在我这辈子看过的书当中，如果有人要我挑一本自己最重视的书，我会毫不犹豫地说：Anthony de Mello 的 Awareness。
这本书是咏春师兄Alec Lau推荐的，那是1997年下半年的事情。而他又是在我们的师父Nino Bernardo (http://www.ninobernardo.com/)的推荐下去买来看的。
第一次认识Alec，是在咏春拳班上，练习“单黏手”时他跟我配对，他见我像中国人，问：你是中国人？我说是的。他又问：是中国土生土长的？我说是的。他眼睛一亮，说：你真幸运！我问他何来此言。他答道：你是中国人，又在中国土生土长，岂不是非常幸运吗？我这才明白，他是拿我跟他自己相比：他是华人，却在牛津土生土长。Identity crisis很严重，后来发生的一切说明了这种“定位不确定性”对他的影响有多么深。此处按下不表。
他悟性很强，又很好学，能举一反三，是个不可多得的人才，咏春打得很好，刚学了几个月，就到另一家咏春拳馆踩馆，居然把那一家的师兄级人物打败了。有人向Nino告状，Nino就将他逐出师门，后来大师兄Eddie为他求情，Nino终于心软了，半年后让他回来了。
我教了他一些基本的气功功法，他很感激，在帮我恶补咏春基本功之余还买了一本Awareness送给我。
这就是缘起。
这本书不厚，184页。在人生低谷中，能找到一本书真正像灯塔一样照亮自己的心，这是一件非常幸运的事。
信手翻到第78页...
Four Steps to Wisdom
The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that you're not even aware of. Lots of people have negative feelings they're not aware of. Lots of people are depressed and they're not aware they are depressed. It's only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they were. You can't deal with a cancer that you haven't detected. You can't get rid of boll weevils on your farm if you're not aware of their existence. The first thing you need is awareness of your negative feelings. What negative feelings? Gloominess, for instance. You're feeling gloomy and moody. You feel self-hatred or guilt. You feel that life is pointless, that it makes no sense; you've got hurt feelings, you're feeling nervous and tense. Get in touch with those feelings first.
The second step (this is a four-step program) is to understand that the feeling is in you, not in reality. That's such a self-evident thing, but do you think people know it? They don't, believe me. The've got Ph.D.s and are presidents of universities, but they haven't understood this. They didn't teach me how to live at school. They taught me everything else. As one man said, "I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it." That's what spirituality is all about, you know: unlearning. Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you.
Negative feelings are in you, not in reality. So stop trying to change reality. That's crazy! Stop trying to change the other person. We spend all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody else. We don't have to change anything. Negative feelings are in you. No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you. No event, condition, situation, or person. Nobody told you this; they told you the opposite. That's why you're in the mess that you're in right now. That is why you're asleep. They never told you this. But it's self-evident.
Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic. Who is feeling negative? The rain? Or you? What's causing the negative feeling? The rain or your reaction? When you bump your knee against a table, the table's fine. It's busy being what it was made to be -- a table. The pain is in your knee, not in the table. The mystics keep trying to telll us that reality is all right. Reality is not problematic. Problems exist only in the human mind. We might add: In the stupid, sleeping human mind. Reality is not problematic. Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on, nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence. Where would the problem be? No problem. You created the problem. You are the problem. You identified with "me" and that is the problem. The feeling is in you, not in reality.
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ISBN 0-00-627519-2
