Walden 2.0

追憶逝水年華

2011-01-16T12:11:00.002+08:00

Thus for sixteen days I saw from my window a hundred men at work like busy husbandmen, with teams and horses and apparently all the implements of farming, such a picture as we see on the first page of the almanac; and as often as I looked out I was reminded of the fable of the lark and the reapers, or the parable of the sower, and the like; and now they are all gone, and in thirty days more, probably, I shall look from the same window on the pure sea-green Walden water there, reflecting the clouds and the trees, and sending up its evaporations in solitude, and no traces will appear that a man has ever stood there. Perhaps I shall hear a solitary loon laugh as he dives and plumes himself, or shall see a lonely fisher in his boat, like a floating leaf, beholding his form reflected in the waves, where lately a hundred men securely labored. 

這段充滿詩意的文字立刻讓我想到了《徒然草》中第26段所引的一首和歌：

昔日幽期處牆腳傾廢，

唯見堇花叢生荒草間。

有不待風吹而自散落者，人心之花是也！

從人事的慣例看來，曾經互訴情愛的兩人往往會變成不同世界的人，這比死別更可悲。生長在都市的人，一切變化太快，幾年後回到舊的地方，連可回憶的景物都不見了，更何況是人呢！

梭羅的整體論

2011-01-11T08:08:00.005+08:00

If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveller, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness. 

對於人世間不公義的事儘管不應袖手不顧，但當已盡了力而無法改變時，則可以認為：之所以有這樣的世間，是因為我們所不知的法則所造成。正如高山和深海，如此不同，卻又如此和諧。梭羅說，因為我們所知的法則甚為有限，計算所得結果也會因為我們的無知而有缺陷。我們對於法則以及和諧的看法通常受限於我們的視野，所以真正和諧美好的事物卻看起來互相矛盾衝突，這是因為造成這些真正的和諧美好事物的法則無法為我們所見。我們所見者猶如山中的旅者，山的輪廓隨著行進而有無限變化，但其實山只有一個；即使將之劈開或鑿穿了，我們也無從得窺全豹。

無功任運是謂捨。佛法講捨是有前提的；當修行的人的心既不高昂，亦不下沉時，便不需使用寂止及策舉之法。孔子七十而從心所欲不踰矩，便是捨的法門。在學習電腦語言時，讀到了兩個觀念：reductionism 以及 holism. 前者認為一件事物可以藉著瞭解組成它的各個部份而被瞭解；後者認為事物的整體經常是大於各個部份的總合。程式設計師在學習程式設計時，經常要交錯的使用這兩個互相對立的觀點。修行也是如此。因為偏於修止，於境暗昩，謂之沉沒，此時宜修策舉相；若心高舉，則應修厭背相，使心沉靜。然而，若是使用遞迴的技巧，則 reductionism 會成為瞭解程式的敵人，必須讓自己完全以 holism 的觀點來思考。此時就跟捨的法門很類似了。在山中修行的行者，或急或徐，若在某處美景耽著，則怠慢修行；若是急著攻頂，則會錯過身旁美景。梭羅說，我一生中曾遇見過一兩個人真正懂得每天散步的心法，－－不僅僅是為了運動身體，或只是為了振奮精神，而是確實地鍛鍊身心，讓自己能夠藉著拋棄任何特定的目標而達到最真實究竟的目標－－這樣的人可以說是具備了溜達閑晃的天賦。

華爾騰湖測量圖

2011-01-05T11:11:00.010+08:00

When I had mapped the pond by the scale of ten rods to an inch, and put down the soundings, more than a hundred in all, I observed this remarkable coincidence. Having noticed that the number indicating the greatest depth was apparently in the centre of the map, I laid a rule on the map lengthwise, and then breadthwise, and found, to my surprise, that the line of greatest length intersected the line of greatest breadth exactly at the point of greatest depth, notwithstanding that the middle is so nearly level, the outline of the pond far from regular, and the extreme length and breadth were got by measuring into the coves; and I said to myself, Who knows but this hint would conduct to the deepest part of the ocean as well as of a pond or puddle? Is not this the rule also for the height of mountains, regarded as the opposite of valleys? We know that a hill is not highest at its narrowest part. 

梭羅在池畔生活的第一年冬季，即1946年初，便對華爾騰池進行測量。他的測量技術是自學的，但1946年所繪製的測量結果卻真實呈現了華爾騰池的形狀：（圖中箭頭所指是北方）

圖右下角的 D點現在叫作梭羅灣（Thoreau's Cove），他的池畔小屋則位在D點右下標示著 House 的位置。

底下是google map 的地圖：

檢視較大的地圖

梭羅所繪地圖翻轉180度後如下：

हरिवंश

2010-12-29T11:57:00.046+08:00

AFTER A STILL winter night I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what — how — when — where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution. "O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The night veils without doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether.

噢，王子。我們的眼睛在讚嘆，在靜觀，把這宇宙奇妙多變的景象傳達於靈魂。夜幕固然把造物的光輝部份掩遮，但白晝轉瞬來臨，揭示這偉大的作品，其廣大甚至從此土延伸至蒼穹。

已故的孟祥森（筆名孟東籬）在上個世紀末翻譯此段引文時，因為沒有網路，以他的博學多聞，仍註明此段引文出處不明。但我卻輕易的找到出自《Harivansa》（訶利世系，或譯為哈利家譜）, 是印度二大史詩之一《摩訶婆羅多》的一個續章。《訶利世系》與《摩訶婆羅多》在實際內容上沒有什麼聯繫，但關於黑天的一些最主要的故事都是保存在此續章中。之前買的《湖濱書簡》，Letters to a Spiritual Seeker，梭羅亦有在給朋友的信中（1849/11/20）引用此史詩：

（那些學習瑜伽的人，從婆羅門那裡得到了努力的成果，）可擺脱一切枷鎖，像鳥在空中飛翔那樣的自由自在。
瑜伽者在沉思中，就能對造化有所貢獻；他能吸入神奇的香味，聽到美妙的事物。神體穿過他卻不傷害他，而與大自然吻合，使一切對他都恰到好處。他的一舉一動都鼓舞了大自然。

Free in this world, as the birds in the air, disengaged from every kind of chain.

Thus the Yogin, absorbed in contemplation, contributes for his part to creation : he breathes a divine perfume, he hears wonderful things . Divine forms traverse him without tearing him, and united to the nature which is proper to him, he goes, he acts, as animating original matter.

此書信集的編者在註釋提到梭羅於1849年9月11日自哈佛大學圖書館借出這套自梵文翻成法文的《Harivansa》，兩個月後，在給朋友的信中摘譯成英文。而1851年5月在修改《湖濱散記》而重讀此套書的同時，也在他的日記中記載了這兩段。因此可以推斷首揭引文應在此時加入《冬天的池》；梭羅說：正如其他的傳道者，寫完了我要講的，一段時日之後，我會再加進汲取自中國和印度經典的文字。

Like some other preachers, I have added my texts - derived from the Chinese and Hindoo scriptures – long after my discourse was written .

帝寶豪宅

2010-12-27T22:23:00.011+08:00

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less? Shall the respectable citizen thus gravely teach, by precept and example, the necessity of the young man's providing a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and umbrellas, and empty guest chambers for empty guests, before he dies? Why should not our furniture be as simple as the Arab's or the Indian's? When I think of the benefactors of the race, whom we have apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any retinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable furniture. Or what if I were to allow — would it not be a singular allowance? — that our furniture should be more complex than the Arab's, in proportion as we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

日本三大隨筆之一的《徒然草》提到：

能持身簡樸，袪除奢欲，不務財富，不求世間名利的，方稱賢慧。自古富而賢者，為數極少。

許由身無長物，有人見他捧水而飲，乃贈以葫蘆。時或繫之樹上，風吹作響，許由頓覺厭煩，遂棄而不用，復以手掬水。真可謂清涼之心也！孫晨冬天沒有棉被，僅備乾草一束，夜來舖草而臥，醒來便將之收起。唐土之人，以此等人為高士，載之書冊以傳世；若生於日本，必湮沒無聞。

讀李永熾先生《從風土與場所看台灣族群》一文，說到台灣雖有獨特的風土，卻被來來往往的人刻意的漠視。我們只有過客，剝削者，外來政權，而沒有自己主體的台灣。因為風土與場所的不同，會產生不同的文化，所以許由及孫晨此等人物不為日本人所喜歡。而在美國，則有梭羅。

梭羅因為桌上的三塊石頭必須每天擦拭，而沒有時間擦拭內心的塵埃，頓生厭背之心，將之丟棄。較之必須每天清掃的帝寶豪宅內的高級沙發，他寧願選擇坐在露天的草地上。

梭羅說，我們是不是應該偶爾學著滿足於現況，而不是整天想著如何去獲得那些奢侈品，去告訴我們年輕的一代，在你們死之前，務必要擁有鉑金包，名錶，跑車，豪宅，否則你們就白活了？我們的監察院長在嘲笑大學生打工的不智時，只有人責怪他不懂民間疾苦，卻沒有人告訴他，求學問並不是為了將來可以賺更多的錢而已！難道將來在台灣的史冊上，就只會有王永慶，郭台銘這些人？如果是這樣，即便台灣建構成為完全屬於台灣人民的國家，也不會被其他世界的人所尊重的。

角色扮演

2010-07-28T10:11:00.016+08:00

現在很流行的 Cosplay 大抵都在外表上作文章，所以都只能停留在好玩的
層面；好的演員必須深入到角色的內心才能感動人心。梭羅的朋友 Harrison Gray Otis Blake 說：在這個充滿了嘈雜，膚淺演員的世界裡，能站在一旁說我就是我的人是崇高的。（Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, "I will simply be." ）

但是當代的戲劇有汰半是歌頌愛情，大部份的角色是我無法扮演的。於是
我替自己找了幾種角色來試試；它們是：英語系學生，居士禪修者，程式
設計師，詩人，清道夫。其中居士禪修者及程式設計師每週二次，其他角
色每週一次。但是以後最好能夠每一種角色可以連續扮演一週再更換。

這五種角色應屬詩人最為有趣，我將它排在週五扮演；在那一天我可以是
陶潛，蘇軾；可以是奧瑪珈音，Emily Dickinson，達賴六世倉央嘉措....
但是最重要的，我可以跟他們看同一個星空，喝同樣的醇酒。

角色扮演的遊戲玩了沒多久，我就覺得沒意思了。之後發現自己可能有唾液腺結石的毛病，會造成腮腺發炎；為了減少發作的誘因，所以打算少喝啤酒，詩人也作不成了。

自從把《Walden》讀完後，覺得自己好像沒什正經事好幹，昨晚（8/31）竟然一個人跑去看《父後七日》電影。電影不怎麼樣，倒是在等候放映時在誠品書局買了一本《湖濱書簡》，英文書名《Letters to a Spiritual Seeker》，是梭羅寫給一位朋友 Harrison Gray Otis Blake（1816-1898）的書信集。這些書信日期涵蓋1848年到1861年，是梭羅在離開湖濱後所寫，所以中文書名《湖濱書簡》是把《Walden》錯譯成《湖濱散記》的一錯再錯。

我讀完《Walden》也有一段時日，現在開始讀這本書信集正是時候。 (2010/09/01)

瞎子摸象

2010-05-30T11:47:00.005+08:00

There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and fenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was never a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if I were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long intervals some came from the village to fish for pouts — they plainly fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks with darkness — but they soon retreated, usually with light baskets, and left "the world to darkness and to me," and the black kernel of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.

