The art of living is to know when to hold fast and when to let go. For life is a paradox: it enjoins us to cling to its many gifts even while it ordains their eventual relinquishment. The rabbis of old put it thisway: “A man comes to this world with his fist clenched, but when he dies, his hand is open.”Surely we ought to hold fast to life, for it is wondrous, and full of a beauty that breaks through every pore of God’s own earth. We know that this is so, but all too often we recognize this truth only in our backward glance when we remember what was and then suddenly realize that it is no more. We remember a beauty that faded, a love that waned. But we remember with far greater pain that we did not see that beauty when it flowered, that we failed to respond with love when it was tendered.
A recent experience re-taught me this truth. I was hospitalized following a severe heart attack and had been in intensive care for several days. It was not a pleasant place. One morning, I had to have some additional tests. The required machines were located in a building at the opposite end of the hospital, so I had to be wheeled across the courtyard on a gurney. As we emerged from our unit, the sunlight hit me. That’s all there was to my experience. Just the light of the sun. And yet how beautiful it was—how warming, how sparking, how brilliant! I looked to see whether anyone else relished the sun’s golden glow, but everyone was hurrying to and fro，most with eyes fixed on the ground. Then I remembered how often I, too, had been indifferent to the grandeur of each day, too preoccupied with petty and sometimes even mean concerns to respond from that experience is really as commonplace as was the experience itself:life’s gifts are precious，but we are too heedless of them.
Here then is the first pole of life’s paradoxical demands on us: never too busy for the wonder and the awe of life. Be reverent before each dawning day. Embrace each hour. Seize each golden minute. Hold fast to life, but not so fast that you cannot let go. This is the second side of life’s coin, the opposite pole ofits paradox: We must accept our losses, and learn how to let go. This is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are young and think that the world is ours to command, that whatever we desire with the fullforce of our passionate being can，nay will be ours. But then life moves along to confront with realities, and slowly but surely this truth dawns upon us. At every stage of life we sustain losses，and grow in the process.
We begin our independent lives only when we emerge from the womb and lose its protective shelter. We entera progression of schools, then we leave our mothers and fathers and our childhood homes. We get married and have children and then have to let them go. We confront the death of our parents and our spouses. We face the gradual or not so gradual waning of our strength. And ultimately, as the parable of the open and closed hand suggests, we must confront the inevitability of our own demise， losing ourselves as it were, allthat we were or dreamed to be.
中文翻译
生活的艺术是要懂得如何取舍。因为生活本身自相矛盾：它一面告诫我们珍惜它所赐予的诸多恩惠，一面又注定最终将其全部收回。古时犹太教的拉比对此这样诠释：“一个人初降人世时手紧握成拳，撒手人寰时却手掌张开。”我们当然应该牢牢抓住生活，因为它奇妙无比、美不胜收，渗透了上帝的每一寸土地。我们明白这一点，但往往是在忆及往事、蓦然回首却发现好景不再时才有所感触。我们记得凋零的美，消褪的爱。但我们更痛楚地忆起，在美丽绽放时没有欣赏那份美丽，在情意绵绵时没有回应那份爱意。
最近的经历让我重新认识到这个真理。在严重心脏病发作后，我被送进医院，在重症室住了好几天。那可不是令人愉快的地方。一天早晨，我不得不再做些其它检查。所需的器械在医院对面尽头的一幢楼里，因此我必须被推着从院子经过。检查完出来时，阳光照在我身上。那是我当时感受到的一切。和煦的阳光，多么美丽，多么温暖，多么耀眼，多么灿烂！环顾四周，想看其他人是否也在欣赏这金灿灿的阳光，但来来去去的每个人都行色匆匆，眼睛大都盯着地面。这时，我忆起我也经常因被琐碎、有时甚至毫无意义的事占据头脑而每天对这样壮观的景色熟视无睹。就在那一刻，我突然意识到生活的馈赠是多么珍贵，而我们却忽视了它们。
这就是生活自相矛盾要求我们的第一极：不要因生活过于忙碌而忽略了它的奇妙和庄严。在每个黎明到来之前心怀敬意。拥抱每一小时。抓住珍贵的每分钟。抓住生活，但不要抓得太紧，以致于无法放弃。这是生活硬币的另一面，也是其矛盾的另一极：我们必须接受失去，并且学会放弃。要学会这一课并非易事，尤其当我们年轻气盛时，自认为是世界的主宰，认为用充满激情的躯体全力追求的东西能够，而且最终将会是我们的。但光阴荏苒，面对现实，我们才渐渐明白并非如此。在人生的每个阶段我们都会蒙受损失，并在此过程中成长。
我们只有脱离母体、失去庇护所时才开始独立生活。我们进入各级学校，然后离开父母。我们结婚生子，然后再放飞子女。我们面对父母和配偶的离世。我们逐渐或很快变得衰弱。最终，如同张开和握紧的手的寓言，我们必须面对不可避免的死亡，失去原来的自 我，失去我们原有的或梦想的一切。