编者按：作者Paul F. Ryan，美国纽约市人（1969出生），中文名字李博安，南老师赐名“道安”（2010年），美国佛蒙特州立大学营养学专业毕业（1994）、北京中医药大学中医学硕士毕业（2004）、美国太平洋东方医学院中医学博士（2018），美国纽约东西医疗安康中心「East-West Integrated Wellness」创办人，行医并传授中国左氏针灸、薄氏腹针等。
为便于中文读者阅读，英文原文附于每段中译文之后。本文源自南怀瑾学术研究会、南怀瑾文教基金会，作者授权发表。转载请注明出处。
南老师的祝福
A Blessing from Master Nan
By Paul F. Ryan 李博安
中文译者：乌慈亲
“这是谁啊？”当我坐在太湖大学堂的餐桌旁时，我身后传来了一个声音。一位老人用带浓重口音的普通话问到，他的手轻轻地滑过我的肩。我带着鸡皮疙瘩和融化的心转身看到老师的手，他微笑的和我打招呼，“哦！是李博安啊！”我的心融化了，眼里充满了泪水，我受到了南老师的祝福。当时我还没完全理解老师这个姿态的意思，但当我第一次到太湖大学堂时，南老师已经接纳我作为太湖大学堂的一员了。
“Who is this?” came a voice from behind me while I was sitting at a dining room table at the Taihu Great Learning Center. It was sung by an old man speaking mandarin in a heavy accent and with it his hand gently slid over my shoulder. I turned with goosebumps and melted heart to find Teacher’s hand and smiling face greeting me, “Oh! It’s Li Bo-an ah!” My heart melted and eyes filled with tears. I had received a blessing from Master Nan. I did not fully comprehend the meaning of the gesture at that moment, but on my first visit to the Tai Hu Great Learning Center, Master Nan had accepted me into his community at Taihu.
在前一天晚上，老师突然请我在太湖大学堂2007年举办的教育论坛上作即兴演讲，此次论坛旨在为即将在学堂内开设一所新的实验小学做准备。老师要求我对吕松涛先生属下做的中医四诊仪对疑难杂症诊断的报告，谈谈我的看法。吕先生是绿谷集团的董事长，绿谷是一个生产中药材和开发中医现代化新技术的公司。讲者的报告很有意思，但却不是南老师想要的。他并不是想介绍中医理论如何指导绿谷的诊治项目，而是希望在西式教育体制下，找到一种能为小学生提供中医药知识和智慧的教学方法。但是，当时的论坛似乎有一种普遍的脱节，西方人和受西方教育的人用“一种文化”交谈，而中国人在用另“一种文化”交谈，融合的交汇点还未被发现。
The night before, Teacher had spontaneously asked me to make an impromptu presentation at an education forum The Center was hosting in 2007 in preparation for establishing a new experimental primary school on the premises. I was asked to offer a response to a presentation on Chinese medicine done by Lü Song-tao’s staff on the use of Chinese herbal medicine for difficult-to-treat disease. Mr. Lü was the president of Green Valley, a company producing a wide variety of Chinese medicine materials and new technologies related to modernizing the implementation of Chinese medicine treatment. It was interesting, but not what Master Nan wanted. He was not looking for an introduction to how the theory of Chinese medicine was being used to guide the treatment protocols for Green Valley projects, but wanted teaching methods to make Chinese medicine knowledge and wisdom available to primary school students in a Western academic setting. And, there seemed to be a general disconnect at the forum. Westerners and those with western methods of teaching were talking in one ‘culture’ and the Chinese were talking in another and meeting points for integration had not yet been discovered.
