THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS which must be taken for granted.
First we must understand what we mean by communication, what the word means to each one of us, what is involved in it, what is its structure, its nature. If two of us, you and I, are to communicate with each other there must be not only a verbal understanding of what is being said, at the intellectual level, but also, by implication, listening and learning. These two things are essential in order that we may communicate with each other: listening and learning.
有某些事，我们总是想当然，比如交流。
首先，我们必须弄明白：我们所谓的交流，究竟指什么？对于我们每个人意味着什么？涉及什么？其结构与本质是什么？当你我二人相互交流时，不仅有话语的字面理解——这是智力层面上，而且还有深层内涵上的聆听与心领神会。聆听与心会是交流的两个本质要素。
Secondly, each one of us has, obviously, a background of knowledge, prejudice, and experience, also the suffering and the innumerable complex issues involved in relationship. That is the background of most of us and with that background we try to listen. After all, each one of us is the result of our culturally complex life—we are the result of the whole culture of man, with the education and the experiences, not only of a few years, but of centuries.
其次，显而易见，每个人都具有各自知识、偏见与经验的背景，也拥有各自的痛苦，以及无数复杂的关系问题。这些构成了多数人的心理背景，我们都是沉浸在各自背景中，去聆听他人。归根结底，我们是错综复杂的文化生活的产物，是人类的文化、以及教育与历史经验的产物，而且不限于人生几十年，而是数千年文化积淀的产物。
I do not know if you have ever examined how you listen, it doesn't matter to what, whether to a bird, to the wind in the leaves, to the rushing waters, or how you listen to a dialogue with yourself, to your conversation in various relationships with your intimate friends, your wife or husband. If we try to listen, we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses, when they dominate we hardly listen to what is being said. In that state there is no value at all. One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of attention, a state of silence in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quiet. Then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate.
不知你可曾省察过：你是如何聆听的？至于听什么，倒没关系，小鸟的啁啾，风吹树叶的窸窣，小溪的激流，或者聆听与自己的对话，与各种关系的对话——与密友，与太太、与丈夫。如果我们试着去聆听，就会发现聆听是极其困难的，因为我们总是把自己的见解、理念、偏见、背景、意向、冲动……投射给对方，当这些东西操控了我们，我们几乎听不到对方在说什么，这种状态是毫无意义的。只有内心处于觉照、宁静状态，全部的心理背景止息下来、归于寂静时，我们才能真正地聆听，并心领神会。
Several other things are involved. If you listen with the background or image that you may have created about the speaker, and listen as to one with certain authority—which the speaker may or may not have—then obviously you are not listening. You are listening to the projection which you have put forward and that prevents you from listening. So again, communication is not possible. Obviously, real communication or communion can only take place when there is silence. When two people are intent, seriously, to understand something, bringing their whole mind and heart, their nerves, their eyes, their ears, to understand, then in that attention there is a certain quality of silence; then actual communication, actual communion, takes place. In that there is not only learning but complete understanding—and that understanding is not something different from immediate action. That is to say, when one listens without any intention without any barrier, putting aside all opinions, conclusions, experiences—then, in that state one not only understands whether what is being said is true or false, but if it is true there is immediate action, and if it is false there is no action at all.
（Talk and Dialogues Saanen 1967, 1st public talk, 9 July 1967.）
还牵涉另外几个问题。如果你带着心理背景，或者将谈话人奉为偶像，如同在倾听某位权威——不管谈话者是不是权威，那么显然你并没有真正聆听。你所听到的，只是你的投射，而这层投射在阻碍着你的聆听。所以，此时不可能存在交流。显然，唯有在宁静中，才会有真正的交流或交融。当两个人非常认真，非常用心，付出全部的心灵、神经、眼睛和耳朵，去领会，那么在这全神贯注中，有一种宁静，此时，真正的交流、真正的心心交融就产生了。在这种交流与交融之中，不仅能彼此认知，而且能完全心领神会，而这种彼此的心领神会，就是立竿见影的行动。也就是说，当一个人不带任何动机，不带任何障碍，放下一切见解、定论和经验时，他不仅能理解对方的话是真是假，而且如果是真，则立即心会并实行；如果为假，则绝不会诉诸运行。
（选自1967年7月9日于瑞士萨能的第一次公开谈话）
