护士

The Nurse

那个小护士又板着她那张挤不出一丝笑容的脸进来了，“昨天大便几次？”

The little nurse who seems incapable of putting even a faint smile on her stiff face just came in. “How many bowel movements did you have yesterday?”

住院一个多月以来，每天除了这句例行公事的话，再也没有多余的一句问候。我觉得实在可笑：“你为什么不问问我的病情如何，只问这些无聊的问题？”她抬起那颗高贵的头颅，白我一眼，便转身拂袖而去，令我思绪纷纭：

Since I was hospitalized here more than a month ago, she has asked me the same routine question every day. There has been no other greeting from her, which I feel is quite ridiculous: “You have been asking me only this one boring question all along, why not ask me how I am feeling?” She tilted her dignified head, glared at me, and walked away, leaving me with a mind rushing with thoughts.

这的确是一个五浊兴盛的时代，某些医院不再以救死扶伤为宗旨，市场上充斥着假医生、假药，人们对金钱的贪婪已经到了无以复加的程度。“白衣天使”的形象早已荡然无存，医疗部门在一些人的心目中已成了丑恶聚集地的代名词。我曾亲眼目睹病入膏肓之人因不能凑足医疗费而被扫地出门的可怜遭遇。

Oh well, indeed it is a time of the five degenerations. Some hospitals no longer deem saving lives and healing the sick as their main purposes; quacks are found everywhere, so are fake medicines; people’s hunger for money is at its extreme. The image of the nurse as an “angel in white” is long gone; to some people, the health sector is a synonym for corruption. I have witnessed the sad situation where some dying patients are denied admission due to insufficient funds to pay for medical fees.

佛陀当年在因地时，曾亲自担当医生护士的职责，悉心地照料饱受病痛折磨的患者，以解除众生的疾苦，用自己做病人12年积累的药品布施病人；《入菩萨行论》中寂天菩萨也发愿：“乃至众生疾，尚未疗愈前，愿为医与药，并作看护士。”无数的高僧大德也为利益有情而鞠躬尽瘁，丝毫不顾个人之安危。

In Buddha’s previous lives, he assumed the responsibilities of doctors and nurses; he took tender care of patients suffering from long illnesses and relieved them of misery. He offered his own medicine collected over 12 years when he himself was a patient. Shantideva, a Bodhisattva, makes these aspirations in A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life: “For all those ailing in the world, until their every sickness has been healed, may I myself become for them the doctor, the nurse, the medicine itself.” Many great Buddhist masters also have devoted themselves totally to benefit beings, without the slightest concern for their own safety or welfare.

不仅仅在佛教界，世间的仁人志士们也有“安得广厦千万间，大庇天下寒士俱欢颜……吾庐独破受冻死也足”的良好祝福。

Such altruism is not limited to Buddhists only; people with high ideals in the world also have made their wishes such as:

How can I build thousands of big houses with plenty of rooms?
I’ll use them to provide shelter to all the poor scholars and make them smile happily…
Even if my thatched hut is the only one destroyed by the elements and I am to die from freezing cold, I am willing.

多么希望佛陀精神能深入人心，让世界多一分美好，少一分丑恶啊！

How I wish Buddha’s teaching would penetrate the minds of people, such that the world will have one ounce more of goodness and one ounce less of ugliness!

壬午年正月初四　　
2002年2月16日

4th of January, Year of RenWu
February 16, 2002