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

原諒就是釋放囚徒，然后發現那囚徒不是別人，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 fiery rage inside her was everyone else’s fault.

從前有個脾氣很壞的女人，她總是對著身邊的人大嚷大叫，認為她生氣都是因為別人的錯。

She went to see a well respected Buddhist monk to ask for advice. The monk told her to take a large clay jug 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 pedestrians,” the monk told her as he pointed 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，她去向一個德高望重的高僧尋求建議。高僧讓她從廚房取了一個很大的裝滿水的陶壺，提著站在外面的人行道上。“外面很熱，行人很多。”高僧指著窗戶外說，“每一個行人經過你身邊時，你都要給他們一杯水，直到你心中沒有怒火為止。”

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 veins. 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.

所以在接下來的幾周里，她都拿著陶壺站在外面，給過往行人提供水。每天，她都問自己：自己是否還有怒氣，而每天她的回答都是肯定的。于是她繼續這樣做著，直到有一天下午，一個粗魯的男人走過來，一把從她手里搶過陶壺，一口氣喝完了里面的水，把壺扔再地上，徑直離開。

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.

女人怒火中燒，終于抑制不住怒氣發作起來。她撿起地上的陶壺，用盡全力擲向那個男人。陶壺直接命中了男人的頭部，碎成一片一片，男人也倒地昏迷流血不止。

As the woman’s rage subsided, 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 strapped 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.”

女人怒氣平息了，同時也意識到自己犯了一個多么大的錯，于是哭了起來。她用公用電話叫了911，報告了這起事故。不久，一輛救護車和兩個警察來到現場。救護車把男人抬上了擔架，同時警察也拷上了那名男子的手腳。然后其中一個警察走到哭泣的女人身邊說：“這個城市欠你一聲謝謝。”那個男人是一年多來我們最想抓到的罪犯。他犯了很多搶劫殺人的勾當。

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 unconditional love sometimes forces us to overlook the criminal standing before us.

這個故事的寓意是我們無法簡單得知的。我們總是愿意相信當我們完全擺脫內心的黑暗后我們能做出對的選擇，對我們自己和身邊的人都有好處。但是生活并不是這么線性及可預測的。有時我們內心的黑暗會毫無預警地指引我們去做一些影響世界的積極的事，就像我們無條件的愛時常會讓我們忽略那些發生在我們面前的罪惡。