我本是在北京中医药大学就读研究生的局外人，是彼得·圣吉——师从南老师多年的学生——他邀请我前往大学堂对他所称的“经络仪” 做一个评估，但不参加论坛。吕先生希望通过彼得·圣吉，介绍他与美国科学家合作对经络仪（编者按：即上海道生中医四诊仪）做测试。彼得让我评估这个设备，因为我有中医的背景，之前我还参与过Anne Harrington在哈佛大学的科学研究。彼得邀请了我，但却没有通知主办方我会来，因为没有房间，我差一点就转身离开。虽然我同意去论坛的原因之一是去见南老师，但我并未意识到在那里遇见南老师是多么的幸运。我知道南老师，是因为我的中国“义父母”，他们是南老师的忠实粉丝，义父母尽可能地把通过南老师书籍所获智慧与我分享，但我不是一个急切想见到南老师的忠实追随者。有趣的是，我是唯一一位非华裔留学生，致力于学习中国传统文化，特别是中医药学，想把它带回西方，传播到西方，以减轻病人不必要的痛苦、造福人类为使命。尽管我从未跟老师提过一句，但老师知道我的想法。
As an outsider from the graduate school program at the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Peter Senge, a long-time student of Master Nan, had invited me to evaluate a “meridian machine” as he called it, not to participate in the forum. Mr. Lü was hoping Peter would make some connections for him with scientists in the United States to begin experiments with the meridian testing instrument. Peter asked me to evaluate the device given my background in Chinese medicine and previous participation in scientific research with Anne Harrington at Harvard University. Peter had invited me, but did not inform the hosts I would be coming and I was almost turned away because there was ‘no room at the inn.’ While another reason I agreed to go to the forum was to meet Master Nan, I was not fully aware of the blessing it was to be there and meet Teacher. I knew of Teacher. My Chinese ‘godparents’ were devoted followers of him through his books and shared as much of his wisdom as they could with me, but I was not a devoted follower longing for this opportunity to meet him myself. Interestingly, I was the only non-Chinese participant whose life project was studying traditional Chinese culture, Chinese medicine specifically, with the mission of fully embodying it, bringing it back to the West and spreading it to alleviate unnecessary suffering and for the betterment of humanity. Teacher knew this without me saying a word to him about it.
我用两个不同文化背景的人如何评价吃粥的好处做例子，简要介绍了东西方思维方式的融合。除了口味或喜欢并接受粥以外，我谈到了西方人强调的重点，尤其是像我这样研究食物营养学的，会对事物本身做分析，如碳水化合物、脂肪、蛋白质、维生素和矿物质等，以西方解剖学和营养学的角度来确定何为“健康”。相反，我所受的中国文化教育告诉我，中国人理解各种粥及其成分对健康的效用，是由吃粥人在吃粥时和吃粥后的身体感受所决定的，这种知识如果不是几千年，也是有好几百年的经验所积累下来的。这种知识是形成宏观的或整体的理解，在中国文化的背景下，特别是结合了中医药的语言和理解。因此，西方视角主要表现为外向型和微观为主，而中国则是内向型和宏观为主。南老师非常喜欢我的报告。他让四位同学到我桌边来告诉我的演讲非常好，最后一位还来告诉我，第二天晚上还要请我发言：听完中医讲者的报告后，我要上台反馈我的心得体会。喔！我真的不确定这是个好主意！但是大家都确信南老师知道他在做什么，所以我就接受了这个邀请。之后，当老师要求观众对我的演讲发表看法时，牟炼站起来说“我一直在试图调和东西方教学方法的不同，找到一种能让学生受益的方法，今天听完演讲，我终于看到这个可能性了。”
I gave a short talk on the integration of Eastern and Western ways of thinking using the example of how two people from different cultural backgrounds would assess the benefits of eating congee. Beyond the taste and it’s influence on liking and accepting it, I talked about the westerner’s emphasis — especially someone like myself who has studied nutrition — on the analysis of the thing itself, like the amount of carbohydrate, fat, protein, vitamins and minerals and the role they play in nutritional health in the context of western anatomy and physiology to determine how “healthy” it is. In contrast, my education in Chinese culture revealed to me that the Chinese understanding of the health properties of congee in its various forms and ingredients were all determined by how it made the consumers feel during and after eating it, knowledge that accumulated over hundreds, if not thousands of years. This knowledge was then organized into macroscopic or holistic understandings within the context of Chinese culture and, in particular, the language and understandings within Chinese medicine. Thus, the western perspective is characterized primarily as being externally orientated and microscopic, while the Chinese as being internally oriented and macroscopic. Master Nan loved it. He directed four people to go to my table and tell me how good it was. The last person, also told me that I would have a repeat performance the next night: I would listen to the Chinese medicine presentation then go up on the stage and give my response presentation. Wow. I was not sure this was a good idea, but everyone was sure Master Nan knew what he was doing, so I accepted the request. When audience participants were asked to share their thoughts on my presentation, Demi Mo Lian, stood up saying, “I’d been trying to reconcile the differences between eastern and western teaching styles and find a way to combine them for the benefit of the students in the school, and finally with this presentation I’m finally able to see the possibility for integration.”