夜晚，過了午夜12點，我總是帶著小狗出門，到附近的文化中心；那個時候，整個文化中心都是我的庭院，尤其在夏間雨後，人們就把這個小小世界留給黑暗和我，退入他們溫暖的格子裡。時常，有一些精力過剩的年輕人闖入，在我的地方大聲嘻鬧；我想起自己也有過的年少輕狂，也會任由他們放肆。

無論是怎樣的風雨，一個健康純潔的人聽起來都像是美妙的樂章；沒有任何事情可以把簡單而勇敢的人逼入卑俗的悲傷之中。禽鳥之所以無法分辨燈泡和牠的卵，是因為他要把更多的精神用在撫育幼鳥上；人如果不要那麼有分別心，就可以達到真實究竟的清淨解脫。

最甜的生活

2010-05-07T11:15:00.012+08:00

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me. The philosopher said: "From an army of three divisions one can take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought." Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, "and lo! creation widens to our view." We are often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the wealth of Croesus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.

梭羅說：『當你為貧窮所困，那也只是被困在最有意義也最富生機的經驗之中，你被迫面對的是能產生最多的糖和最多營養的材料。那一種生活，最是刻骨的甜。』

不要為了不夠潮而心中不安，別因為沒有買到最新的 iPad 而焦慮，不用急著去結交新的朋友或買新的名牌包。翻翻舊的東西，找找老朋友。他們沒有變，是我們變；無常的是自己，而非世事。賣掉你的衣服，保留你的思想！只要能夠思考，不論身陷何等困境，我一樣可以活得安適自在。子曰：「三軍可奪帥也，匹夫不可奪志也。」多餘的錢財只能用來買多餘的東西；靈魂需要的東西，用不著錢。

『不論你的生活何等低卑，都要去面對它，去安生；不要躲避，不要用難聽的名字咒罵它。』《經集．義品》中佛陀告誡修行的比丘們，既然已經選擇了出世的生活，要如何超越恐懼，如何消滅心中的黑暗勢力？

我得何食何處食，今實苦臥何處臥；
此等諸尋導悲泣，無家有學應調伏。

食物衣服有時得，少許滿足應知量；
護持此等村慎行，雖受污辱無麤語。

He should conquer these four thoughts of lament: 'What will I eat, or where will I eat. How badly I slept. Tonight where will I sleep?' These lamenting thoughts he should subdue — one under training, wandering without home.

Receiving food & cloth at appropriate times, he should have a sense of enough for the sake of contentment. Guarded in regard to these things going restrained into a village, even when harassed he shouldn't say a harsh word.

曹洞宗與相對論

2010-05-06T09:06:00.026+08:00

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?

安可先生和曹洞宗曾經有這麼一段淵源：

根據吳晴月所持有禪門曹洞宗的「生死簿」的推算，王安可的陽壽只有四
十八年又三個月。若是活過這個年又不離開他的家，就會對家人有損。不
過安可先生確實活了幾年卻沒人知道，因為他在六十幾時還在台東太麻里
山上洗溫泉。

生死簿和一般算命完全不同，它是以一再轉世輪迴的靈魂為主體，記錄著
每一世所累積起來的善惡業，到目前這一世將會有什麼樣的業報出現，其
中預言了個人的生、老、病、死、劫，但是不提供任何意見，只告訴你有
什麼籌碼，藉由這些去掌握自己的一生。

吳晴月並告訴安可先生，一味空想要過多好的生活，或是整天羨慕別人的
財富和幸福，都是無益的。不承認自己這世的「實相」，會讓自己終日不
快樂，陷入痛苦的情緒中。只有了解業因並修正自己的內心，才能排解疑
難，過較正確的生活。人生的根本問題是沒有答案的，它無可限制，端看
你怎麼創造，因為人生就是一連串無常的活動，這才是「真相」。

據說，生死簿共二十本，成書於後唐，大約西元1230年東渡日本，1895年由曹洞宗四十八代開教使雪凝和尚帶來台灣佈教。雪凝和尚在中日戰後遭遣返日本，留下此套書籍交給同門師弟普信，也就是吳晴月的師父。然而「真相」是，安可先生根本沒見過吳晴月，一切都是他自己心中的想像。真相與實相也許可以用「真話」和「實話」來類比。真話是心裡的話，實話則不一定。但是真話的內容卻可能不是實情，而是因人的虛妄之心所造成的「假相」。但這種「假相」不能說不存在。『從因果施設邊說，即空的假名有，不可說無』，也就是說在這種情況下個人周遭的人、事、物，雖然是空的、假的，卻是存在的，不可說它們都是幻覺。『從自性不可得邊說，即假的自性空，不可說有』。這是相對於前面來說的。如果沒有前面的空的假名，就沒有所謂的假的自性，所以自性也是假、也是空。從這個觀點才可以說一切是不存在的。所以佛才說：『一切有為法，如夢、幻、泡、影，如露亦如電，應作如是觀』。這就是所謂的「實相」。實相是批判之依據，若無此為據，焉知世間之苦是何所指耶？說的白話一點，人要跳出自己的意想範圍之外，才能對此世間有所評斷。至於這個世界的「真相」佛陀似乎從來沒有提過，因為他認為瞭解它對於人的解脫並沒有幫助。這個世界在佛陀的心裡到底是怎樣的，也就成為佛學的一個重要課題。

愛因斯坦的相對論卻向我們透露了一點這個世界的「真相」。牛頓的運動定律基本上是假設時間的脈動頻率對每一個運動中物體都是一樣的。也唯有如此，他的運動定律才能成立。而這個假設對人類來說是完全合乎先驗的，沒有人曾經懷疑這個假設的真實性。但是後來發現，時間的推移是因運動而定。然而牛頓在發現他的運動定律之時，並不知道每個物體的時間都是不同的，所以他的定律和人心所產生的各種有為法一樣，都是夢幻泡影。然而，將時間的脈動施設為一致是有必要的，因為一切因果必須由此開始。羅素說：『如果我們處在一個不斷變動（無常）的世界中（事實上我們也是，只是沒人感覺到，釋迦牟尼是第一人），可能打從頭就推算出相對論，要不然就是糊里糊塗，永遠不知科學定理為何物。因為一步就跳到相對論的人必須一手包辦歐幾里德、伽利略、牛頓及愛因斯坦的科學成就，這種天才既不可能存在，我們只得選擇後者。』釋迦牟尼就是這樣的天才！牛頓的定律雖不契合真理，但是若沒有假的定律，如何去解釋這個零中之零，空中之空。

王中之王是誰？聖中之聖是誰？
何謂愚人？何謂智者？
如何離開垢穢？怎樣獲證涅槃？
何人沉溺在生死海裡？誰能逍遙於解脫國中？

正如庫魯城那個做手杖的藝術家所經歷的一樣，打坐的奇妙之處在於，不論你用功了多久，在你結束打坐時，你會覺得用掉的時間都差不多，所逝去的時間只是一種幻象。若是你搭上了一部以光速移動的自動扶梯，無論你在上面是站著不動或往上走，到達頂端的時間都是一樣。這與人們在俗世中急急忙忙死命地去追求成功，死命地去投身於某某企業的景況豈不相同？在生死輪迴中流轉就如搭上以光速移動的手扶梯，不論你跑多快，結果都是一樣。打坐的情形卻正好與之相反，時間不管怎麼走，你還是坐在那裡。這是很耐人尋味的事。由於專心一志，不跟時間妥協，時間只好站到一邊去，遠遠的嘆息。日本曹洞宗之父道元說：「即令是初學者的坐禪，也都是他們全部自性的顯現。」

《註》：
曹洞宗源自唐朝禪宗青原一系，青原指的便是行思(? ─ 公元740年)，為慧能會下的上首。得法後回到吉州，住青原山靜居寺。

五蘊即世間

2010-05-03T10:21:00.010+08:00

What does Africa — what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the Mississippi, or a Northwest Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes — with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.What was the meaning of that South-Sea Exploring Expedition, with all its parade and expense, but an indirect recognition of the fact that there are continents and seas in the moral world to which every man is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it is easier to sail many thousand miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one's being alone.

"Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos.
Plus habet hic vitae, plus habet ille viæ."
Let them wander and scrutinize the outlandish Australians.
I have more of God, they more of the road.

佛陀開示：就在這個六呎之軀以內，包含了種種感官意念、種種念頭和想法的這個五蘊合和的身心，就是整個世間，是苦的世間；同時，它也包含了痛苦世間的起源和結束，以及通往痛苦結束的道路。

梭羅說，相較於我們內心的領土，國家的領土不過是蕞爾小國。所以為何要為小的犧牲大的？愛國心不過是腦袋裡的蛆。讓他們去戡察喜馬拉雅山與南極洲，我富於神，他們富於路。有人說巨蟹座的人無法關心自己以外的任何事物，那是因為其他人沒有能力發現自己更高的緯度，只好向外探求。由於欲望與貪婪，人類已經成功地征服地球上的一切，除了內心；人類該成就的都達到了，除了快樂以外。在將台灣建立成一個獨立的國家之前，在形成台灣民族主義之前，為何不先成為一個獨立的人，為何不先確實實踐內心的"民族主義"，確立自己思想的一致性，而非人云亦云？

春天的恕道 (下)

2010-04-29T11:35:00.029+08:00

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness — to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. We are cheered when we observe the vulture feeding on the carrion which disgusts and disheartens us, and deriving health and strength from the repast. There was a dead horse in the hollow by the path to my house, which compelled me sometimes to go out of my way, especially in the night when the air was heavy, but the assurance it gave me of the strong appetite and inviolable health of Nature was my compensation for this. I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey on one another; that tender organizations can be so serenely squashed out of existence like pulp — tadpoles which herons gobble up, and tortoises and toads run over in the road; and that sometimes it has rained flesh and blood! With the liability to accident, we must see how little account is to be made of it. The impression made on a wise man is that of universal innocence. Poison is not poisonous after all, nor are any wounds fatal. Compassion is a very untenable ground. It must be expeditious. Its pleadings will not bear to be stereotyped.

四月二十八日午夜，零時過後，我照例帶著兩隻狗出去散步。老爹已經三歲，出生不久就帶過來了；貝莉則是朋友託我照顧的。老爹跟了我之後，我很老實的帶他去打預防針，一直打到剩下最後一項的心絲蟲檢查，因為發現這一項目在檢查完後還要每月吃藥預防，就決定不作檢查了。之後，我的收入就只夠我一個人生活跟買狗飼料，所以儘管老爹時常因與其他小狗鬥毆，有皮肉傷，我也隨他自行痊癒，未再找過獸醫。

這日在經過四維路及光華路口時，正好遇上一人騎著機車載了一隻狗，老爹就趕了上去，一直追到光華路上接近五權街口才折回。此時，看到一輛車往他開去，他閃開了，但到了另一方向的車道，卻沒逃過。車頭撞到他的右眼角處，碰的一聲悶響，老爹在地上滾了二圈才停，但他馬上爬了起來，可能受到驚嚇，往住處方向狂奔。我牽著貝莉回去找他，卻沒有找到他。一直到早上才聽到他在門外的叫聲，趕忙爬起來幫他開門。此時才發現他右眼角處的傷口，推測應該是撞到的點。開車的司機當時有停下車並走回去查看，但老爹早已跑遠，我看司機的表情無法知道他是否清楚撞到了什麼。

第一天情況還好，回來後也有吃東西，與過去受傷回來後差不多。4/29凌晨要出去時，他也要跟著出去，我也帶著出去了。但是到了4/29早上，情況卻有惡化的情形。身體會顫抖，眼角上方也因抓扯而脫皮紅腫。

下午我出門去，晚上回來時似乎穩定一點。我端了飼料到他前面地下，他就著吃似乎有困難，我便把盤子端到一個高度讓他吃。4/30凌晨出門散步時，卻又似生龍活虎，感覺是上了他的當。

