由 SW » 2016-08-25, 00:16
三十週年之紀念序文是「唐望故事」全系列的精華,是多年的感悟,點出「現代人的『認知系統』與古代墨西哥巫士的『認知系統』之別」,讓讀者不僅知道曾有過的生活方式,還帶出現代對世界的認知系列,和古代人對世界的認知系列,是阻礙了人類達到人生目標的一大障礙。(摘自網路)
巫士唐望的教誨
獻給唐望——
及與我共享他的神奇時光的另外兩個人
躍入新「認知系統」的多重地平線——出版三十週年之紀念序文(1)
文/卡羅斯‧卡斯塔尼達
《巫士唐望的教誨》一書出版於一九六八年。在這三十週年的出版紀念,我想要對書中的內容做一些澄清,並表達書中主題在我多年嚴肅與持續的努力後,所達成的一些結論。這本書是我在美國亞歷桑那州與墨西哥索諾拉所做的人類學田野調查的一項結果。當時我在加州大學洛杉磯分校的人類學系進修研究所的課程,碰巧遇見了一個來自墨西哥索諾拉的老巫士,他的名字是唐望‧馬特斯(Juan Matus,書中音譯為唐望。)
The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge was first published in 1968. On the occasion of its thirtieth year of publication, I would like to make a few clarifications about the work itself, and to state some general conclusions about the subject of the book at which I have arrived, after years of serious and consistent effort. The book came as a result of anthropological field work which I did in the state of Arizona and in the state of Sonora, Mexico. While doing graduate work in the Anthropology Department at the University of California at Los Angeles, I happened to meet an old shaman, a Yaqui Indian from the state of Sonora, Mexico. His name was Juan Matus.
走入巫士世界的新「認知系統」Introduction of the World of Shaman's New "Cognitive System"
我一頭栽入我的田野調查,深陷其中,我確信到後來,連最支持我的人都感到失望。我所進入的田野調查是無人地帶,它不是人類學或社會學的課題,也不是哲學,或甚至宗教。我遵守了現象本身的規矩與結構,但是我沒有能力在安全的距離下參與。因此,我的努力完全受到妥協,脫離了適當的學術標準,無法客觀衡量它的價值或它的無價值。
I dove into my field work so deeply that I am sure that in the end, I disappointed the very people who were sponsoring me. I ended up in a field that was no man's land. It was not the subject of anthropology or sociology, or philosophy, or religion, for that matter. I had followed the phenomena's own regulations and configurations, but I didn't have the ability to emerge at a safe place. Therefore, I compromised my total effort by falling off the adequate academic scales for measuring its worth or its lack of it.
以最簡單的方式來描述我的田野調查,可以這麼說,一個亞基族印地安人,唐望帶領我進入了古代墨西哥巫士的「認知系統」中。所謂「認知系統」,是指負責覺察日常生活的種種過程,這些過程包括了記憶、經驗、知覺,以及任何可得言語系統的專精使用。在當時,「認知系統」的概念是我最大的絆腳石。對於身為西方知識分子的我而言,我無法想像「認知系統」可能不是全體人類所共享的一種和諧而容納一切的事物,如今日的哲學理論所定義的。西方人願意把文化之間的差異當成是有趣而古怪的現象描述方式,但是文化的差異不可能使回憶、經驗、知覺與語言使用等等過程變成我們所陌生的項目。換句話說,對於西方人而言,只有一種「認知系統」,一組共通性的過程。
The irreducible description of what I did in the field would be to say that the Yaqui Indian sorcerer, don Juan Matus, introduced me into the cognition of the shamans of ancient Mexico. By cognition, it is meant the processes responsible for the awareness of everyday life, processes which include memory, experience, perception, and the expert use of any given syntax. The idea of cognition was, at that time, my most powerful stumbling block. It was inconceivable for me, as an educated Western man, that cognition, as it is defined in the philosophical discourse of our day, could be anything besides a homogeneous, all-engulfing affair for the totality of mankind. Western man is willing to consider cultural differences that would account for quaint ways of describing phenomena, but cultural differences could not possibly account for processes of memory, experience, perception, and the expert use of language to be anything other than the processes known to us. In other words, for Western man, there is only cognition as a group of general processes.
