高雄地名的由來

As I sit at my window this summer afternoon, hawks are circling about my clearing; the tantivy of wild pigeons, flying by two and threes athwart my view, or perching restless on the white pine boughs behind my house, gives a voice to the air; a fish hawk dimples the glassy surface of the pond and brings up a fish; a mink steals out of the marsh before my door and seizes a frog by the shore; the sedge is bending under the weight of the reed-birds flitting hither and thither; and for the last half-hour I have heard the rattle of railroad cars, now dying away and then reviving like the beat of a partridge, conveying travellers from Boston to the country. For I did not live so out of the world as that boy who, as I hear, was put out to a farmer in the east part of the town, but ere long ran away and came home again, quite down at the heel and homesick. He had never seen such a dull and out-of-the-way place; the folks were all gone off; why, you couldn't even hear the whistle! I doubt if there is such a place in Massachusetts now: —

"In truth, our village has become a butt
For one of those fleet railroad shafts, and o'er
Our peaceful plain its soothing sound is — Concord."

高雄，這個竹林，

已經成了二氧化碳的故鄉 －
因為，她只剩下馬卡道路，
在打狗山旁！

高雄的原意是竹林，正是從打狗轉音而來。馬卡道族（平埔族中的西拉雅族的支系）為了防禦敵人和海盜的攻擊以及颱風的侵襲，在部落、家屋的四周，種植刺竹林作為防衛圍籬。他們稱這種圍籬叫作TAKAO。六世紀時，漢人開始和馬卡道人頻繁接觸，對竹林圍籬的妙用印象深刻，就以閩南話翻譯成【打狗】，因此出現打狗山、打狗社的稱呼。一八九五年以後，日本人統治台灣，根據日本本國同音的地名，取漢字【高雄】傳統名稱，移用到打狗來，從此打狗變為高雄，並且在大正十三年《民國十三年》建立高雄市。 （取材自柴山探訪）

央行總裁彭淮南

I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui. Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour. Housework was a pleasant pastime. When my floor was dirty, I rose early, and, setting all my furniture out of doors on the grass, bed and bedstead making but one budget, dashed water on the floor, and sprinkled white sand from the pond on it, and then with a broom scrubbed it clean and white; and by the time the villagers had broken their fast the morning sun had dried my house sufficiently to allow me to move in again, and my meditations were almost uninterupted. It was pleasant to see my whole household effects out on the grass, making a little pile like a gypsy's pack, and my three-legged table, from which I did not remove the books and pen and ink, standing amid the pines and hickories. They seemed glad to get out themselves, and as if unwilling to be brought in. I was sometimes tempted to stretch an awning over them and take my seat there. It was worth the while to see the sun shine on these things, and hear the free wind blow on them; so much more interesting most familiar objects look out of doors than in the house. A bird sits on the next bough, life-everlasting grows under the table, and blackberry vines run round its legs; pine cones, chestnut burs, and strawberry leaves are strewn about. It looked as if this was the way these forms came to be transferred to our furniture, to tables, chairs, and bedsteads — because they once stood in their midst.

較之一般台灣人來說，我的生活型態起碼也有這樣的好處：無需期待國外或者中國來帶給我娛樂，也無需社交和買門票看表演；因為我的生活本身就是娛樂，而且永保新鮮，從不會變的無聊。聽說中央銀行總裁彭淮南的生活近乎無趣，除了工作，唯二的消遣就是跑步和讀書。無趣是世俗的看法。人類受到本身屬性的捆綁，因而為肉慾所驅。所有的肉慾，型態固然萬千，但卻只有一個。人們以為這樣才富情趣，其本質卻低俗至極。所謂時尚，可能是前幾年商店裡的庫存貨。為肉慾所縛的人儘管一時得意，也終究無法忍受老病的折磨。但是如果一個人的心地純粹專注，經過長時間的淨化和鍛鍊，就如彭總裁一般，他就能夠心想事成。