梭羅說，我們對於大自然，永不饜足；我們必須被那無盡生機的景象所更新－－走山的景象，大地震後的殘骸，水災後的荒蕪．．．。我們需要看到我們的界限被超越，看到某些生物在我們沒有涉足過的地方自由自在的吃草。我們埋怨媒體的嗜血，其實那反應人的本性。對照宇宙性的純潔天真，同情是一種難以站得住腳的立場，一瞬即過；嗜血的媒體卻是長存。人們總是說上天自有安排，然而無常的到來如此迅捷，可知上天從未認真地把意外的發生當一回事。

梭羅從他兩年多的實驗中至少認識到一件事：如果一個人有信心的向著他夢想的方向前進，努力去過他所想像的生活，他就會在平凡的時刻遇到出乎意料的成功。台灣的死刑犯被害者家屬無法原諒加害者，堅持不能廢除死刑；巧的是，死刑犯的家屬也不能原諒政府執行死刑的作為，連事先通知也做不到，以致在行刑前不能見到最後一面。最兩全的作法也許是兩造家屬好好談談，如果被害者家屬依舊堅持執行死刑，就由執法人員協助讓被害者家屬行刑。這樣執法單位也不用兩邊不討好；死刑犯也死的心甘情願（若不甘願他也知道要找誰）。以怨止怨終究是不可能，但是要以法律的途徑來化解喪親之痛所造成的怨恨也一樣是掾木求魚。廢死聯盟不該以為最文明的方式就是解決問題的最好方法，每一個死刑犯的處決都值得以個案處理，值得去把舊的法則擴充，以更為自由的精神加以解釋，使得任何決定的不正當性可以暴露出來。如此，罪惡就不再是罪惡，寬恕也不再是寬恕，死亡也不再是死亡。（下篇完）

黃金年代

2010-04-29T09:36:00.005+08:00

"A return to goodness produced each day in the tranquil and beneficent breath of the morning, causes that in respect to the love of virtue and the hatred of vice, one approaches a little the primitive nature of man, as the sprouts of the forest which has been felled. In like manner the evil which one does in the interval of a day prevents the germs of virtues which began to spring up again from developing themselves and destroys them.

"After the germs of virtue have thus been prevented many times from developing themselves, then the beneficent breath of evening does not suffice to preserve them. As soon as the breath of evening does not suffice longer to preserve them, then the nature of man does not differ much from that of the brute. Men seeing the nature of this man like that of the brute, think that he has never possessed the innate faculty of reason. Are those the true and natural sentiments of man?"

"The Golden Age was first created, which without any avenger
Spontaneously without law cherished fidelity and rectitude.
Punishment and fear were not; nor were threatening words read
On suspended brass; nor did the suppliant crowd fear
The words of their judge; but were safe without an avenger.
Not yet the pine felled on its mountains had descended
To the liquid waves that it might see a foreign world,
And mortals knew no shores but their own.
. . . . . . .

There was eternal spring, and placid zephyrs with warm
Blasts soothed the flowers born without seed."

奧維德 Ovid (43 B.C.-7 A.D.) Roman poet

孟子曰：“牛山之木嘗美矣，以其郊於大國也，斧斤伐之，可以為美乎？是其日夜之所息，雨露之所潤，非無萌櫱之生焉，牛羊又從而牧之，是以若彼濯濯也。人見其濯濯也，以為未嘗有材焉，此豈山之性也哉？雖存乎人者，豈無仁義之心哉？其所以放其良心者，亦猶斧斤之於木也，旦旦而伐之，可以為美乎？其日夜之所息，平旦之氣，其好惡與人相近也者幾希，則其旦晝之所為，有梏亡之矣。梏之反覆，則其夜氣不足以存；夜氣不足以存，則其違禽獸不遠矣。人見其禽獸也，而以為未嘗有才焉者，是豈人之情也哉？故苟得其養，無物不長；苟失其養，無物不消。孔子曰：‘操則存，舍則亡；出入無時，莫知其鄉。’惟心之謂與？”

在那個尚未有山老鼠的黃金年代，人內心的良善亦未嘗遭砍伐。所以人們沒有任何仇敵，也無需法律規範，忠誠及正直的德性自然就能培育滋養。沒有懲罰，也沒有恐懼，不用害怕法官的威脅與恐嚇。

古印度的韋達經典記載金器年代由眾神統治世界，所有的人事物都純真至善。這個時期沒有嫉妒、憎恨、驕傲、邪惡，也沒有恐懼及悲傷。人們沒有物質欲望，懷有純粹的靈性真我意識。經典中以公牛來比喻宗教：牛之四足好比宗教四大支柱，即仁慈、苦行、潔淨、真實。在金器年代，牛之四足完整，牛也得到人們小心看顧，正如未曾遭砍伐的牛山之木。

春天的恕道 (上)

2010-04-26T10:07:00.009+08:00

A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men's sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice. While such a sun holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return. Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first spring morning, recreating the world, and you meet him at some serene work, and see how it is exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy and bless the new day, feel the spring influence with the innocence of infancy, and all his faults are forgotten. There is not only an atmosphere of good will about him, but even a savor of holiness groping for expression, blindly and ineffectually perhaps, like a new-born instinct, and for a short hour the south hill-side echoes to no vulgar jest. You see some innocent fair shoots preparing to burst from his gnarled rind and try another year's life, tender and fresh as the youngest plant. Even he has entered into the joy of his Lord. Why the jailer does not leave open his prison doors — why the judge does not dismis his case — why the preacher does not dismiss his congregation! It is because they do not obey the hint which God gives them, nor accept the pardon which he freely offers to all.

2008年4月11日《消費者債務清理條例》正式施行，一個在當律師的朋友打電話問我要不要去他那邊幫忙，心想這是一個作散工的好機會，在電話中就答應了下來。

　三年前(2005)台灣發生卡債風暴，二十二萬人，三千三百億的無擔保債款透過所謂的「一致性協商」機制暫時把問題緩了一緩。這已是2006年底的事。但是才不到二年就已經有逼近五成的卡奴毀諾，原因是當初簽下那一紙協議書多半是出於不得已。第一代的協商機制一開始銀行就沒有打算去作，完全是採抗拒的態度。等到立法院迫於民意祭出修法限制雙卡利率的手段，銀行的高姿態才不得不軟化。但即使是第二代的協商機制債務人也討不到任何便宜，僅只是利率稍低而已，而且完全不考量債務人的收支狀況，其中將近一半(48%)的協議甚至要求每月還款高於債務人的收入。這種「普遍的、不公義的壓迫」激化了卡債族結合的力量，於是才有了《消費者債務清理條例》的催生。

台灣五十萬卡債族也是努力在過日子，但是卻過著比奴隸還不如的生活。一天八小時的工作，到了月底扣掉三分之一的法院執行扣薪，往往只剩下一萬出頭。我看著他們的薪資單，心情實在沉重。奴隸還有喘口氣的機會，但他們沒有；奴隸不必遭人恥笑，卡奴卻要背著過度消費以及欠錢不還的罪名。人在打倒了所有的王公貴族之後，卻出現了「貨幣」這個絕對的君主。資本家就是這個王朝的管理者。只要活在市民社會中，就無法不成為它的臣僕。正如夏傳位先生說：「卡奴是現代經濟運作不可或缺的副產品。」若是沒有奴隸又如何稱其為暴虐呢？

據說卡債風暴以及次級性房貸的產生都是所謂的市場失敗(market failure) ── 自由競爭的壓力愈大，需求者反而愈是需要付出更高的代價來得到他所需要的；反倒是對於同樣商品所得邊際效益較少的人，需求不這麼迫切的人，可以以較低的代價獲得。就好像古董商要買一件中意的東西之前要假裝自已對該物品並沒有興趣，才能用較低的價格購得 ── 這種市場扭曲其實也是人性，但前者卻是因市場機制的失敗產生的，因為其他供給的競爭者若不跟進，會有被市場淘汰之虞。古董交易與金融交易有相同的特性，即不完整的資訊(imperfect information) ── 賣方在交易那一刻無法得知買方的能力及意向。此時，賣方最保險的方式就是漫天要價，因而只有有能力討價還價的人才佔上風。對那些需求緊迫的人來說，不管賣方出多少價，他都只好接受。在我看來，這其實也是市場的成功，只是當初亞當史密斯沒有想到而已。電影〈駭客任務〉中電腦人在逼問莫斐斯時說出一段很富哲理的話。他說，原本母體所創造的虛擬世界是一個完美的世界，人人都過著幸福快樂的日子。但後來發現這樣的世界並不成功，人類會無故大批的死亡。經過一次次的實驗升級改良，才發展成今天這樣一個不完美的版本；似乎人類必須從痛苦的掙扎中找到生活下去的理由。

從市場失敗的教訓，不知那些在政治上主張自由主義的人是否得到一些啟示。現代的自由主義者所一致認同的目標是讓所有的人儘可能的有機會去發揮自身的潛能，包括透過政治力制定必要的政策。而《消費者債務清理條例》的通過正是這種主張的體現。如果有一天真能如此，是否會發生像市場失敗同樣的事？在這個「市場」裡，所要達到的均衡是全體人類的幸福（唯一的商品）。因為每個人對幸福的定義不同，於是在不妨害別人追求幸福的前提下讓每個人自由追求自身幸福，不論是政治的或社會的力量都不應對其有所限制 ── 應該要防範的反倒是社會力的專制。自由主義者假定這樣就能讓所有人皆能得到最大的利益，就如完全競爭市場一樣。自由主義者也都是人道主義者，這些人立意雖都良善，但就好像牙醫師一樣，可能替一個年近古稀的老者安了一副千年不壞的牙齒。電腦人也說了，人類其實是地球上的癌細胞，地球上的生物沒有一種像人類一樣貪婪地濫用地球的資源，漫無限制的增生。這個市場的需求者當然是每個個人，那供給者呢？誰能提供我們幸福呢？這個提供者是否對他的需求者有充分的認知呢？人們在未得到幸福時也許會怪政府，或者怨天尤人。但明白的人知道，只有自己才能給自己幸福。但是人們對於幸福的定義總是被物慾及肉慾所左右。由於對自己的認知不足，於是向自己漫天要價，若不是像古董商那樣假裝自己並不是這麼需要，就是接受自己所開的價。問題是這個價錢是沒有人付的起的。結果不但沒有人得到幸福，而且最終將無法滿足所有人類的需求；市場不但會因對需求者的資訊不足而失敗 ── 因為自己對自己的橫征暴斂，沒有人因自由競爭而得利 ──，也會因資源的有限性而失敗。也許再過幾年，自由主義者除了認同安樂死，也會贊成一胎化政策，或者類似人類生存年限或自殺條款之類的東西吧！亦或者有一天他們終將覺悟，要達到這個市場的均衡唯一的方法就是放任人類自生自滅？回到過去讓所有的暴君可以恣行他們的苛政，人們可以再次從對抗暴政中找到生命的意義及幸福。

離題了。《消費者債務清理條例》施行二年後，卡奴的噩夢並未結束。台灣法院對卡奴的態度反應社會大眾對卡奴的觀感，對於弱勢的輕視跟歧視，還有冷漠。梭羅說，這是因為台灣的法官或者說一般民眾不服從神給他們的諭示，亦不接受祂無私地給予一切人的寬宥；正如春天給予大地的寬宥一般。（未完）

時運

2010-04-15T11:47:00.011+08:00

At length the sun's rays have attained the right angle, and warm winds blow up mist and rain and melt the snowbanks, and the sun, dispersing the mist, smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking with incense, through which the traveller picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing off.

