Zen禅

挫折は薬のような効果があるかもしれない。

Discouragement may have an effect like medicine.

薬は呑み込むのに口に苦いが、

呑んでから体を治すように

挫折も呑み込むと後になって

悪化した何かの状態を直す。

負けることも挫折感のように味が苦い。

Although medicine is bitter in the mouth to swallow,

But as intaking, it will cure the body.

Discouragement is like the medicine,

by swallowing it,

it corrects something worsened conditions afterwards.

しかし、負けた経験が無いと確実に勝つことができないから、

負けは勝つための必要不可欠条件でもある。

However, without having lost experiences cannot be definitely won so,

defeat is the essentially indispensable condition for winning.

挫折はそれを乗り越えた人を強くさせるが、

挫折に潰されている人を丸ごと呑み込む支配力もある。

Discourage strengthen people who overcame it

but someone who is crushed by discouraged feeling,

it swallows up the one with its controlling power.

概ね、私は成功した部類に入るが、

若かった時は挫折感しか感じたことが無く、

また全てのことに失敗の結果しか出せなかった。

To say roughly,

I belong to a successful class but when I was young,

I felt discouraged only.

Moreover, nothing but failure results for all I did.

全ての挑戦に負けて、

負けることに慣れてしまい、

勝とうともしなかった。

I lost for all the challenges,

got used to be beaten,

even I did not try to win.

習いことを始めても中道半端で辞めて、

それを素質や能力が無いせいだと正当化した。

I quit in the middle of the courses to learn something

even though it was in the halfway to be done

and made myself justified that

because of my incapacity or inabilities to achieve.

そんなどん底の中ある夏の日、

空の雲が流れている様子に無心になって眺めていると、

日差しが眼を射してきたので、眼を手でかざした。

While I was sunken into such incapable feelings,

one summer day,

when I was looking at flowing clouds at the sky

with think nothing,

the sunlight shone my eyes,

so I had to cover my eyes with my hand to avoid sunbeam.

その時に、太陽の明りで手の中に流れている血が透けて見えた。

At that moment,

the sunlight showed me my body blood streaming

through out my hand.

赤い血が薄く透けて見えて、

その時に私は、私が生きていることが見えたように思えた。

I could see through my red blood thinly,

at the very moment I came up to think that I alive with life.

そうか、私は生きているのか…

Is it so? Am I alive…

生きていることが私自身の眼には見えないけれど、

生物学的に私はこの世に存在しているのかと

物的証拠を掴めたような気になった。

Although I couldn’t see that I am alive with my own eyes,

I felt like I caught the physical evidence

which I am biologically being as an existence in this world.

それは新鮮な発見であった。

何故なら、私の心は負けや挫折感でいっぱいになって

生きていることを感じるほどの余裕や暇が持てなかったからだった。

It was a fresh discovering.

Because my mind was filled with defeating and setbacks

so, I didn’t have mental margin or extra room in my mind

for feeling that I am alive.

自分が無能力だから生きる価値が無いと思っていたことに気がついた。

I realized that I have been thinking myself

as a worthless to live because of such incompetency.

それ以来、どうにかして

自分の与えられた命を生きようと思うようになった。

Since then, somehow,

I became to think to live out my given life.

それから考え方が肯定的になりはじめ、

自分の中に人より優れている何かを探し始めた。

My thinking began to be affirmative since

and tried to look for something excellent of me than others.

そうしているうちに、

私は試験運だけには恵まれていることに気づいた。

While I was doing to be so,

I found that I am blessed only at hitting a luck on tests.

試験には良い結果を出せるなら、

それを活かそうと思った。

Also thought that if I can make a good result on a test,

 I rather make use of it.

貧困で行けなかった高校も高卒資格検定を受けて合格し資格を得た。

For the high school which I couldn’t graduate due to poverty,

I got the high school diploma by taking examination.

それから日本留学の試験、

日本語能力試験、

短大の入学試験、

大学の編入試験などをくくり抜けて、

成功への基盤を固めた。

After that, passed the test for study abroad to Japan

and got through out Japanese Language Proficiency Test,

Collage Entrance Examination,

University Transfer Examination and so on.

I set the foundation firmly to be succeed.

私は自分が設定した目標を達成し、

今新たな挑戦を始めている。

I have accomplished plans which I had set,

 and I have started a new challenge right now.

100％実現可能な夢を心に描き、

行動でその夢を現している。

I draw a dream in my mind which can make it true 100%,

I am expressing my dreams with action.

願った全てを叶った今、

あの苦かった挫折や死んだ方がマシかなと思えるほどの負けが

これらの成功の原動力になっていることがやっと分かってくる。

Now all my wishes have come true,

finally I found that such bitter defeating

and such loser setback feelings made me rather die,

those were driving force for these successes.

挫折や負けはそれを飲み込むと

体の中で生きるエネルギーを宿す、

ある動力かもしれない。

Such failures and defeating may be a dynamism

that can conceive an energy in the body to live a life

by swallowing them up…

参考

以下はFacebookに寄せられた私の夫のコメントである。

＞Keiren and I were drawn together by a fascination with astronomy. And I quickly learned she had many interests, including psychology and art. 

She taught me how colors work together, the scientific basis for the psychological impact of color combinations. It was totally new stuff for me and blew open a dormant section of my mind. I always felt like I had no artistry, no right brain. It bothered me. In my 50's I finally learned that it wasn't true; it was merely a negative assumption looking for a positive alternative. 

Our respective childhoods were opposite before college. I had marvelous public educational opportunities and a vibrant diversity at home thanks to the many and varied talents of my brothers and parents. Keiren had few educational opportunities as a girl due to economic circumstances. She created her own opportunities.

Many people don't know that Keiren owned her own school in Japan for many years. Imagine, a Korean girl who was so poor she could not attend high school, would later learn on her own, pass the tests, go to college in a foreign country and create her own school there. Think about that!!! Amazing. 

External pressure or deprivations can be a catalyst, for Opportunity is, in the end, found within.＜