《雜阿含65經》有：愚癡無聞凡夫不如實知色，色集，色滅，色味，色患，色離。不如實知故，於色所樂、讚歎、繫著住，色縛所縛、內縛所縛，不知根本、不知邊際、不知出離，是名愚癡無聞凡夫，以縛生、以縛死、以縛從此世至他世，於彼亦復以縛生、以縛死。是名愚癡無聞凡夫隨魔自在，入魔網中，隨魔所化，魔縛所縛，為魔所牽。受……想……行……識，亦復如是。

因為無法看清楚各種繫縛的本質，以為是一種享受，於是便為縛所牽、為魔所繫，不得自在；死後還念念不忘，隨逐往來，循環不捨。

禪定的境界

BUT WHILE WE are confined to books, though the most select and classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard. Much is published, but little printed. The rays which stream through the shutter will be no longer remembered when the shutter is wholly removed. No method nor discipline can supersede the necessity of being forever on the alert. What is a course of history or philosophy, or poetry, no matter how well selected, or the best society, or the most admirable routine of life, compared with the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen? Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.

1. on the alert 是準備好面對各種可能發生的情況。

2. 孟祥森把 the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen 譯成 「清楚的看你所看到的東西」，有點不太清楚。重點是在 discipline，應該是正念現前之意。如下面的故事所述的訓練。上一句說到沒有任何一種 discipline 可以取代 on the alert；這裡又說所有的課程都比不上這個 discipline of looking always at what is to be seen, 所以二者應該是同一個東西。

I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that "for yesterday, today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday forward for tomorrow, and overhead for the passing day." This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.

　　「第一個夏天我並沒有讀書；我鋤地種豆子。不，我常常做了一些比種豆子還要好的事。有某些時候，我無法承受把時間花在任何勞心或勞力的工作上，因為太可惜」，梭羅如是寫道。

是什麼時候讓他覺得連讀書工作都是一種浪費呢？

曾經有一個人他乘坐的船沉沒，只有他一人生還。漂流到岸上後，他以樹葉造了一件衣服，坐在樹下休息。在古印度，有很多修行的人，他們都坐在樹下修行。人們看到以為他是阿羅漢，帶各樣東西給他，他於是裝成一名修行者。為了使別人相信自己是阿羅漢，他拒絕接受人們的奉獻，以顯示自己有異於常人，結果人們真的對他更加敬仰。有一晚，一位天神來到他面前，這天神在前生是該人的朋友，曾經一同修行。天神希望指示他正確的道路。天神說他作虛弄假，利用宗教欺騙別人，是一個虛偽的人，不是阿羅漢，也未曾踏上正確的道路。他聽到後便請天神教導他應如何做。天神著他前往跟隨佛陀學習。

幾經辛苦，他來到舍衛城。在他的再三請求下，佛陀說了幾句：

"當你看到某東西，只用明白這東西；當你聽到某聲音時，只用明白這聲音；當你的感官感接觸任何東西，只用明白這東西，不要有任何的感覺，不要生起任何的喜惡。"（註）

梭羅認為沒有一門歷史課，哲學課或詩歌的課程能夠與這種訓練相比。他繼續寫道：「我喜歡給我的生活一個開闊的額外空間。有時，在夏天的清晨，依慣例洗完澡後，我坐在門前曬太陽，從日出一直到中午，完全沉浸在冥想裡...，在完全不受干擾的孤獨及平靜中，一直到太陽從我的西窗落進來，或者遠處傳來過客的馬車嘈雜聲，才使我意識到時間的流逝。在那些沉思的時刻，我便如夜間的穀類一樣生長。」梭羅說，那些流失的光陰，並沒有自他的壽命中減去，反而是高出於他的生命之上的。他的意思是，用世俗的眼光來看，他一共在世間活了45年（1817~1862）； 但若不是因為靜坐為他賺得的時間，他可能更早離開這個世間。

註：以上的故事節錄自 Studying Buddhism

用心才聽得出來的語言

It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and the language read. The one is commonly transitory, a sound, a tongue, a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn it unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is our father tongue, a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak.