梭羅說，之所以會吸引我到林中生活的原因之一便是，我可以有閑情及機會去看著春天的到來。

他說，此時陽光將冰雪銷溶，淙淙流水中充滿冬天的血液，將冬載走。

陶淵明有《時運》詩四首，描寫春天來時，到東郊獨游時的景物心情。欣慨交心，不必悲欣交集也！

《時運》並序

時運，遊暮春也。春服既成，景物斯和，偶景獨遊，欣慨交心。

其一
邁邁時運，穆穆良朝。
襲我春服，薄言東郊。（春天來時，應買件新衣服穿。）
山滌餘靄，宇曖微霄。
有風自南，翼彼新苗。

其二
洋洋平潭，乃漱乃濯。
邈邈遐景，載欣載矚。
人亦有言，稱心易足。
揮茲一觴，陶然自樂。

其三
延目中流，悠想清沂。
童冠齊業，閑詠以歸。
我愛其掙，寤寐交揮。
但恨殊世，邈不可追。

其四
斯晨斯夕，言息其廬。
花藥分列，林竹翳如。
清琴橫床，濁酒半壺。
黃唐莫逮，慨獨在余。

人間四月天

2010-04-12T11:27:00.006+08:00

At length the winter set in good earnest, just as I had finished plastering, and the wind began to howl around the house as if it had not had permission to do so till then. Night after night the geese came lumbering in the dark with a clangor and a whistling of wings, even after the ground was covered with snow, some to alight in Walden, and some flying low over the woods toward Fair Haven, bound for Mexico. Several times, when returning from the village at ten or eleven o'clock at night, I heard the tread of a flock of geese, or else ducks, on the dry leaves in the woods by a pond-hole behind my dwelling, where they had come up to feed, and the faint honk or quack of their leader as they hurried off. In 1845 Walden froze entirely over for the first time on the night of the 22d of December, Flint's and other shallower ponds and the river having been frozen ten days or more; in '46, the 16th; in '49, about the 31st; and in '50, about the 27th of December; in '52, the 5th of January; in '53, the 31st of December. The snow had already covered the ground since the 25th of November, and surrounded me suddenly with the scenery of winter. I withdrew yet farther into my shell, and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast. My employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood in the forest, bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or sometimes trailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my shed.

從這段文字可以看出，梭羅一直到1853年，即本書初版的前一年，仍在修改書中的內容。而他是在付梓九年前，即1845年三月就開始他的實驗的。根據後人研究，本書的初稿，寫於梭羅在湖邊生活的兩年間，而其份量不到成書時的二分之一。所以有些學者認為本書不過是一本散文小說。從 Brute Neighbors 之後的幾章到 Spring 之前有關冬天的部份都是在1851年後才寫就的。

現在已經是春天，我決定暫時將冬天的部份跳過，直接從 Spring 讀起。這樣也許更貼近梭羅的實驗。

蕃薯及 Ground Nut

2010-03-31T12:24:00.011+08:00

Digging one day for fishworms, I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had often since seen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same. Cultivation has well-nigh exterminated it. It has a sweetish taste, much like that of a frost-bitten potato, and I found it better boiled than roasted. This tuber seemed like a faint promise of Nature to rear her own children and feed them simply here at some future period. In these days of fatted cattle and waving grain-fields this humble root, which was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite forgotten, or known only by its flowering vine; but let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of foes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the last seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian's God in the southwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost exterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some Indian Ceres or Minerva must have been the inventor and bestower of it; and when the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves and string of nuts may be represented on our works of art.

中國把馬鈴薯稱之為土豆顯然是從英文 ground nut 直譯過來。但是 ground nut 是一種藤蔓植物，土下有長在根上頭的塊莖；因其塊莖形狀像個球而得名。也許曾經用來稱呼馬鈴薯，但現在馬鈴薯都改稱 potato 了。 Ground nut 在美洲是原住民的主食，據說內含的蛋白質是一般食用馬鈴薯的三倍。所以梭羅說，這種塊莖是大自然的允諾，允諾在未來某一段時期，（若是世界有了什麼變化），還是可以用來餵養她自己的孩子。

蕃薯英文 Sweet Potato，中國稱之為地瓜。台灣原本是沒有蕃薯的，它是由中南美洲輾轉傳布到世界各地。雖然不是台灣的原生作物，但是十六世紀末，蕃薯幫助台灣先民度過荒蕪與天災。隨著移民的拓墾，蕃薯在台蔓衍茁壯，清朝時更成為輸往中國的高獲利作物。進入日本殖民時代，日人以科學方法栽植改良，使蕃薯質精量盛。六○年代以降，蕃薯從食糧轉型為家畜飼料，協助台灣以畜產品對外貿易，對之後台灣的經濟飆揚，有著不可磨滅的功蹟。現在蕃薯又成為當紅的健康食品。台灣人稱自己為蕃薯仔；蕃薯早已經成為台灣的 ground nut，也是大自然的允諾。有一天世界溫度升高了2度C，所有的外國人都跑了，它就會再用來餵養台灣的蕃薯仔囝。

柴山的龍目井

2010-03-23T12:36:00.024+08:00

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in the woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to live here! (below: The Northern River Otter, Lontra canadensis) He grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in the woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard their whinnering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at noon, after planting, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring which was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from under Brister's Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this was through a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch pines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean, firm sward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was warmest. Thither, too, the woodcock led her brood, to probe the mud for worms, flying but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in a troop beneath; but at last, spying me, she would leave her young and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get off her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint, wiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too the turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down the nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

Discover Thoreau’s white pine by Brister’s Spring

Brister's Hill 是華爾騰湖北邊約半英哩處的一個小台地。此篇部落格日誌提到 Brister's Spring 是 Mill Brook 的發源處及可靠的飲用水來源。梭羅在夏日最炎熱時，因池水太熱，會跑到這裡來汲水。部落格作者則推測華爾騰湖的池水也是冷泉水的來源之一；池水滲到地下後再由冷泉出口處冒出來。不過未經証實。目前冷泉的右側有一木製地標標示著。

在台灣，凡是從岩石裂隙中湧出的山泉，大都叫作龍目井。高雄市的北柴山龍皇寺步道入口處左側有一大水塘，水塘中的水位隨季節不同，容枯各異，其水的來源就是來自上方的一口龍目井，名曰『龍巖冽泉』。高雄市柴山會所立的一塊解說牌如此描述：「昔日柴山東麓多處礁岩裂縫有冷泉奔湧而出，汨汨不絕，孕育眾生－－平埔族、漢人、到一草一木。青翠山巒，加上山緣多處奔流的冷泉，猶如打狗血脈！清朝時將此湧泉壯觀地稱『龍巖冽泉』，而民間通常將會噴出湧泉的礁石裂縫稱『龍目井』」。過去在夏日雨季時泉水源源湧出，兒童每在此戲水，清涼無比。然而不知是原本的環境受到破壞，還是人為的過度開發，導致涵養水源的功能下降，如今的龍巖冽泉，已經是從終年不竭到雨季才有水，再變成下大雨後才有水了。（取材自龍巖冽泉）

我們的神殿

2010-03-19T09:52:00.014+08:00

Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own, nor can he get off by hammering marble instead. We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

林肯曾經說過，一個人40歲以後的相貌應該由自己負責。("Every person is responsible for his own looks after 40.")

梭羅說，任何的高潔，都會馬上使一個人有更優雅的特徵；任何的卑下或肉慾，都會使他更像野獸。

《薄伽梵歌》有：人由自己的信仰建構而成。信仰崇拜什麼，他就會變成什麼。 (17.3)

梭羅則說，每個人都是神殿的建造者，此神殿即他的身軀，用來供奉他所信仰的神；用我們自己的血肉骨幹當材料，以我們自己的風格來設計建造。

什麼都不信的人，就什麼也不是。現在的人大多相信金錢，所以到處都聞得到銅臭味，即便他們們噴了再多再貴的香水也掩蓋不了。

精進不放逸

2010-03-16T11:03:00.014+08:00

All sensuality is one, though it takes many forms; all purity is one. It is the same whether a man eat, or drink, or cohabit, or sleep sensually. They are but one appetite, and we only need to see a person do any one of these things to know how great a sensualist he is. The impure can neither stand nor sit with purity. When the reptile is attacked at one mouth of his burrow, he shows himself at another. If you would be chaste, you must be temperate. What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is. We speak conformably to the rumor which we have heard. From exertion come wisdom and purity; from sloth ignorance and sensuality. In the student sensuality is a sluggish habit of mind. An unclean person is universally a slothful one, one who sits by a stove, whom the sun shines on prostrate, who reposes without being fatigued. If you would avoid uncleanness, and all the sins, work earnestly, though it be at cleaning a stable. Nature is hard to be overcome, but she must be overcome. What avails it that you are Christian, if you are not purer than the heathen, if you deny yourself no more, if you are not more religious? I know of many systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose precepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to new endeavors, though it be to the performance of rites merely.

惡由放逸所致，非心性之本然；欲迴心向善，貴在攝護其心。梭羅說，從精進，得到智慧與純潔；從放逸，得到無明與肉慾。對學習者來說，肉慾即是心靈的懶惰習慣。當我們放逸時，生殖的精力會令我們渙散而污穢下沉；當我們自安時，則會啟發並激勵我們向上。

《法句經》有：

不誦為言垢，不勤為家垢，不嚴為色垢，放逸為事垢。

所以梭羅說，不潔之人大概就是懶惰的人，只剩下一張嘴，就算不累也不想起來動一動的人。

《增一阿含》有：

猶如山河、石壁、百草、五穀，皆依於地而得長大。然復此地最尊、最上。此亦如是。諸善道品之法，住不放逸之地，使諸善法而得長大。

37道品中的四正勤的內容為：

1. 勤於防護眼、耳、鼻、舌、身、意六入處。任何欲念令不生起。
2. 已生起者，速速將之斷絕。
3. 勤於修習七覺支，令善法增廣。
4. 修習不淨觀、多修習，令已生之善法不退。

《經集．大品》精勤經有：

This wind will wither the currents of the rivers, why should not my exertion dry up even the blood? When the blood dries up, the bile and phlegm wither. On the wasting away of the flesh the mind becomes more and more serene and my mindfulness, wisdom and concentration are established more firmly.

溪流既已風乾，血液如何不因我的精勤凝結？
當血液稀薄時，膽汁及惡痰亦隨之乾涸。
肉體愈是消瘦，心靈愈是清明，我的心志、智慧、修行也更為穩固。

人之所以異於禽獸者

2010-03-13T11:23:00.011+08:00

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked up the lower jaw of a hog, with white and sound teeth and tusks, which suggested that there was an animal health and vigor distinct from the spiritual. This creature succeeded by other means than temperance and purity. "That in which men differ from brute beasts," says Mencius, "is a thing very inconsiderable; the common herd lose it very soon; superior men preserve it carefully." Who knows what sort of life would result if we had attained to purity? If I knew so wise a man as could teach me purity I would go to seek him forthwith.

孟子曰：「人之所以異於禽獸者幾希，庶民去之，君子存之。舜明於庶物，察於人倫，由仁義行，非行仁義也。」

《孟子》-- 離婁下

從這段孟子的話看來，他所指的異於禽獸者主要應該就是仁義。他強調舜是心存仁義而行，而不是將仁義道德當作治國的口號。

我們如果依著獸性而活，也可以活的很好。歷史上許多文明較高的國家就是被比較不文明的國家給消滅的；譬如波斯之於阿拉伯，明朝之於清朝。但是在他們的政權穩固後，就會開始感到自己教養之不足，自己的虛榮與虛空；開始感到權力與財富的不足，而開始為他們後代累積真正有價值的東西，進而學習他所曾征服的民族所擁有的心智成果。

梭羅說，如果他知道有那個有智慧的人可以教他過聖潔的生活，他會迫不及待的出發去探訪他。為什麼什麼都要等到有了財富才能做呢？行善有這麼難嗎？

雜阿含13經

2010-03-12T11:00:00.011+08:00

A puritan may go to his brown-bread crust with as gross an appetite as ever an alderman to his turtle. Not that food which entereth into the mouth defileth a man, but the appetite with which it is eaten. It is neither the quality nor the quantity, but the devotion to sensual savors; when that which is eaten is not a viand to sustain our animal, or inspire our spiritual life, but food for the worms that possess us. If the hunter has a taste for mud-turtles, muskrats, and other such savage tidbits, the fine lady indulges a taste for jelly made of a calf's foot, or for sardines from over the sea, and they are even. He goes to the mill-pond, she to her preserve-pot. The wonder is how they, how you and I, can live this slimy, beastly life, eating and drinking.