然而,對於唐望傳承中的巫士而言,卻有現代人的「認知系統」與古代墨西哥巫士的「認知系統」之別。唐望把這兩者當成基本上不同、但是完整的兩種日常世界。在某個時刻,毫無覺察地,我的任務神秘地從收集人類學資料變成了使巫士世界的新「認知系統」內在化。
For the sorcerers of don Juan's lineage, however, there is the cognition of modern man, and there is the cognition of the shamans of ancient Mexico. Don Juan considered these two to be entire worlds of every-day life which were intrinsically different from one another. At a given moment, unbeknownst to me, my task mysteriously shifted from the mere gathering of anthropological data to the internalization of the new cognitive processes of the shamans' world.
要使如此的系統真正內在化,需要一種轉變,一種對於日常世界的不同反應。巫士發現這種轉變的最初動力,總是來自於理智上接受看起來只是觀念的事物,但是卻含有想不到的潛在力量。唐望對此有最好的形容:「日常生活的世界永遠無法被看成具有人性,具有力量控制我們,能夠造就我們,或毀滅我們,因為人的戰場不是與他周圍世界的鬥爭。人的戰場是在地平線的另一邊,在一處普通人無法想像的地方,在那裡,人不再是人。」
A genuine internalization of such rationales entails a transformation, a different response to the world of everyday life. Shamans found out that the initial thrust of this transformation always occurs as an intellectual allegiance to something that appears to be merely a concept, but which has unsuspectedly powerful undercurrents. This was best described by don Juan when he said, "The world of everyday life cannot ever be taken as something personal that has power over us, something that could make us, or destroy us, because man's battlefield is not in his strife with the world around him. His battlefield is over the horizon, in an area which is unthinkable for an average man, the area where man ceases to be a man."
他解釋這段話,說在能量上非常重要的,是人要瞭解:唯一要緊的事,是他們與無限的接觸。唐望無法把「無限」這個字眼簡化為更適宜的描述。他說在能量上那是無法簡化的,它無法人格化,甚至連影射都不行,除了用「無限」這種含混的字眼。
He explained those statements, saying that it was energetically imperative for human beings to realize that the only thing that matters is their encounter with infinity. Don Juan could not reduce the term infinity to a more manageable description. He said that it was energetically irreducible. It was something that could not be personified or even alluded to, except in such vague terms as infinity, 'lo infinito.'
當時我不知道,唐望不僅是給我一種有趣的智性描述;他也是在形容某種他稱之為「能量事實」的觀念。對他而言,「能量事實」是他與他的傳承中其他巫士所達成的一些結論,他們進行一種他們稱之為「看見」的做法:直接知覺能量在宇宙中流動的能力。如此知覺能量的能力是巫術的關鍵。
Little did I know at that time that don Juan was not giving me just an appealing intellectual description; he was describing something he called an energetic fact. Energetic facts, for him, were the conclusions that he and the other shamans of his lineage arrived at when they engaged in a function which they called seeing: the act of perceiving energy directly as it flows in the universe. The capacity to perceive energy in this manner is one of the culminating points of shamanism.
根據唐望帶引我進入古代墨西哥巫士「認知系統」的做法,是以傳統的方式進行的,這表示他對我所做的一切,也是歷代所有巫術入門者所接受的做法。不同「認知系統」的內在化過程總是開始於吸引巫術入門者完全的注意力,使他們明白我們都是將死的生物。唐望與傳承中其他巫士相信,充分瞭解這項「能量事實」,這項無可簡約的真理,會幫助新「認知系統」的接受。
According to don Juan Matus, the task of ushering me into the cognition of the shamans of ancient Mexico was carried out in a traditional way, meaning that whatever he did to me was what was done to every shaman initiate throughout the ages. The internalization of the processes of a different cognitive system always began by drawing the shaman initiates' total attention to the realization that we are beings on our way to dying. Don Juan and the other shamans of his lineage believed that the full realization of this energetic fact, this irreducible truth, would lead to the acceptance of the new cognition.
像唐望這樣的巫士對他們的門徒所尋求的最後結果是一種了悟,由於它的單純,所以非常難以達成:我們的確都是將死的生物。因此,人的真正戰鬥不是與其他人的鬥爭,而是與無限,這甚至不是一場戰鬥,在本質上它更是一種順服,我們必須要自願順服於無限。在巫士的描述中,我們的生命起源於無限,於是也終結於無限。
The end result which shamans like don Juan Matus sought for their disciples was a realization which, by its simplicity, is so difficult to attain: that we are indeed beings that are going to die. Therefore, the real struggle of man is not the strife with his fellowmen, but with infinity, and this is not even a struggle; it is, in essence, an acquiescence. We must voluntarily acquiesce to infinity. In the description of sorcerers, our lives originate in infinity, and they end up wherever they originated: infinity.