第二天晚上，我的演讲受到了褒贬不一的评价，其中最重要的批评和指正来自南老师。吕先生公司的医生介绍采用五行学说作为中药配方处方的理论依据。我谈到了中医用的思维模型，我的意思是指各种组成中国的宇宙观的学说， 如气一元论，阴阳学说，五行等，可以理解是思维模型，就是观察自然现象后思维上辩证形成的模型。中医以这些思维模型来指导疾病的诊断和治疗。南老师清楚地感觉到，我这种简化版的理解思维模型，缺失了一些基本的存在原理。因此，南老师借此机会与论坛参与者分享书院式教育的模式，在书院教育下，学生自主学习，然后在小组学习中，学生被老师提问，然后学生根据他们的理解进行回答和辩论，然后由老师确认或纠正。我被纠正了，五行学说不仅仅是一个模式，至少不是像我所描述的，而是直接体现了宇宙间潜在“气”的运动。当南老师上台来讲时，我试着帮他翻译。但是，尽管我中文口语方面非常优秀，但我第一次和他在一起时，由于他的口音，我很多次需要他人的帮助才能翻译，幸运的是，有很多能人在场可以帮忙。这次拜访出乎我意料的是，我从一个普通访客变成南老师学堂的一个学生。“李博安啊！”成了我在南老师身边时他常唤我的话。
The following night my presentation received mixed reviews, with the most important criticism and correction coming from Master Nan. The presentation by Mr. Lü’s company physician was on using five phases theory as the theoretical basis for the prescribing of Chinese herbal medicine formulas. I spoke on the philosophical models of Chinese medicine. By this I mean the various “theories” that make up Chinese cosmology and are used in the medicine to diagnose and treat disease, like qi as the ultimate common denominator of all things as in, “all is one”, or yin and yang as the model through which looking at the world one sees everything having some qualitative attribute of both yin and yang and can be differentiated into categories of yin and yang based upon their relative manifestation. Teacher clearly felt my reducing these understandings to the realm of ordinary models missed something fundamental to their existence and thus used the opportunity to share with the forum participants the way academy style education is structured. In this manner of education, students study on their own, and then in a group setting the students are asked a question by the teacher, after which the students speak and debate as to their understandings as answers, followed by acknowledgement or correction by the teacher. I was corrected. The five phases was not just a model, at least not in the sense I was portraying it, but rather a direct manifestation of the underlying qi movement of the universe. When Master Nan joined the stage, I attempted to translate for him. But despite my acknowledged prowess in speaking Chinese, I was no match for his accent on this first visit with him, and struggled to the point of needing saving. Fortunately, there were many who could do so. What clearly happened this trip, was I went from an ordinary visitor to a student in Master Nan’s community. This was beyond my wildest expectation. “Li Bo-an ah!” became a common lyric Teacher sung when I was around.