<雜阿含13經>有：

若眾生於色不味者，則不染於色；以眾生於色味故，則有染著。

菩提比丘長老根據南傳相對經文的英譯為：

if there was no gratification in form, beings would not become enamoured with it; but because there is gratification in form, beings become enamoured with it.

愛味(gratification)是會令人回味黏著、還想再要的滿足。就是因為眾生對於五蘊會有滿足感，所以才有染著。《瑜伽師地論》解釋：觀察諸行為緣，生樂生喜，是名於彼愛味。

梭羅在此則用了其他的字眼。愛味是為 sensual savors；染著為 devotion。他說，敗壞人的不是入嘴之物，而是吃東西的食欲；如果只是為了吃而吃，那就只是在餵養我們體內的貪吃蟲。出家人也會跟國會議員一樣喜歡吃麻油腰子。梭羅認為，對美食趨之若騖的時尚名流、嫺嫺淑女與喜歡嚼檳榔、吃狗肉的人是完全相等的。嚼檳榔的人有時還是為了提神，而淑女們只是為了吃。

心不在焉

2010-03-11T10:19:00.005+08:00

Who has not sometimes derived an inexpressible satisfaction from his food in which appetite had no share? I have been thrilled to think that I owed a mental perception to the commonly gross sense of taste, that I have been inspired through the palate, that some berries which I had eaten on a hillside had fed my genius. "The soul not being mistress of herself," says Thseng-tseu, "one looks, and one does not see; one listens, and one does not hear; one eats, and one does not know the savor of food." He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.

所謂修身在正其心者：身有所忿懥，則不得其正；有所恐懼，則不得其正；有所好樂，則不得其正；有所憂患，則不得其正；心不在焉，視而不見，聽而不聞，食而不知其味。此謂修身在正其心。

梭羅在此又引用了《大學》。四書中的《大學》可說是儒家思想的綱領，其中不少段落在高中時也曾讀過，卻是視而不見，聽而不聞。梭羅說，能夠體會食物的真味之人，不會貪得無厭；而食不知味的人，永遠無法滿足。台灣的教育制度造成每個學子在上大學之前，他的靈魂無法為自己作主，只希望自己像電腦一樣，能塞多少就塞多少。在印象中，那個時期，未真正品嚐過為準備升學所必須閱讀的材料，只是想盡辦法把那些材料記下來而已。這些吸收進來的知識無法滋養我的心靈，只能佔據我的硬碟空間，以致於後來找回自己的心時，發現要把它們清一清也不是一件容易的事。據說，受到黨國教育毒害最深的就是 40 - 60 歲這一水的人。而要清除的還不只是這一部份而已。

靈性的呼喚

2010-03-08T10:09:00.004+08:00

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection which one healthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments and customs of mankind. No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

我這麼生活所可獲得的東西往往難以描述，亦無可捉摸。也許是一時與古人心靈相通的喜悅，也許是月光造成的、未曾為人類所描述過的景象。男人在交媾後會有快死的感覺，這是我可以理解的；但據說女人高潮時則可以興奮到死了也沒關係。我認為這種說法可能只是男人的性幻想。梭羅說，人與人之間，可能從來未有真正令人驚駭或真實的事實互相傳遞過。我想他的意思是，因為無法用人可以使用的表達方式傳達。梭羅用的字是 man to man，但 man to woman 或 woman to man 或 woman to woman 是否有可能呢？就算是有，也不會是性慾的滿足；因為感官是無常的，女人的感官也無法違背我們這個婆娑世界中的物理定律。

有趣的是，梭羅說，人如果傾聽他靈性那最微弱但卻不斷的暗示，他將不知它會帶他到何等的極端及瘋狂的境地；設若他變的更為果決及對此暗示更有信念的話，他便會發現他的道路在哪。這樣的說法卻很貼切的描述一個女人對愛情不顧一切的執著。男人雖可能為愛情拋棄一切，但少有到瘋狂的境地。她們的執著儘管不為世人所欣賞瞭解，有時連自己都懷疑到底執著的東西是否存在，卻也不因之悔恨。

四食 four nutriments

2010-03-07T11:47:00.014+08:00

It is hard to provide and cook so simple and clean a diet as will not offend the imagination; but this, I think, is to be fed when we feed the body; they should both sit down at the same table. Yet perhaps this may be done. The fruits eaten temperately need not make us ashamed of our appetites, nor interrupt the worthiest pursuits. But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you. It is not worth the while to live by rich cookery. Most men would feel shame if caught preparing with their own hands precisely such a dinner, whether of animal or vegetable food, as is every day prepared for them by others. Yet till this is otherwise we are not civilized, and, if gentlemen and ladies, are not true men and women. This certainly suggests what change is to be made. It may be vain to ask why the imagination will not be reconciled to flesh and fat. I am satisfied that it is not. Is it not a reproach that man is a carnivorous animal? True, he can and does live, in a great measure, by preying on other animals; but this is a miserable way — as any one who will go to snaring rabbits, or slaughtering lambs, may learn — and he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet. Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized.

梭羅說，當我們餵養自己的身體時，也要同時餵養我們的想像力。而他以為肉食會冒犯人的想像力。佛陀則用夫婦在糧食乏盡時共食子肉的比喻來告誡世人應如何看待人類對食物的需求。這對夫婦在吃肉時當然不會去想肉的味道如何。佛陀說：「若於四食，無貪無喜，則無憂悲，亦無塵垢。」

今時今日修道之所以不易，乃是因為光是飲食並不足以支持這個身體。人必須滿足於各種生理及心理上的需求之後，才有能力修梵行；否則在修行途中，就會無法支持，餓死或精神失常。佛陀說有四食資益眾生，令得住世攝受長養。何等為四？謂一粗細搏食，二觸食，三意思食(intellectual intention)，四識食。而此四食又因貪愛而生。這也就是二刃的刀 ── 人為了要活著需要此四食，得此四食又緣於貪愛。所以當你要此四食以長養此色身時，就會自然產生貪愛。在物慾橫流的今日要滿足於此四食並不容易。除非下了決心過著隱姓埋名的日子，與家人朋友不再往來，不然便必須面對社會對你的期望：正常人必須具備的積極進取的人生觀。這樣的人生觀如果沒有一定的物慾及企圖心(意思食)是無法支撐的。如此一來，要保持不退轉就要知道「一心正念、安住觀察」。要「覺諸受起、覺諸受住、覺諸受滅，正念而住，不令散亂」。對於自已的感受要像局外人一樣的觀察它們的生起、持續以及消滅，而不是任由自己因這些感受產生的各種情緒散亂迴轉。隨著感覺的產生、停留及消逝，要如實的觀察。觀察其愛味、過患、及出離。如此才不會因放縱損及修行。萬不可留戀已消逝的感覺，苦苦追求，蓋此正是諸結煩惱之因。

更高的食物

2010-03-06T10:33:00.009+08:00

The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary, and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth. Like many of my contemporaries, I had rarely for many years used animal food, or tea, or coffee, etc.; not so much because of any ill effects which I had traced to them, as because they were not agreeable to my imagination. The repugnance to animal food is not the effect of experience, but is an instinct. It appeared more beautiful to live low and fare hard in many respects; and though I never did so, I went far enough to please my imagination. I believe that every man who has ever been earnest to preserve his higher or poetic faculties in the best condition has been particularly inclined to abstain from animal food, and from much food of any kind. It is a significant fact, stated by entomologists — I find it in Kirby and Spence — that "some insects in their perfect state, though furnished with organs of feeding, make no use of them"; and they lay it down as "a general rule, that almost all insects in this state eat much less than in that of larvae. The voracious caterpillar when transformed into a butterfly ... and the gluttonous maggot when become a fly" content themselves with a drop or two of honey or some other sweet liquid. The abdomen under the wings of the butterfly still represents the larva. This is the tidbit which tempts his insectivorous fate. The gross feeder is a man in the larva state; and there are whole nations in that condition, nations without fancy or imagination, whose vast abdomens betray them.

臺灣人跟大多數的已開發國家的人民比較起來，最大的不同之處就是在吃的方面。每個週末，我的姐姐弟弟帶著孩子回到家裡，通常就是看看電視，然後以吃飯結束假期。而電視上的旅遊節目如果不提到美食，大概就沒有收視率；就連公共電視的一個頗受歡迎的節目，誰來晚餐，也還是要以吃東西來表示對來賓的款待之意。

梭羅在這段文字裡提到，昆蟲只有在幼蟲階段才會大吃大喝；蛻變為成蟲後，就只需吃一點點足可維生。這似乎表示臺灣人雖然在經濟上已然是世界上的成蟲，但在其他方面仍然處於幼蟲階段，還要繼續大吃大喝才能化為蟲蛹，繼而幻化為美麗的蝴蝶。大部份的奢侈品及生活上的許多享受，尤其是吃的享受，不但沒有必要，還會成為難以克服的障礙，使人無法提昇到較高的層次。印度聖雄甘地在齋戒時感覺到，血液漸漸變得稀薄時，心靈就變得清明了，不相干的瑣事消失了，而最基本的東西－－有時竟是世界之靈魂的本身－－從現象世界脫穎而出，像聖母峰從雲層上出現一樣。據說，完全戒絕肉食的人會養成一種非常敏銳的嗅覺，他們從一個人的氣息或皮膚的汗水能夠馬上說出那個人有沒有吃肉。

「自我」、「本我」與「超我」

2010-03-03T00:59:00.005+08:00

AS I CAME home through the woods with my string of fish, trailing my pole, it being now quite dark, I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path, and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented. Once or twice, however, while I lived at the pond, I found myself ranging the woods, like a half-starved hound, with a strange abandonment, seeking some kind of venison which I might devour, and no morsel could have been too savage for me. The wildest scenes had become unaccountably familiar. I found in myself, and still find, an instinct toward a higher, or, as it is named, spiritual life, as do most men, and another toward a primitive rank and savage one, and I reverence them both. I love the wild not less than the good. The wildness and adventure that are in fishing still recommended it to me. I like sometimes to take rank hold on life and spend my day more as the animals do. Perhaps I have owed to this employment and to hunting, when quite young, my closest acquaintance with Nature. They early introduce us to and detain us in scenery with which otherwise, at that age, we should have little acquaintance. Fishermen, hunters, woodchoppers, and others, spending their lives in the fields and woods, in a peculiar sense a part of Nature themselves, are often in a more favorable mood for observing her, in the intervals of their pursuits, than philosophers or poets even, who approach her with expectation. She is not afraid to exhibit herself to them. The traveller on the prairie is naturally a hunter, on the head waters of the Missouri and Columbia a trapper, and at the Falls of St. Mary a fisherman. He who is only a traveller learns things at second-hand and by the halves, and is poor authority. We are most interested when science reports what those men already know practically or instinctively, for that alone is a true humanity, or account of human experience.