從觀照自身得知，愈來愈少的人能夠認真看待文字；縱使已開發國家的教育程度提升，文字對社會整體的影響力也愈來愈小。

我相信像林義雄先生這樣信仰梭羅的思想的人是一個真正誠實的人。但是因為以類似面貌出現在人們眼前的人太多，漸漸人們也就不以為意了。所以當李敖說這個人不可相信，也就有人半信半疑。心中充滿權術的人認為道德有時只會壞事，也就更不會把林先生所代表的當一回事。

文字所面臨的困境也是如此。大部份的人看書是為了獲得「有用」的知識；只管這種知識是不是能賺錢，是不是能提升自己的情緒管理，是不是能洗滌自己的心靈，而沒有人在意文字背後的生命和靈魂。

什麼樣的時代會有什麼樣的產物。現代的作品說話的對象不再是人類的智慧與心靈，不再是一切時代能夠了解它們的人。它們的目的只是希望像演說者那樣，讓聽眾對他們的滔滔言詞發出掌聲。梭羅說的好，經過淬煉的語言太具有含意，不是耳朵可以聽得出來的。而只有已經重生的人才能學會「說」這種語言。

閱 讀

My residence was more favorable, not only to
thought, but to serious reading, than a university;
...

Says the poet Mîr Camar Uddin Mast, "Being seated,
to run through the region of the spiritual world; I
have had this advantage in books. To be intoxicated
by a single glass of wine; I have experienced this
pleasure when I have drunk the liquor of the
esoteric doctrines."

在網上找了許久，沒有找到這個波斯詩人的資料；可見這個世界是極不平衡的。如果我懂得阿拉伯文的話可能會比較容易找到。我的心思見地是十分狹隘的。一個時常將目光瞧向天際及星空的人，內心總是比較平靜。

我的住處也很適合思考及嚴肅的閱讀；梭羅的《華爾騰湖》為我們整理了他一生所得；在他那個時代以前所完成的書，《華爾騰湖》所提供的書目我們一輩子也看不完。所以只要讀完華爾騰湖就好。不過，我還想讀《雜阿含經》及《法句經》；因為它們都是過去的哲學家為我們揭示的真理，現在他們要藉由我們的眼睛去複習。禪宗的經驗告訴了証悟的禪師們，只要通過了「無門關」，就可以與歷代的祖師攜手同行，用同一的耳朵聽，用同一的眼睛看。

另一位波斯詩人 Omar Khayyam 在他的《露杯夜陶》寫道：

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

咱來樹腳歇一下仔，

遮仔有吃的，美酒含詩冊；

更有汝作伴佇荒野咧唱歌，

呵！佇荒野中著是佇天堂！

或者如黃克孫衍譯的七絶：　

一簞疏食一壺漿，一卷詩書樹下涼，

卿為阿儂歌瀚海，茫茫瀚海即天堂。

這個瀚海天堂不正是詩人 Mîr Camar Uddin Mast 飲盡那杯秘教教義之酒才能到達的領域！

孔子的新聞

What news! how much more important to know what that is which was never old! "Kieou-pe-yu (great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned him in these terms: What is your master doing? The messenger answered with respect: My master desires to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot accomplish it.. The messenger being gone, the philosopher remarked: What a worthy messenger! What a worthy messenger!"

什麼新聞！知道不會變舊的東西才是更重要的！

蘧伯玉（衞國的大人物）使人於孔子。孔子與之坐，而問焉。曰：「夫子何為？」對曰：「夫子欲寡其過而未能也。」使者出。子曰：「使乎！使乎！」 　　－ 論語(憲問第十四)

梭羅引《論語》此章有些奇怪，可能是他讀到的英譯（梭羅應該不懂中文）將使者的意圖譯成想要去打探孔子的消息，實則原文並未提及使者的來意。蘧伯玉和孔子是舊識，孔子每次去衛國都住他那裡。派使者去孔子那裡可能只是表達問候之意。

不過我在網上查閱《論語》此章時，發現就在上一章孔子所說的話更有智慧：

子曰：「古之學者為己；今之學者為人。」

孔子的思想其實很值得看看，只是無論什麼好東西一旦到了中國人手裡都變了樣。現在又被中國人搬出來供奉；但是我想若是今天孔子重生，中國的當政者也不會讓他說心裡想講的話。

藥方三帖

Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify. Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion. Our life is like a German Confederacy, made up of petty states, with its boundary forever fluctuating, so that even a German cannot tell you how it is bounded at any moment. The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast. Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain.If we do not get out sleepers, and forge rails, and devote days and nights to the work, but go to tinkering upon our lives to improve them, who will build railroads? And if railroads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season? But if we stay at home and mind our business, who will want railroads? We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

