To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.

原谅就是释放囚徒，然后发现那囚徒不是别人，正是自己。

Once upon a time there lived a woman who had a bad temper. She screamed at and scolded everyone around her. For most of her life she believed the fiery¹ rage inside her was everyone else’s fault.

从前有个脾气很坏的女人，她总是对着身边的人大嚷大叫，认为她生气都是因为别人的错。

She went to see a well respected Buddhist² monk³ to ask for advice. The monk told her to take a large clay jug⁴ from his kitchen, fill it with water, and stand outside on the sidewalk in front of his house. “It’s hot outside, and that’s a busy sidewalk with lots of pedestrians⁵,” the monk told her as he pointed⁶ out the front window of his house. “When a pedestrian passes, you must offer them a glass of water. Do this until there is no rage left inside you.”

于是，她去向一个德高望重的高僧寻求建议。高僧让她从厨房取了一个很大的装满水的陶壶，提着站在外面的人行道上。“外面很热，行人很多。”高僧指着窗户外说，“每一个行人经过你身边时，你都要给他们一杯水，直到你心中没有怒火为止。”

So she stood outside with a water jug and served water to pedestrians every day for the next several weeks. And every morning she asked herself if rage still pulsed through her veins⁷. And every morning the answer was, “yes.” So she continued serving water. Until this afternoon when a burly man walked up, snatched the water jug out of her hand, drank directly out of it, and then tossed the jug on the ground as he continued on his way.

所以在接下来的几周里，她都拿着陶壶站在外面，给过往行人提供水。每天，她都问自己：自己是否还有怒气，而每天她的回答都是肯定的。于是她继续这样做着，直到有一天下午，一个粗鲁的男人走过来，一把从她手里抢过陶壶，一口气喝完了里面的水，把壶扔再地上，径直离开。

The rage within the woman skyrocketed into an irrepressible fit. Unable to contain herself, she picked-up the clay jug off the ground and, with all her might, threw it at the burly man as he walked away. It was a direct hit. The jug shattered into pieces over the back of his head and he fell to the ground, unconscious and bleeding.

女人怒火中烧，终于抑制不住怒气发作起来。她捡起地上的陶壶，用尽全力掷向那个男人。陶壶直接命中了男人的头部，碎成一片一片，男人也倒地昏迷流血不止。

As the woman’s rage subsided⁸, she realized the magnitude of what she had done and began to cry. She used a payphone to call 911 and report the incident. An ambulance and two police cars arrived at the scene moments later. As the EMTs strapped⁹ the burly man into a stretcher, the police handcuffed his arms and legs to the stretcher. Then one of the police officers walked over to the woman, who was still crying, and said, “The city owes you a big‘thank you.’ That man has been on our most wanted list for over a year now. He is a primary suspect in multiple murder cases and violent robberies.”

女人怒气平息了，同时也意识到自己犯了一个多么大的错，于是哭了起来。她用公用电话叫了911，报告了这起事故。不久，一辆救护车和两个警察来到现场。救护车把男人抬上了担架，同时警察也拷上了那名男子的手脚。然后其中一个警察走到哭泣的女人身边说：“这个城市欠你一声谢谢。”那个男人是一年多来我们最想抓到的罪犯。他犯了很多抢劫杀人的勾当。

The moral of the story is that we simply don’t know. We want to believe that if we completely rid ourselves of our inner darkness then we will always make the right choices, and be of service to ourselves and those around us. But life isn’t so linear and predicable. Sometimes our darkness inadvertently leads us to do things that impact the world in a positive way, just as our unconditional¹⁰ love sometimes forces us to overlook the criminal standing¹¹ before us.

这个故事的寓意是我们无法简单得知的。我们总是愿意相信当我们完全摆脱内心的黑暗后我们能做出对的选择，对我们自己和身边的人都有好处。但是生活并不是这么线性及可预测的。有时我们内心的黑暗会毫无预警地指引我们去做一些影响世界的积极的事，就像我们无条件的爱时常会让我们忽略那些发生在我们面前的罪恶。