德人佛洛依德言「自我」調合「本我」與「超我」，而求其平衡；然而梭羅卻反其道而行。梭羅鼓勵年輕人在成長的過程中藉著打獵來認識森林，他說，人類在經過了輕狂的年少時期後，便不會輕易傷害任何和他自己一樣享有生命的動物。把時光像動物那樣渡過、讓自己的野性得到充份的發展後，就會對生命產生敬畏。

中國《易經》坤上六爻辭釋義有：龍戰于野，其血玄黃。指的即是靈肉之交戰。文言傳釋義有：夫玄黃者，天地之雜也，天玄而地黃。是為交戰後身心恢復平衡。那麼靈肉交戰發生於何時呢？即陰爻居上位之時，也就是人的野性發展到極致之時。

A Mode of Life to Pursue

2010-02-14T08:26:00.008+08:00

I tried to help him with my experience, telling him that he was one of my nearest neighbors, and that I too, who came a-fishing here, and looked like a loafer, was getting my living like himself; that I lived in a tight, light, and clean house, which hardly cost more than the annual rent of such a ruin as his commonly amounts to; and how, if he chose, he might in a month or two build himself a palace of his own; that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor butter, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them; again, as I did not work hard, I did not have to eat hard, and it cost me but a trifle for my food; but as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them, and when he had worked hard he had to eat hard again to repair the waste of his system — and so it was as broad as it was long, indeed it was broader than it was long, for he was discontented and wasted his life into the bargain; and yet he had rated it as a gain in coming to America, that here you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day. But the only true America is that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these, and where the state does not endeavor to compel you to sustain the slavery and war and other superfluous expenses which directly or indirectly result from the use of such things. For I purposely talked to him as if he were a philosopher, or desired to be one. I should be glad if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state, if that were the consequence of men's beginning to redeem themselves. A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.

噗友Tseng說：

在地球上，生命是一種揮霍。幾乎只要可能就會有一種生命形式產生。而作為一個人最有力的，是我們可以選擇自己要如何活著。如果你只是一隻珊瑚，你大概沒有選擇；如果你是一隻美洲豹，你能選的是為了生存拼死一搏，或是一隻公豹。但是身為人類，社會如此寬廣，我們可以選擇怎樣生活，為何而活。

像這樣的想法在梭羅那個時代還是相當前衛的；梭羅告訴他的鄰居說：你從愛爾蘭移民到美國來，不是為了天天可以喝茶喝咖啡，吃奶油吃牛排；而是因為你在此可以有自由去追求或不追求這樣的生活。若是你能像我一樣，選擇不食用這些東西，也許美國政府就能停止奴隸買賣或發動不必要的戰爭。

但是150多年過去，即使大家都知道這個道理，能夠將Tseng的話聽進去的還是少之又少。在台灣，我們也已經有這種選擇的自由，可是大部份的人卻與那個愛爾蘭移民一樣，嘆一口氣，尋思自己是否有辦法如此過活；對他們來說，這樣的日子風險太大，一點保險也沒有。不少人還覺得台灣太自由，而寧願像狗一樣戴上項圈，綁上繩索才敢出門。這些人一點安全感也沒有，再怎麼窮也要跟保險公司買些保險才覺得自己像個人。人類何時才會為了自己的救贖，而任地球上的草地回歸原野？何時才能學會，不為了更高級的茶咖啡、更多汁可口的牛排，放任自己及別人由資本社會所奴役？

心猿意馬

2010-01-29T10:03:00.013+08:00

I have spent many an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk. But since I left those shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see the water. My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?

唐玄奘在五十六歲時想要歸隱少林寺，於是向高宗進表：

　... 斷伏煩惱，必定、慧相資，如車二輪，闕一不可。至如研味
　經論，慧學也；依林宴坐，定學也。玄奘少來頗得專精教義，唯
　於四禪九定，未暇安心。今願託慮禪門，澄心定水；制情猿之逸
　躁，縶意馬之奔馳。若不歛跡山中，不可成就 ...

可見要想成就定學，外在環境也是必要因素。這也可以說明為何自己總是心猿意馬，不得安住。住心尚不能得，何況解脫？任憑一個人如何有修養及智慧，要在人世凡塵中以佛教的修煉方式求得解脫是不可能的。因為要想成就定學，外在環境也是必要因素；「若不歛跡山中，不可成就」。

　《法華經》的勸持品中提到修煉聲聞乘的比丘們承認自己沒有能力在我們這個世界中廣說《法華經》，這是因為我們這個世界的人多弊惡、傲慢、功德淺薄，內心多懷瞋怒、污濁、諂媚，而且不誠實。只有具備大忍力的菩薩才能在這裡教化弘通這部經典。

　　
梭羅年輕時經常於夏日上午，乘著他的小舟，划到池心，然後躺在舟上，作著他清醒的夢。就這麼載浮載沉，直到他的舟給徐徐的風帶到了岸上，他才起來看看命運之流將他帶到了那裡。他說，在那些日子裡，閑散、無所事事才是最迷人而具有生機的勞動。因為他有的是明媚的陽光和夏日，所以可以大筆揮霍。他往往偷溜出來，寧願把一天中最寶貴的時間就這麼渡過，而不要用在工作室裡或老師的桌前。嗣因他離開湖邊的日子裡，伐木工人把附近的林地攪的荒蕪一片，原來的林間小道沒了，自然也沒了偶爾透過樹林空隙可以瞧見的池水景緻；梭羅的詩興因之沉默，畢竟你如何忍心責備被砍了樹林的小鳥不再鳴唱！

湖水、海水和玻璃的顏色

2010-01-18T09:37:00.007+08:00

All our Concord waters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and another, more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the light, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they appear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great distance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a dark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be blue one day and green another without any perceptible change in the atmosphere. I have seen our river, when, the landscape being covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as green as grass. Some consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or solid." But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hilltop it reflects the color of the sky; but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Some have referred this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green there against the railroad sandbank, and in the spring, before the leaves are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing blue mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris. This is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being warmed by the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also transmitted through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal about the still frozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when much agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves may reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is more light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface, and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in comparison. It is a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those patches of the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in the west before sundown. Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as colorless as an equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large plate of glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its "body," but a small piece of the same will be colorless. How large a body of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I have never proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark brown to one looking directly down on it, and, like that of most ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge; but this water is of such crystalline purity that the body of the bather appears of an alabaster whiteness, still more unnatural, which, as the limbs are magnified and distorted withal, produces a monstrous effect, making fit studies for a Michael Angelo.

梭羅在此用了一大段文字描寫華爾騰湖的湖水顏色。他還用玻璃的顏色來作比較。但是我們現在知道這可能是兩回事。應該是無色的厚玻璃之所以會呈現綠色，跟它的材質(原料配方)有關；低鐵玻璃可以作到完全透明。而湖水和海水的顏色之所以會產生不同的變化，主要是因為大海的顏色是由海面反射的光和來自海水內部的回散射光的顏色決定的。湖水亦然。

太陽光線雖然從表面上看是白色的，可實際上它是由紅、橙、黃、綠、青、藍、紫七種可見光組成。這七種光線波長各不相同，而不同深度的海水會吸收不同波長的光，也就是說，海水對不同波長光的吸收和散射是有選擇性的。一般情況下，紅色和黃色等色光的波長比較長，最容易被海水吸收，當他們射入海水後，大部分光會被海水吸收，只有極少部分被水分子及海水中的懸浮顆粒反射和散射。而波長較短的藍光和綠光的穿透能力強，當它們射入海水後，只有少部分被海水吸收，大部分光遇到水分子或其他懸浮顆粒便向四周反射和散射，這樣一來，海水對藍光吸收得少而反射得多，而且越往海水深處越有更多的藍光被折回到水面上來。當這些被反射的藍色光射入到我們眼睛裏時，我們看到的大海便是藍藍的一片。（問號小博士）

溪頭之旅

2010-01-17T15:26:00.000+08:00

There was one older man, an excellent fisher and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon my house as a building erected for
the convenience of fishermen; and I was equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange his lines.

Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between us, for he had grown deaf
in his later years, but he occasionally hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy.

Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony, far more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech. When, as was commonly
the case, I had none to commune with, I used to raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my boat, filling the surrounding woods with
circling and dilating sound, stirring them up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild beasts, until I elicited a growl from every wooded vale and hillside.

有一善釣魚的老者，精於各種木工，樂於將我的小屋當作釣客休憩之所；而我亦欣然見到他來坐在我門前小逕整理釣線。一日，我與他在池上，各坐在舟的一端；因其年老耳朵漸聾，我們交談不多，然其偶爾哼唱之詩歌，與我的哲學頗相合。我們之間的交流乃成了一段沒有間斷的旋律，較之言語的溝通更值懷念。當我無話可說之時，也嘗用漿擊船舷，鏗鏗鏘鏘，聲振林木，好似馴獸師的鞭子拍在地上，激得每個林壑山坡發出回應之吼。

-- 譯自湖濱散記, 於溪頭大學池旁

此段《湖濱散記》是我有一次去有「台灣的康乃爾」之稱的溪頭時所譯。那時我的朋友帥憲正在康乃爾求學，所以想去體會他在異鄉生活的景況。

這大概是我生平第二次來到這裡。十多年前，當我們都還是理著平頭的高中生時，也曾來到這個地方參加救國團的自強活動。只是我人到了溪頭，卻似從未來過一般。此時方知，『凡走過必留下痕跡』這句話，應該是某個無聊的人憑空想像的蠢話。

第二天上午，洗過澡，練了一套八段錦，到大學池旁的咖啡廳，也許看過書，寫過東西以後，便從銀杏林道出發，往不知名的方向走去。這一天，是絕對自由的。

即使在平常的夜晚，森林裡都比一般人所料想的更黑。人之所以群居，之所以貪財好富，皆是由於恐懼；恐懼黑暗，恐懼孤獨，恐懼貧窮。

風行草偃

2010-01-15T10:54:00.015+08:00

I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers. The tired rambler could rest and warm himself by my fire, the literary amuse himself with the few books on my table, or the curious, by opening my closet door, see what was left of my dinner, and what prospect I had of a supper. Yet, though many people of every class came this way to the pond, I suffered no serious inconvenience from these sources, and I never missed anything but one small book, a volume of Homer, which perhaps was improperly gilded, and this I trust a soldier of our camp has found by this time. I am convinced, that if all men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is sufficient while others have not enough. The Pope's Homers would soon get properly distributed.

"Nec bella fuerunt,
Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes."
"Nor wars did men molest,
When only beechen bowls were in request."

"You who govern public affairs, what need have you to employ punishments? Love virtue, and the people will be virtuous. The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends."

《論語．顏淵》

季康子問政於孔子曰：“如殺無道，以就有道，何如？”孔子對曰：“子為政，焉用殺？子欲善，而民善矣。君子之德風，小人之德草。草上之風，必偃。”

不患寡而患不均是梭羅的思想，他認為如果每個人都生活的像他在樹林時這麼簡樸，根本就不會有偷盜發生；那種事情只會發生在有些人所得超過必需而有些人卻不足的社會。現在大概沒有人會相信這種事情。有些人即使所得已經很足夠了，他還是要偷盜。我在東西德統一之後不久曾到過東德，有機會到一個動物園管理員家中作客。那天，他帶著我和另一位研究鳥類的台灣朋友，跟著他做日常的餵養和管理工作。晚上，他在小小的居室點起暖爐，沒有多餘的傢俱，只是牆壁上排滿著書。三個人吃著很簡單的食物，也許談到孔子的學生顏淵，以前的東德。他大概也不認為共產主義的社會合乎人性，但卻對過去人與人的關係充滿懷念。

如果在上位者都爭著去富豪家的婚宴作客，要人民不跟從也難。你們拿著人民的錢，制定了法律，要求人民不可學你們這樣；但是只要努力打拼，總有一天，總有一天，等賺夠了錢，有了足夠的身份地位，那也能像你們這樣。那些沒有能力，也沒有祖上庇蔭的人，應該安份守己，等你們吃飽喝足了，也許還會剩下一些排翅鮑魚，可以讓他們嚐嚐，作作夢也好。

非暴力反抗 (Civil Disobedience)

2010-01-12T22:49:00.007+08:00

One afternoon, near the end of the first summer, when I went to the village to get a shoe from the cobbler's, I was seized and put into jail, because, as I have elsewhere related, I did not pay a tax to, or recognize the authority of, the State which buys and sells men, women, and children, like cattle, at the door of its senate-house. I had gone down to the woods for other purposes. But, wherever a man goes, men will pursue and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate odd-fellow society. It is true, I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run "amok" against society; but I preferred that society should run "amok" against me, it being the desperate party. However, I was released the next day, obtained my mended shoe, and returned to the woods in season to get my dinner of huckleberries on Fair Haven Hill.

