智慧人生篇章 第29期:死亡是生命的見證

Perhaps it's only when we fully accept that we will diethat we can fully accept how alive we are rightnow.Death brings perspective, then. It brings usback to life and it asks of me, how, now, will I live? Afriend works at a hospice, and recently she cared fora man who just had days left. They talked about hischildhood, she tells me, and then she asked himwhat makes life good? She wrote down his words.It's"when we assume nothing," he said, "when we givemore than we take, when we need less, when wesmile often, when we dream big, when we laughfrequently, and when we find comfort in knowing how blessed we are.How blessed we are. Thepoet Rilke said, "Being here is so much." And whether you believe death is the end or, like me,that it is only the beginning, life is surely not about the time we have left - days, weeks, years? - but about the time we have now.

可能只有當(dāng)我們?nèi)唤邮苋松厮赖默F(xiàn)實，才能意識到當(dāng)下的人生是多么鮮活。死亡讓人省視，讓人回歸生命。它詰問我要怎樣生活。有一個在收容所工作的朋友告訴我，最近她照顧過一個只有數(shù)天生命的人。他們談及了他的孩提時期，她問病人，是什么讓生命美好?原話如下：“當(dāng)我們不理所當(dāng)然，當(dāng)我們給予多過索取，當(dāng)我們少欲少求，當(dāng)我們常常微笑，當(dāng)我們夢想遠(yuǎn)大，當(dāng)我們時時開懷，當(dāng)我們意識到人生多么寶貴而身心愉悅。”人生多么寶貴。詩人Rilke說，“活著，幸甚至哉。” 不管你認(rèn)為死亡是終結(jié)，或者像我一樣，認(rèn)為死亡是開始，生命顯然不在于我們還能活多久——幾天，幾周，幾年?——而在于我們活著的當(dāng)下這一刻。