽大師在一起，有一種無可替代的快感，我從前經歷過。許多長期的虔誠信徒都同意，有時這可能分散你的注意力——你得當心點，纔不至於陷入環繞導師身邊的名人熱潮，讓你的真實意圖失去焦點。反之，你若是去她的道場靜修，訓練自己嚴守禪修時刻表，有時你會發現，從這些個人禪修當中，更容易和你的老師溝通，而不是從一羣狂熱的學員當中躋身而過，親自聽她說一句話。
There are some long-term paid staffers at the Ashram, but most of the work here is done by the students themselves. Some of the local villagers also work here on salary. Other locals are devotees of the Guru and live here as students. One teenage Indian boy around the Ashram somehow really provoked my fascination. There was something about his (pardon the word, but . . .) aura that was so compelling to me. For one thing, he was incredibly skinny (though this is a fairly typical sight around here; if there's anything in this world skinnier than an Indian teenage boy, I'd be afraid to see it). He dressed the way the computer-interested boys in my junior high school used to dress for band concerts—dark trousers and an ironed white button-down shirt that was far too big for him, his thin, stemlike neck sticking out of the opening like a single daisy popping out of a giant flowerpot. His hair was always combed neatly with water. He wore an older man's belt wrapped almost twice around what had to be a sixteen-inch waist. He wore the same clothes every day. This was his only outfit, I realized. He must have been washing his shirt by hand every night and ironing it in the mornings.(Though this attention to polite dress is also typical around here; the Indian teenagers with their starched outfits quickly shamed me out of my wrinkled peasant dresses and put me into tidier, more modest clothes.) So what was it about this kid? Why was I so moved every time I saw his face—a face so drenched with luminescence it looked like he'd just come back from a long vacation in the Milky Way? I finally asked another Indian teenager who he was. She replied matter-of-factly: "This is the son of one of the local shopkeepers. His family is very poor. The Guru invited him to stay here. When he plays the drums, you can hear God's voice."
道場有一些領薪的長期僱員，但這裏的活兒大半由學員自己來做。有些當地村民受僱於此；而也有些當地人是導師的追隨者，以學員身份住在此地。道場有個印度少年引發了我濃厚的興趣。他具有某種令我讚賞的氣質。首先，他骨瘦如柴（儘管在當地這是很典型的形象，但如果世界上有任何東西比印度少年更瘦，我會很害怕看見）。他的穿着就像我初中時那些喜歡玩電腦的男生去聽樂團演奏的裝束——黑長褲，熨燙過的白襯衫；襯衫穿在他身上顯得太大，莖狀的瘦脖子從領口伸出來，有如一朵雛菊從龐大的花盆冒出來。他的頭髮總是用水梳得整整齊齊的。他戴着一條成年人的皮帶，幾乎繞了兩圈，束在他一尺六的腰上。他天天穿同一套衣服。我意識到，這是他僅有的一套裝束。他肯定每晚手洗他的襯衫，清晨時分熨燙。（儘管對衣着禮貌的注重，在當地亦很常見；印度少年們漿挺的衣着過不久使我皺巴巴的農家服飾相形見絀，促使我穿上更整潔、更端莊的衣裳。）這孩子有啥特別？爲什麼每次看見他的臉都讓我深受感動——如此容光煥發的面容，看起來彷彿剛從銀河度了長假歸來？最後我跟一位印度少女探問他的身份。她語氣平淡地說：“他是當地某商家的兒子。他家很窮。導師邀他住在這裏。他打鼓的時候，你聽得見神的聲音。”