第一年的夏天將近尾聲，某天下午，梭羅到鎮上拿之前送去修補的鞋子時，被逮捕入獄，因為沒有繳稅。他認為那種會在國會門口販賣奴隸的政府，沒有資格抽人民的稅。

目前台灣這個政府，似乎沒有在做什麼正面的事；若是有，也是人民自己做，而它剛好樂觀其成的。它沒有在維護國家主權及自由，也沒有幫台商西進大陸。它沒有教育人民，而是台灣人民自己教育自己，以免被它的教育污染。一切完成的事多是台灣人民依據自己性格完成的；要不是政府從中阻撓，台灣人民還能做的更多。所以，這樣一個犯下跟李泰安搞軌案一樣罪行的政府，怎能讓人繳稅繳的心甘情願？

梭羅說，培養對法律的尊敬，正如培養對權利的尊敬一樣，是不當的。法律從不能使人的正直增加絲毫。而由於對法律的尊敬，即使天性善良的人也日日做了非正義的代理人。說到對權利的尊敬，以音樂的智慧財產權為例，智慧財產權的存在實是人類在市場經濟的機制運作下退化的現象。市場經濟假設除非這些智慧財產受到保護，沒有人會有動機去發明新的事物；譬如大成本的電影，或者是需要龐大研發經費的新藥品。所以實際上，這些受保護的人，基本上是為了私利而創作，雖然受法律保護，實在不值得尊重。從經濟方面來說，像音樂這種製作成本很低的智慧財產有沒有必要保護也有爭議性。也就是說，保護唱片業者，是否就保證大眾能夠聽到較好的音樂？恐怕未必。我不知道馬英九先生是否天性善良，但他不但尊敬法律，也尊敬權利。

我們唯一應盡的義務，是在任何時候都不做違背自己良心的事。林義雄先生說的好，他的道德標準一點也不高，他周圍的人都是這樣誠實地在過日子，這樣才是個人，才是個台灣人。

共產黨宣言

2010-01-10T15:03:00.028+08:00

Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely. We have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our cattle-shows and so-called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are particularly pious or just (maximeque pius quæstus), and according to Varro the old Romans "called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and thought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that they alone were left of the race of King Saturn."

這段文字讓我想起了馬克斯的<共產黨宣言>。

160多年前，即1848年二月，由馬克思主筆，而與恩格斯共同署名的<共產黨宣言>問世。那時梭羅已經結束他在華爾騰湖旁兩年的實驗，暫住在愛默森的家裡。此時的共產主義已經被歐洲一切勢力公認為一種勢力。

<共產黨宣言>裡說：

凡是資產階級已經取得統治的地方，就把所有封建的、宗法的和純樸的關係統統破壞了；無情的斬斷了那些使人依附於「天然的尊長」的形形色色的封建羈絆，使人和人之間，除了赤裸裸的利害關係，即冷酷無情的「現金交易」之外，再也找不到任何其他的聯繫。也把高尚激昂的宗教虔誠、俠義的血性及平凡人的溫情，一概淹沒在利己主義的冷漠之中。... 總而言之，它用公開的、無恥的、直接的、冷酷的剝削，代替了由宗教幻想和政治幻想掩蔽著的剝削。

資產階級如果不使生產工具經常發生變革，就不能生存下去。... 生產中經常不斷的變革，一切社會關係接連不斷的震盪，恆久的不安定和變動－－這就是資產階級時代不同於過去各個時代的地方。... 一切新產生的關係，也都等不到固定下來就變陳舊了。... 一切神聖的事物都給褻瀆了，於是人們最後也就只好用冷靜的眼光來看待自己的生活處境和自己的相互關係了。

羅馬的農業作家Marcus Porcius Cato(234-149 B.C.)曾說：農業的收益是特別虔敬或正當的；但是，梭羅說，”由於貪婪與自私，我們把土地視作私產，或拿來作為獲取私產的手段，農業因之跟著我們一起降格，而農夫則過著最低下的生活”；由於貪婪與自私，我們把智慧視作私產，或拿來作為獲取私產的手段，智識因之跟著我們一起降格，而讀書人則過著最低下的生活。

共產主義本有著天下為公的理想，所以土地不能私有；然而共產主義終究敵不過人類的貪婪和自私，到最後變成了服務少數統治階級者鞏固權力的工具，另一種更厲害的、由政治幻想掩蔽著的剝削。中國的共產黨員肯定對<共產黨宣言>的內容十分熟稔，但是統治階級及資本主義社會才有的中產階級卻可以為了祖國的榮光（事實上是個人的榮光）自欺欺人，掛羊頭賣狗肉。即使中國真的強了，也不過是全世界最大的詐騙集團罷了。而左派人士最為人詬病的地方亦在於此：一方面不願放棄資本主義世界所提供的舒適生活，另一方面批評資本家的不義及剝削，渾然不知自己是剝削者的幫凶。梭羅說，事實上，人並沒有義務獻身於根除錯誤。但如果他要獻身於其他的追求和沉思，他至少必須先弄清楚，他不是坐在別人的肩膀上追求他們的。我們不再需要由宗教幻想和政治幻想掩蔽著的剝削，但如果你無法過簡單樸素的生活，而又不是資產階級，那就只能成為生產機器的簡單附屬品，和其他的勞動工具競爭，跟著受到市場波動影響，隨時準備放無薪假，自願從自由人降格為資本家奴役的對象。

共產黨的實驗已經證明馬克思理論的失敗，人類只能盡可能的讓人類社會往更開放的路上走。階級之分會永遠存在於人類社會；年輕時的哥兒們在經過一二十年的發展後，在下層工作的人會自然與上流社會遠離。這樣的階級之分無法以鬥爭來打破。市場經濟鼓勵公平競爭也許是階級鬥爭的最終型態。馬克思理論的另一個誤判是人類的健忘。馬克思認為由於工商業太發達，社會所擁有的生產力會大到市場無法消耗。結果是，資產階級一方面不得不消滅大量生產力，另一方面奪取新的市場以及更加徹底的剝削舊的市場。然而，人類的歷史與個人的一生都是片斷而不連續的。這是因為人類的記憶往往是破碎而不完整之故。如果我向世人宣稱，昨日的我已非今日之我，世人多半存疑；但是沒有人會否認十年前的我已經和今日的我大不相同。就我本身而言，十年前的我又有多少意義可言呢？幸好，因為人類的健忘，市場經濟對地球資源的消耗才能稍微緩一緩。企業為了保持競爭力，必須不斷創新。但是太陽底下能有多少新鮮事呢？因為人類的健忘而把舊的事物當成新的，於是多餘的生產力便可以適時被市場消化。共產黨的實驗雖已經證明馬克思理論的失敗，但馬克思主義仍會是個備忘錄，提醒世人市場經濟只是必要之惡，絕對不是真正的解決之道。

播種

2010-01-09T11:02:00.018+08:00

This further experience also I gained: I said to myself, I will not plant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but such seeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like, and see if they will not grow in this soil, even with less toil and manurance, and sustain me, for surely it has not been exhausted for these crops. Alas! I said this to myself; but now another summer is gone, and another, and another, and I am obliged to say to you, Reader, that the seeds which I planted, if indeed they were the seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten or had lost their vitality, and so did not come up. Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it. I saw an old man the other day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe for the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to lie down in! But why should not the New Englander try new adventures, and not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards — raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men? We should really be fed and cheered if when we met a man we were sure to see that some of the qualities which I have named, which we all prize more than those other productions, but which are for the most part broadcast and floating in the air, had taken root and grown in him. Here comes such a subtile and ineffable quality, for instance, as truth or justice, though the slightest amount or new variety of it, along the road.Our ambassadors should be instructed to send home such seeds as these, and Congress help to distribute them over all the land. We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in haste. Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans. We would not deal with a man thus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a staff between his work, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out of the earth, something more than erect, like swallows alighted and walking on the ground: —

"And as he spake, his wings would now and then
Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again —"

so that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel. Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy.

我一直想著，像我這樣的人，若是沒有佔了這麼多的便宜，而是必須像大部份的人一樣工作謀生養家，那我最適合幹什麼？深思熟慮之後，就只剩下去種一些不用去街上叫賣的農作物了；如果作物賣不出去，至少可以養活自己。但是這樣恐怕還養不活我的家人。假設性的問題就不要想了！

《耕者婆羅豆婆遮經》說到一則故事：

佛陀有一次在化緣時遇見耕者婆羅豆婆遮。婆羅豆婆遮對佛陀說：「世尊！我種作人耕種而食，不從人乞。瞿曇！汝今亦可耕種而食。」佛陀回道：「我亦耕種而食。」婆羅豆婆遮說：「自說耕田者，而不見其耕，為我說耕田，令我知耕法。」

佛陀於是說：

信心為種子，智慧為時軛，慚愧心為轅，正念為犁鞭。
保藏身口業，知食處內藏，真諦以除草，樂住為懈息。
精進為馱牛，安隱而速進，直往不轉還，得到無憂處。
如是耕田者，逮得甘露果，如是耕田者，不還受諸有。

婆羅豆婆遮聽了，以大銅缽盛乳粥奉上，說道：「請尊者食用！尊者是耕作者，因為，尊者所種植的是真正的甘露果。」

梭羅第一年種了豆子後，第二年似乎就沒種了。他說他要在那片土地上播下其他的種子：譬如真誠，真理，單純，信念，純潔，以及諸如此類的其他種子。然而在過了幾年之後，他發現他播下的那些種子可能因為被狗啃了，所以連發芽的機會都沒有。

如果人類應該從歷史得到經驗，則我可以跳過種豆子的過程，直接再去播下真誠，真理，單純，信念及純潔這些甘露果的種子，看它們會不會在台灣這塊土地上抽出芽來。只要這些種子能在台灣生根，那我們便永遠不必再去講求虛禮，不必再用卑下來欺騙和污辱對方，像郭台銘和林百里那樣試圖消滅對方。

阿羅漢的神通

2010-01-06T10:21:00.012+08:00

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day. They lay mingled with other natural stones, some of which bore the marks of having been burned by Indian fires, and some by the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass brought hither by the recent cultivators of the soil. When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans; and I remembered with as much pity as pride, if I remembered at all, my acquaintances who had gone to the city to attend the oratorios. The nighthawk circled overhead in the sunny afternoons — for I sometimes made a day of it — like a mote in the eye, or in heaven's eye, falling from time to time with a swoop and a sound as if the heavens were rent, torn at last to very rags and tatters, and yet a seamless cope remained; small imps that fill the air and lay their eggs on the ground on bare sand or rocks on the tops of hills, where few have found them; graceful and slender like ripples caught up from the pond, as leaves are raised by the wind to float in the heavens; such kindredship is in nature. The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea. Or sometimes I watched a pair of hen-hawks circling high in the sky, alternately soaring and descending, approaching, and leaving one another, as if they were the embodiment of my own thoughts. Or I was attracted by the passage of wild pigeons from this wood to that, with a slight quivering winnowing sound and carrier haste; or from under a rotten stump my hoe turned up a sluggish portentous and outlandish spotted salamander, a trace of Egypt and the Nile, yet our contemporary. When I paused to lean on my hoe, these sounds and sights I heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.