教育论坛结束后几周，是南老师春节禅修期间，我被许可返回大学堂来听Bill Bodri修行的报告。我开始修持准提咒，开始了艰难的观照心念的功课。直到两年后，在我诵持了几十万遍准提咒后，我接到去实验小学工作的邀请。鉴于我的主要兴趣是中医，我不愿意当小学英语老师，所以我也不确定我会在那里待几个月。但是南老师做了件非凡的事，他告诉我该怎么做。在九月下旬一个温暖秋天的傍晚，在为李家栋举办传统婚礼仪式开始前，我们一行人包括彼得·圣吉和其他人，身着传统长衫，从主楼沿着回廊步行前往七号楼，老师看着我的眼睛说：“李博安，你应该留下来，你真应该留下来。”有些人可能只需要一个暗示，或者间接地邀请就能领会老师的指引。而我当时混乱的状态，需要一个直接的命令。即使这样，我还需要别人的鼓励来完全理解这个方向。我留了下来，渐渐地南老师引导我走上更坚实的修行之路。
I was permitted to return to The Center a couple of weeks after the forum for Teacher’s Spring Festival student retreat to listen to Bill Bodri’s report on his profound transformation experience. I was given the Zhunti mantra practice and I began the difficult task of trying to get control of my mind. It was not until two years later and I had recited the mantra a few hundred thousand times that I was invited back to The Center to work at the experimental school. Given that my main interest is in Chinese medicine, I resisted being a primary school English teacher and was unsure I would stay past a couple of months. But Master Nan did something extraordinary for him, he told me what I should do. On a warm autumn evening in late September, during the traditional theatrics preceding Lipton Lee’s wedding ceremony, we walked together in traditional men’s changpao with Peter Senge and others along the covered pathway between the main building and building seven. Teacher looked me in the eyes and said, “Li Bo-an, you should stay. You really should stay.” There are those that only need a hint, an indirect invitation to know that Teacher is guiding them. The state of my confusion was such that I needed a direct order. Even with that, I needed the encouragement of others to fully appreciate the direction. I stayed and gradually Master Nan guided me onto the cultivation path more solidly.
在实验小学，我看到了老师的指导是如何渗透到学校的精神和教师的心灵中的。虽然有一些老师只是为了教书而来，但还有很多人是来之前就熟读了南老师的著作，并深受启发来参与实验教学的。他们敞开和奉献的心，因为能跟随南老师学习和工作而得到满足。这里是我心结束的地方，但不是它开始的地方（作者注：这句话的意思是，开始我并非像有些教师因崇拜老师而来，我虽尊敬老师，但放不下自己，所以第一学期常跑上海玩，但第二学期心态已转变，很少离开大学堂，愿意多加班，或专心用功）。我花了些时间才在学堂安顿下来。第一学期我经常跑去上海买冬衣，吃西餐，和朋友们见面。我也努力调整心态进入一名小学教师的角色。当时我是一个40岁几乎没有和小孩子有过互动经验的，而只是想证明自己中医知识和技能的人。老师非常慈悲地理解我，每次有医术高超的医生来拜访学堂，老师都给了我机会让我跟这些医生学习。除了教授英语外，我还与张媛媛老师合作开设了中医课程，并以学生为中心，高度互动，动手操作的方式教授这门课程。学生们极度喜欢，有些有中医天赋的，比我们做老师的对草药名称及功能记得还清楚！南老师还允许我做校医，我帮助许多孩子和老师们解决了他们的健康问题，甚至针对H1N1进行治疗。
At the experimental school I saw how Teacher’s guidance permeated the spirit of the school and hearts of the teachers. While there were some teachers who were there only for the teaching job, most were inspired to participate in the experimental project because of Master Nan’s teaching which they had read thoroughly before coming. Their open and giving hearts were fed by the opportunity to serve and learn from Teacher. This is where my heart ended, but it is not where it started. It took time for me to settle into The Center. The first semester I traveled frequently to Shanghai to buy winter clothes, western foods and visit with friends. I also struggled with my role of being a primary school teacher — one who at age 40 had had almost no interaction with young children — and wanted to assert my knowledge and skills as a Chinese medicine doctor. Teacher was kind and understanding, and gave me every opportunity to meet and learn from masterful doctors visiting The Center. In addition to teaching English, I co-created the Chinese medicine curriculum with Yuan Yuan and we taught the subject in a student centered, highly interactive and hands-on manner. The students enjoyed the classes and some had the natural ability to remember the herbs and their functions beyond us! And, Teacher gave his permission for me to act as the school doctor and I helped many children and teachers with their health problems. I even led the treatment charge against H1N1.
