Only 20% of Americans are morbidly afraid of death.

只有 20% 的美國人病態地害怕死亡。

That's called thanatophobia, and it's in the DSM-5 manual.

這就是所謂的 "恐比症"，DSM-5 手冊裡就有。

But only 20%, I mean, none of us is like, oh, hooray, death.

但只有 20%，我的意思是，我們中沒有一個人會說，哦，萬歲，死了。

But we're not really afraid.

但我們其實並不害怕。

You and I are not afraid of death.

你我都不怕死。

But we almost all have our own death fear.

但我們幾乎都有自己的死亡恐懼。

So if you're afraid of failure, that's your death fear.

所以，如果你害怕失敗，那就是你的死亡恐懼。

If you're afraid of irrelevance or being forgotten, that's your death fear.

如果你害怕無關緊要或被遺忘，那就是你的死亡恐懼。

And one of the things that I ask my students or anybody to do is to figure out what your death fear is.

我要求我的學生或任何人做的一件事，就是弄清楚你對死亡的恐懼是什麼。

What is your concept of your life that you're afraid to lose?

你害怕失去的人生觀是什麼？

That's your death.

這就是你的死期。

Then the way to cope with that, because you can't break through.

然後是如何應對，因為你無法突破。

You can't get to the second curve.

你無法到達第二條曲線。

You can't actually find your bliss until you conquer your fear, because that stands in the way of your love.

只有戰勝恐懼，你才能真正找到自己的幸福，因為恐懼阻礙了你的愛。

That stands in the way of the real life in your life.

這阻礙了你生活中的真實生活。

So the way that I do this has been very helpful to me, and now I do it with my students, particularly with fear of failure, because my MBA students at Harvard are ultra achievers with very little experience of failure.

是以，我這樣做的方式對我很有幫助，現在我也對我的學生這樣做，尤其是在害怕失敗的問題上，因為我在哈佛大學的 MBA 學生都是超常發揮的人，很少有失敗的經歷。

And they're self-objectifiers, a lot of them, because they consider themselves to be success monsters, success machines, homo economicus.

他們中的很多人都是自卑者，因為他們認為自己是成功的怪物、成功的機器、經濟人。

Like, of course, I always get As.

比如，當然，我總是得到 "A"。

Of course, I get into the best schools.

當然，我能進入最好的學校。

Of course, because I'm the special one.

當然，因為我是特別的那個。

And some of that comes from their parents, but a lot of it is internally generated.

這其中有一部分來自他們的父母，但也有很多是內部產生的。

So the way that the meditation on death works, that can be adapted to our own particular death fear, it's called the Maranissati meditation of the Theravada Buddhist monks.

是以，冥想死亡的方法可以適應我們對死亡的特殊恐懼，它被稱為小乘佛教僧侶的馬拉尼薩提冥想。

If you go to a monastery in Thailand or Vietnam, you'll notice that in a lot of monasteries, they'll have photographs of corpses in various states of decay.

如果你去泰國或越南的寺院，你會發現在很多寺院裡，都會有各種腐爛狀態的屍體照片。

And the monks will stand in front of them and say, that is me.

僧侶們會站在他們面前說，那就是我。

And they'll walk to the next one and say, that is me.

他們會走到下一個，然後說，那就是我。

And it's just like horrible until you realize it's exposure therapy.

在你意識到這是暴露療法之前，這簡直太可怕了。

You can't be fully alive when you're afraid of not being alive.

當你害怕自己活不下去的時候，你就不可能完全活著。

It just doesn't make sense.

這根本說不通。

And yet the nature of our brain is to block out this cognitive dissonance.

然而，我們大腦的天性就是屏蔽這種認知失調。

You know, the mortality paradox is that we know we're going to die, but we can't conceive of non-existence.

你知道，死亡悖論就是我們知道我們會死，但我們無法想象不存在。

And that intense discomfort makes us terrified.

這種強烈的不適感讓我們惶恐不安。

So this, it turns out that that meditation, that nine part meditation, if people Google it, the Maranissati meditation will come up.

是以，如果人們在谷歌上搜索 "馬拉尼薩蒂冥想"，就會出現這種冥想，即九部分冥想。

And if you do that, you will be free.

如果你做到了這一點，你就自由了。

But if you do that in the case of your fear, you will be free as well.

但如果你在恐懼的情況下這樣做，你也會獲得自由。

So I have a nine part fear of failure meditation that I ask my students to contemplate.

是以，我有一個由九個部分組成的 "恐懼失敗冥想"，讓我的學生去思考。

It's one of the exercises.

這是練習之一。

Every lecture ends with an exercise, much of it based in theological or philosophical tradition.

每次講座結束後都會有一個練習，其中很多練習都基於神學或哲學傳統。

And it's like, I'm not doing well in class.

就好像，我在課堂上表現不好。

Starts easy, right?

開始很容易，對嗎？

And then it gets a little bit harder.

然後就變得有點難了。

My friends from college seem to be doing better than me and getting better jobs than me.

我的大學同學似乎比我混得好，找到的工作也比我好。

And then a little bit later, it's like, I think my parents feel sorry for me.

過了一會兒，我覺得我的父母很同情我。

And sometimes the students will weep at this point because the concept of confronting that terror of what is effectively their own death, but they will be free when they do that because it can't hurt them anymore when it becomes ordinary.

有時，學生們會在這個時候哭泣，因為他們要直面那種實際上是自己死亡的恐懼，但當他們這樣做的時候，他們就會得到解脫，因為當它變得普通的時候，就不會再傷害他們了。

The phantasm, when it's exposed to light, evaporates.

幻象一旦暴露在光線下，就會煙消雲散。