AN AWKWARD COMPARISON    --Rumi

一個笨拙的比喻

This physical world has no two things alike.

Every comparison is awkwardly rough.

這個物質世界沒有兩個東西是一樣的。

每一個比喻都是既笨拙又粗糙。

You can put a lion next to a man,

but the placing is hazardous to both.

你能夠把一頭獅子放在一個男人旁，

但這麼做對兩者都很危險。

Say the body is like this lamp.

It has to have a wick and oil. Sleep and food.

If it doesn't get those, it will die,

and it's always burning those up, trying to die.

話說身體就像這盞燈。

它必須有一條燈芯和些許的油。睡覺與食物。

如果沒有得到那些，它就會死，

但它總是燒掉那些，設法去死。

But where is the sun in this comparison?

It rises, and the lamp's light

mixes with the day.

但在這個比喻中太陽在哪裡？

它升起，然後燈的光

和白天的光混在一起。

Oneness, which is the reality, cannot be understood with lamp and sun images.

The blurring of a plural into a unity is wrong.

一（就是真實）無法以燈與太陽的圖像來了解。

一個複數進入到統一的混亂圖像是錯誤的。

No image can describe

what of our fathers and mothers,

our grandfathers and grandmothers, remains.

沒有圖像能夠描述

我們的父親與母親，

我們的祖父與祖母，所遺留下來的記憶。

Language does not touch the one

who lives in each of us.

語言觸及不到那個

住在我們每一個人裡面的一。