天籟

Sometimes, on Sundays, I heard the bells, the Lincoln, Acton, Bedford, or Concord bell, when the wind was favorable, a faint, sweet, and, as it were, natural melody, worth importing into the wilderness. At a sufficient distance over the woods this sound acquires a certain vibratory hum, as if the pine needles in the horizon were the strings of a harp which it swept. All sound heard at the greatest possible distance produces one and the same effect, a vibration of the universal lyre, just as the intervening atmosphere makes a distant ridge of earth interesting to our eyes by the azure tint it imparts to it. There came to me in this case a melody which the air had strained, and which had conversed with every leaf and needle of the wood, that portion of the sound which the elements had taken up and modulated and echoed from vale to vale. The echo is, to some extent, an original sound, and therein is the magic and charm of it. It is not merely a repetition of what was worth repeating in the bell, but partly the voice of the wood; the same trivial words and notes sung by a wood-nymph.

齊物論第二

　　　　南郭子綦隱机而坐，仰天而噓，荅焉似喪其耦。顏成子游立侍乎前，曰：「何居乎？形固可使如槁木，而心固可使如死灰乎？今之隱机者，非昔之隱机者也？」子綦曰：「偃，不亦善乎，而問之也！今者吾喪我，汝知之乎？汝聞人籟而未聞地籟，汝聞地籟而未聞天籟夫！」子游曰：「敢問其方。」子綦曰：「夫大塊噫氣，其名為風。是唯無作，作則萬竅怒呺。而獨不聞之翏翏乎？山林之畏佳，大木百圍之竅穴，似鼻，似口，似耳，似枅，似圈，似臼，似洼者，似污者；激者、謞者、叱者、吸者、叫者、譹者、宎者、咬者，前者唱于而隨者唱喁。泠風則小和， 飄風則大和，厲風濟則眾竅為虛。而獨不見之調調之刁刁乎？」子游曰：「地籟則眾竅是已，人籟則比竹是已，敢問天籟。」子綦曰：「夫天籟者，吹萬不同；而使其自已也，咸其自取。怒者其誰邪！」

此篇為《莊子．齊物論》第一節，其中描述得道者南郭子綦憑几坐忘，精神不為形體所縛的情況與佛教打坐入定之描述並無二致；其弟子顏成子游觀察到他的老師，「形如槁木，心如死灰」，跟以前靜坐時的樣子很不相同。便問他老師為何會這樣。南郭子綦便說：「今者吾喪我，汝知之乎？」（今天我已經達到無我的境地了，你知道嗎？）接著他用天籟來作比喻；他說，所謂天籟，乃是風吹萬種孔竅所發出的聲音，使這些聲音不同的原因，並不是風，而是各個孔竅形狀不同所致；都是自已造成。世間的思想言論，雖為態百殊，也像風吹萬種孔竅所發出的聲音，都是自然而然並且不得不然的天籟，都無是非曲直之可計較。

我們常會想，要是別人怎樣怎樣就好了；但是別人也有可能要求你應該這樣或那樣。而事實上，大部份是自己本身的問題，就如南郭子綦所說：「夫天籟者，吹萬不同；而使其自已也，咸其自取。怒者其誰邪！」