5 Fertile Thoughts for Personal Growth: Thinking about Thinking能促进个人成长的5个想法：关于思考的思考Personal growth depends to an unknown extent on our ability to be aware of, and think about, our thoughts, feelings and behavior. However if we don’t ‘do internal work’, think deeply about this vast uncharted area, we are certainly going to lead a life that is more lifeless and robotic.个人成长在一定程度上依赖于我们对于自己的想法、感受和行为的意识及思考的能力。
但是如果我们不去“做内部工作”，不去好好想想这片广大的未知领域，我们注定会过上一种了无生气的机械式生活。
If we lead our life as if the world is only outside of us, repeating patterns of behavior, with no self-reflection, what is effective for us at one point in our life cycle, sooner or later, loses it’s effectiveness.如果我们只是认为这个世界与我们无关，日复一日地重复着行为模式而从不自省，那曾经在我们生命中有效的东西迟早会失去它的效果。
Below are five ideas to fertilize thinking about our internal worlds:下文提供了5个点子，能够帮助我们思考自己的内心世界。
1) The first is that even if we chew and grind up good or bad food, and drink with passionate love, it still turns into feces and urine. True? No.1）首先（要问的一个问题是）无论我们吃喝什么，最终都一样会变成屎和尿。
对吗？错。
It is easy to see the beginning and the end of any process. We forget, or may not even be aware, that all food is something. When we take it in it begins a mysterious journey essential for our body growth; or, if there is too much, too little, or it is poisonous or rotten, this food journey can have destructive intent and lead to misery.对于一个过程，可以很容易地看到它的开始和结果。
但我们忘记、或根本没有意识到，所有的食物都会有影响。
当我们摄取的时候食物就开始了一段神秘之旅，这是我们身体成长所必须的。
换句话说，如果食物太多、太少，或是有毒腐烂，这趟食物之旅可能会导致破坏并引向悲剧。
Likewise, ideas and feelings we take into our mind, while in a gristmill of conflict, tension and friction, can contribute to growth or to energy ‘waste.’This kind of information-food, good or bad, will often turn out to be seeds of vital nutrient for personal growth, the growth of our ‘mind’ and our ability to think.类似的，我们的内心所摄取的想法和情感，经过矛盾、不安和抵触的“碾磨”，可能产生成长或是能量的“排泄物”。
无论是好是坏，这种“信息食物”通常会成为重要营养的种子，促进我们的个人发展，以及内心和思考能力的成长。
On the other hand this idea-feeling food, like real food, can also pass through quickly, be burdensome, poisonous waste, and, even if nutritious, it can also be too much, too little, or get stuck and not get worked on and thought about. This can leave us with the feeling we are in a dank, dark and slippery place.另一方面，这种“想法-感受食物”也可能像真的食物一样快速通过，成为恼人有害的废物；或者即使是营养物，也可能过多或过少，导致消化不良或不起作用。
这会让我们仿佛被置于一个阴冷潮湿、黑暗黏滑的地方。
Example: Being constipated with an idea like resentment, and holding onto it inside, can poison us while an idea like forgiveness will endlessly nurture our body, mind and soul.举例：憋着例如憎恶的想法而产生的“便秘”会毒害我们，而像原谅这样的想法可以无限的滋养我们的肉体、心灵和灵魂。
2) The second is that we can spit out another’s words or ideas, such as ‘God’, ‘science’, ‘truth’, or opinions like ‘God is One’, ‘it’s not scientific’, ‘it’s beautiful’; or we can spit an idea or feeling back: “Hey you, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” In both cases, in so doing, are we acting automatically? Have we briefly, or for an extended period, forgotten our self and our internal world? Are we so rattled, angry and disturbed we’ve ‘lost our mind.’It’s perilous to not live mindfully, to not step back and ‘see’ things from different perspectives.2）第二个（问题）是，我们会将别人的言语或想法脱口而出，比如“上帝”、“科学”、“真理”，或者“上帝是唯一的”，“这不科学”，“它好美”；有时我们会不假思索的回复（别人）想法或感受：“嘿，你根本就不知道自己在说什么！”。
在这两种情况下，我们是不是只是机械式地行动呢？我们是否在短期内，或者更长的时间里，都忘记了自我和我们的内心世界呢？我们是否过于焦躁、愤怒和困扰以至于“失去我们的心灵”呢？如果不带着思考去生活、不退一步从不同的角度看问题，是非常危险的。
Example: All ideas can be thought about from infinite points of view or vertices, to name only the mentioned three: religious, scientific or aesthetic.举例：所有的问题都可以从无数的角度去看待，比如刚才提到的三点：宗教、科学或审美。
3) So, here’s a third idea to chew on: We never really ‘pick the brain’; surely there isn’t brain tissue in a blog. Thinking about it further, the mind is an unproven concept; so picking the brain is a metaphor for chewing on ideas, feeding ideas to others, swallowing some, spitting others out, an exchange or extension of the ideas in our internal world with the internal world of others; an exchange extended across the world with love or hate. How this exchange affects one depends on whether or how deeply it is thought about it.3）于是我们要好好琢磨的第三个问题就是：我们从来没有真正的“摘取大脑（译者注：英文固定表达，指向别人汲取信息或征求意见）”，当然一篇博客里不会有脑组织。
仔细想想，心灵是一个没有被证实的概念；所以摘取大脑是一个比喻，指的是咀嚼别人的想法、把自己的想法喂给别人，吞进一些、吐出剩下的，将我们内心的想法和别人内心的进行交换和延伸；这种交换超越了爱憎的世界。
这交换如何影响一个人取决于他是否思考及思考的深度。
On thinking further yet, maybe ‘pick the brain’is not a metaphor. Ideas just might become brain food, brain tissue, not just ‘mind’food. Unlike minds, brains do exist, we can ‘see them’. Like our ‘mind’we just can’t ‘see’ ideas.进一步想想，或许“摘取大脑”不仅仅是个比喻。