在学堂的一年里，南老师给予了我很多的机会去服务以及成长，但更加重要的是，老师教我在日常生活中，以无私付出的心态履行责任，从而打好修行基础。我来到学堂之前，认为修行应该是与社会完全脱离的观念：我的头像隐士一样卡在道士的洞穴里，心漂浮在佛教的云彩上。我之前已经花了很多时间练意拳站桩，自从持准提咒后我也开始打坐。但是我在社会上还是感到不够自在，发慈悲心很困难。我缺乏的是中国传统小学教育的基础，当太湖实验学校老师我就被要求体现之，即正直、纪律和慈悲心。当我离开学堂的时候，我更清楚地知道我要怎样生活于社会中——至少在最基本的意义上。老师知道我已准备好继续自己修行旅程的条件，他就支持我离开大学堂。
Teacher gave me so many opportunities to serve and grow during my year at the Center, but nothing more important than to ground my cultivation in everyday life through fulfilling the roles that are needed of me selflessly. I arrived at The Center with a notion of cultivation as being quite detached from human society: my head stuck like a hermit in a Taoist cave and heart floating on a Buddhist cloud. I had spent many years practicing standing meditation, dabbling in meditation and since meeting Teacher reciting the Zhunti Mantra. But I was having trouble being at ease in society and struggling with compassion for others. There were basics of Chinese traditional primary school education that I was lacking, and I was asked to embody them: uprightness, discipline and compassion. By the time I left, I had a much clearer sense of how I needed to be in the world, at least the basics. I was ready to continue my journey and Teacher let me go.
离开中国后的五年，我在美国已开始把中国最好的文化介绍给美国人。彼得·圣吉常常说，这个时代，中国对世界的贡献应该超过“中国制造”的产品，那就是高尚文化的东西，是时候建立一个超越国界的培养身体、心灵和精神来丰富人类的系统和方法了。为此，我在纽约建立了中医私人诊所。在完成我的中医博士学位的同时，我还教授中医在读博士生和其他同道们学习针灸，指导学生如何修行，这样才能成为一名好医生。我和太太一起带领一个共修静坐，与大家分享南老师的教导。我们也引导病人以禅修的法门来调整自己的生活方式，走上修行之路。最重要的是，和一个修行人结婚并同时抚养我们年幼的女儿，并坚持以佛陀教导的慈悲和智慧，面对生活中每一刻的欢乐和挑战。
In the past five years since I returned from China, I have begun my work introducing the best of Chinese culture to my own culture in the United States. Peter Senge often commented that it is time for China to contribute more to the world than “Made in China” products. It is time for systems and methods of cultivating the body-heart-mind and spirit to enrich humanity beyond the borders of the Middle Kingdom. To that end, I have established a private practice of Chinese medicine in New York City. While completing my doctorate in Chinese medicine, I teach acupuncture to Chinese medicine doctoral candidates as well as to fellow practitioners and direct students toward cultivating their heart-minds if they truly want to be good doctors. With my wife, I lead a group meditation gathering where I share Master Nan’s teachings and we guide patients on their path through meditation. And, most importantly, married to a cultivator raising our young daughter, I face the joys and challenges of each moment of life with deliberate intent to create the compassionate, wise presence of Buddha.
南老师，我恭敬合十顶礼，深深感谢您所赐予我的。通过您在美国、香港、大陆的老学生，我继续在接受您的教诲，并将贡献此生继续传播。
Master Nan, my palms are joined and head bowed in deep gratitude for all you have given me. I continue to receive your teachings through your senior students in the United States, Hong Kong and mainland China and I dedicate my life to continuing the transmission.
2012年7月24日作者（右一）看望南师