大概每個台灣人心裡都在想，台灣真的病了 －－ 無論是看得到的生態環境還是看不到的社會環境。可是好像沒有一個人知道該怎麼辦。150年前的梭羅就為我們開了三帖藥方，就看台灣的人民要不要去做：

1. 絕對的節約 a rigid economy.
2. 比斯巴達還要嚴格的單純生活 a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life.
3. 更高的目標 elevation of purpose.
   （至少要比「經濟發展」這一目標要來的高。）

通向涅槃的渡口之道路

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

早上，餵過小狗，吃過早餐以後，我就開始看梭羅的《湖濱散記》。而通常等到樓下機車行開門營業時，我已經開始我的修行了。『與其給我愛、金錢或名譽，不如給我真理。(Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.)』而欲證真理，必先修行。僧叡說：「禪法者，向道之初門，泥洹(涅槃)之津徑也。」所以修習禪法只能到渡口，要過河還得搭船。修習禪法的結果也有可能跟吃搖頭丸一樣，不過是幻覺的產生而已；禪定也只是有如動物的冬眠，然而還是值得一試。因為它是一種有意識的心靈努力。『人，絶對有能力用有意識的努力來提升自己的生命。』這是梭羅所發現最是鼓舞人心的事實。即使參禪的結果和使用毒品或冬眠一樣，其過程也不會是相同的。

以前，安可先生曾和哲學家有過這樣的對話：

哲學家：聽說你認為”自我”是不存在的？

王安可：我所讀的佛書是這麼教誨的。

哲學家：相信我，兄弟！你的”自我”正理直氣壯地訴說自己的存在 ── 這個有創造力、有意志、有價值的”自我”，便是權衡一切萬物的標準。

王安可：莫非是說「人是萬物的尺度」？

哲學家：正是。這個最純正的存在，自我 ── 即使當它在冥想、狂嘯、或以折翼飄飛時，也還訴說著肉體、意想著肉體。相信我，兄弟！只有病人和將死者才會鄙視肉體與大地，並且虛構一個天堂世界。然而，是誰給予他們解脫時的那份激動與狂喜呢？不仍是肉體和大地嗎？

王安可：應該不是這樣的。確實有些信佛的人是病者和將死者，但解脫的喜悅並不是肉體所能給予的。

哲學家：那是什麼給予的呢？”自覺”能不靠”自我”？

王安可：我也不知道。不過佛教認為涅槃的境界「唯聖者所知」，不能以經驗上的有、無、來、去等概念來測度，是不可思議的解脫境界。

哲學家：兄弟！還是聽聽一個健康肉體的語調吧！那是一種更為誠摯與純潔的聲音。　

『可是肉體是無常的。』安可先生心裡如是說道。

苟日新，日日新，又日新

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks. I got up early and bathed in the pond; that was a religious exercise, and one of the best things which I did. They say that characters were engraven on the bathing tub of King Tching Thang to this effect: "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again." I can understand that. Morning brings back the heroic ages.

11月初的早上，冷氣團剛要從本島南端溜走，我騎了單車，後頭跟著老爹，打算讓清晨的空氣洗滌身心的髒污。然而這樣宗教式的行為並不保証有效。早上五點多就已經有不少人在運動，他們起床運動的目的卻不是每日更新自己，而是希望能為殘敗之軀多延續幾日。《法句經》有：

若人壽百歲，不知成敗事，不如生一日，見微知所忌。

正法之王尤帝世提爾說：『這世間最奇怪的事是：每天，每天，我們都知道有無數的人死去，但大多數的人卻以為自己可以一直，一直地活下去，並且不斷用這樣的想法在行動！』

據說，有一位慈濟師姊向證嚴法師投訴：『為什麼我已經作這麼多了，還是經常生病？』證嚴法師回答：『你看我，也是天天在打針。』

學佛不是為了帶來幸福、健康、富裕、美滿的人生，只是讓你能夠坦然面對生命中的不幸、病痛、窮苦及缺憾。