梭羅說他在華爾騰湖旁的高地種了兩英畝半，每行田畦長15杆，總長加起來是7英哩的豆田。

1杆是16.5英呎，16.5×15=247.5英呎。(每行田畦長度)
1英哩是5,280英呎，5280×7=36,960英呎。(田畦總長度)
36960÷247.5=149.3，所以梭羅大概種了150行田畦的豆田。

一英畝是43,560平方英呎，
2.5英畝則是43560×2.5=108,900平方英呎。(田畦總面積)
108900÷247.5=440英呎(田畦總寛度)，
440÷150=2.9英呎，所以每行田畦有大約3英呎寬。
一英呎約等於30公分。

《法句經》有：

如鴈將群　　避羅高翔　　明人導世　　度脫邪眾

這一偈說的是透過修行，人可以橫越天空、凌水而過，遁入地中等。這些能力是精神的、超越自然的，但絕不是奇蹟。梭羅說他在鋤豆田時看到一對鷂鷹在天空飛翔，一會盤旋而上，一會俯衝而下，互相接近而又遠離，正如他思想的化身。有時，我真的覺得透過梭羅的文字，我腳下的不是磨石子地板，而是踩在華爾騰湖旁，清晨露濕的豆田上。

給家穗

2010-01-03T15:37:00.003+08:00

I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. Girls and boys and young women generally seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. Men of business, even farmers, thought only of solitude and employment, and of the great distance at which I dwelt from something or other; and though they said that they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was obvious that they did not. Restless committed men, whose time was all taken up in getting a living or keeping it; ministers who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject, who could not bear all kinds of opinions; doctors, lawyers, uneasy housekeepers who pried into my cupboard and bed when I was out — how came Mrs. — to know that my sheets were not as clean as hers? — young men who had ceased to be young, and had concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten track of the professions — all these generally said that it was not possible to do so much good in my position. Ay! there was the rub. The old and infirm and the timid, of whatever age or sex, thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death; to them life seemed full of danger — what danger is there if you don't think of any? — and they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moment's warning. To them the village was literally a com-munity, a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they would not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

曾經看過一部日本電影《黃昏清兵衛》，其中有一段對白令我頗為感動：

男主角真田廣之是一個明治維新初年落魄的低階武士，妻子死後獨力撫養
二個幼女及癡呆的老母，需要靠作散工及借貸渡日。一晚聽到大女兒背誦
《論語》，問起學校的事。女兒說現在不論男女都要讀《論語》了。父親
不禁嘆道：多麼懷念兒時讀《論語》的日子！

女兒便問：我學會裁縫後，可以作和服、浴袍，但讀了書有什麼用呢？

父親想了想，說道：這個問題不是很容易回答－－可以這麼說，讀了書
後，可以讓人學會思考，只要能夠思考，不論世道人心如何，你一樣可以
生存下去。

小女孩似懂非懂地答是，繼續背著：
　
　”吾日三省吾身：為人謀而不忠乎？與朋友交而不信乎？傳不習乎？”

這也就是說，只要學會怎樣思考，再大的難關都可以過得去。妳曾經遇過
比現在更困難的日子，可是從未想過尋短見。現在妳覺得累了，而且苦日
子好像沒有盡頭，但事實上並非這樣，自我了斷也解決不了問題。最要緊
的是妳如何看待事情，如何擺脫自我的束縛。

Nonself

2009-12-31T15:49:00.018+08:00

With thinking we may be beside ourselves in a sane sense. By a conscious effort of the mind we can stand aloof from actions and their consequences; and all things, good and bad, go by us like a torrent. We are not wholly involved in Nature. I may be either the driftwood in the stream, or Indra in the sky looking down on it. I may be affected by a theatrical exhibition; on the other hand, I may not be affected by an actual event which appears to concern me much more. I only know myself as a human entity; the scene, so to speak, of thoughts and affections; and am sensible of a certain doubleness by which I can stand as remote from myself as from another. However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned. This doubleness may easily make us poor neighbors and friends sometimes.

《法句經》第95偈中提到 Indra's pillar，若非經過考據，是不會有人瞭解它背後的含意的。古漢譯將此偈譯為：不怒如地，不動如山，真人無垢，生死世絕。原文翻成英文為：There is no more worldly existence for the wise one who, like the earth, resents nothing, who is firm as Indra's pillar and as pure as a deep pool free from mud.

Indra 是印度教中司地，也是雷雨神。Indra's pillar 是放在城門口的石柱，受人供奉鮮花貢品；然有些對此習俗不以為然的人則會在此便溺。此偈便以 Indra's pillar 來形容有智慧的人，對於別人的看法不為所動。梭羅說我既可以是漂流的浮木，亦可以是空中俯視它的 Indra; 我的存在只是人性單元，是思想和情感的舞台。這樣的說法就很像佛教術語「有情」。佛經上說，因執著故為有情。但是當你不再執著，你只是這個舞台的旁觀者，當戲落幕時，你就像觀眾一樣的離開戲院。

有人問何謂「無我」。答曰：『人和一切有情感的生物都叫做「有情」。佛教的緣起論認為所謂有情，無非是種種物質和精神元素的聚合體。有情不是固定的單一獨立體，而是種種元素的聚合體，而所有元素是剎那剎那依緣而生滅著的，所以找不到一個固定的有情在支配著身心，也就是找不到「我」的存在。
　
當初笛卡兒提出精神和物質二元論，是因為當時科學界不斷地與宗教界發生衝突；提出精神和物質二者是平行的論點等於是向宗教界宣告科學的研究不會侵犯到宗教的領域。但不久就有唯物論者挑戰笛卡兒的說法，認為所有的精神作用也不過是各種物質之間的互動造成的，完全是機械式的；本體論者則認為所有物質不過是心靈客觀的具體形式。

佛教也把組成有情的要素分為精神和物質兩類，就是所謂的「名色」。名是精神的要素 -- 受、想、行、識；色是物質的要素。（色、受、想、行、識又稱「五蘊」。）名色就是身心合成的存在。無論組成有情的要素為何，如果對自己的身心只是因緣所生的道理不能自覺，以為其中有常住的、惟一的、做主宰的我，那就是「無明」，就會因此而起煩惱。』

我的朋友

2009-12-23T10:46:00.006+08:00

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can "see the folks," and recreate, and as he thinks remunerate himself for his day's solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and "the blues"; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it.

吾人最不堪忍受者有四：寫自己不想寫的東西，一不堪也。喜慶宴喪
，送往迎來，二不堪也。與俗人共事，三不堪也。瑣事煩心，四不堪
也。

夫人之相知，貴識其天性。不要以為此人不喜歡去ＫＴＶ唱歌，他就
不快樂，硬是要把他拉去。雖是出於善意，亦已疏矣。師橫犁游心於
寂寞，以無為為貴；好友去拜訪他便隨性之所至，不用事先知會，縱
未見到人亦無妨。此可謂能相終始，真相知者也。

志同道合之友從容交談，無論所談為有趣之事抑或世間瑣事，皆樂事
也！唯此等人至不易得，若與對談者之意見了無異議，則與一人獨坐
何異？與大哥、喬峰交談時，喬峰意見每與人相左，口稱「余之設想
則不如是」而加以爭論，大哥則謂「唯其如是，故余之意見如是」云
云。余意此可慰無聊之情。雖於書本中發現有與思想一致而稍有不同
時，可稍慰寂寥，然終究兩心懸隔，意有未足，與面對知友不同也。

註：師橫犁為梭羅的中文姓名。

德不孤，必有鄰。

2009-12-22T10:07:00.012+08:00

Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are.

"How vast and profound is the influence of the subtile powers of Heaven and of Earth!"

"We seek to perceive them, and we do not see them; we seek to hear them, and we do not hear them; identified with the substance of things, they cannot be separated from them."

"They cause that in all the universe men purify and sanctify their hearts, and clothe themselves in their holiday garments to offer sacrifices and oblations to their ancestors. It is an ocean of subtile intelligences. They are everywhere, above us, on our left, on our right; they environ us on all sides."

We are the subjects of an experiment which is not a little interesting to me. Can we not do without the society of our gossips a little while under these circumstances — have our own thoughts to cheer us? Confucius says truly, "Virtue does not remain as an abandoned orphan; it must of necessity have neighbors."

中庸第十六章

子曰：「鬼神之為德，其盛矣乎！視之而弗見，聽之而弗聞，體物而不可遺。使天下之人，齊明盛服，以承祭祀，洋洋乎如在其上，如在其左右。」

梭羅在此所引的中庸十六章尚有一小段，即孔子引詩經《大雅．抑》：詩曰：『神之格思，不可度思，矧可射思。』，然後孔子作結道：「夫微之顯，誠之不可揜如此夫！」而詩經《大雅．抑》主要是衛武公自責自勵之詩；在這裡衛武公告訴自己，「人在做，天在看。不能說這裡很隱密，人家看不到，就去作有愧良心的事。要知道神的來到，是無法預期的，所以隨時要謹慎，不放縱自己的言行。」孔子作結說：鬼神的事本來就是隱微的，卻又如此顯著，所以真實無妄的心不能掩藏就是這道理啊！

這「夫微之顯」的鬼神，因為近代科學思想的昌明而黯淡不明，其實人們心中明明知道，卻怕被冠上迷信不科學的帽子，而且告訴自己，這只是一種過時的錯誤想法，於是在沒人看見的地方，就幹起見不得人的勾當。

12/17,18二日去花東參加千里苦行時，第二日中午在花蓮光復糖廠休息，點了杯手工舞鶴咖啡，鄰座有鄭麗君和她的友人，室外棚下有林義雄夫婦，讓我有一刻時間脫離台灣那專扯八卦的社會，讓我的思想來款待我自己。我只能想到這句話：德不孤，必有鄰。

憂鬱症及孤獨

2009-12-13T15:14:00.018+08:00

Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was Æolian music to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again.

憂鬱症，是「一種陰霾般的低潮情緒籠罩的心理疾病，宛如織網般地難以揮去，而不是一種短暫可消失的情緒低沈」。聯合國世界衛生組織(WHO)說，在2020年全世界有三大疾病需要重視，包括：心血管疾病、憂鬱症與愛滋病。憂鬱症會造成嚴重的社會經濟負擔，在所有疾病中排名第二，僅次於心血管疾病。憂鬱症也是所有造成失能疾病的第一名。

即便比一般人更注重我的內心，力圖解脫人生的一切枷鎖，但孤獨感仍像幽靈一般在我身旁纒繞不去。這也許是住在城市裡的關係。台灣道路的修補與開挖，因為沒有經過共同管道，所以經常有一個月挖補數次的情形發生在廣州一街。三月(世運那一年)的最後一個星期，某天早上，將小狗放到屋頂上不久，就傳來轟隆隆的巨響。原來是鑽地機正在搗碎柏油路面。上到屋頂一看，果然把小狗嚇的蜷縮在水塔底下。我不知道路面的開挖與我的孤獨感有何關聯，也許愈是嘈雜憒鬧，孤獨的幽靈就愈能從中作祟。水泥築成的各式囚牢也許是另一原因；就算我只是稍微離開市區，都能感到身心的輕快。

在<孤獨>這一章中，梭羅說他從來不覺得孤單；只有一次，在搬進林中小屋幾個星期後的一個下雨天，大約一個鐘頭的時間，他感到孤獨，懷疑這樣一個人住是不是不太健康；他那個時候想著：獨處畢竟不是件愉快的事。接著他感到自己大概精神有些錯亂，而預知了自己的康復。我想，這是因為梭羅經常觀照自己的心理狀態才能有這種自癒的能力；一般人恐怕無法辦到。

他說：「如果一個人仍有知覺，不論他有多麼的厭世和憂鬱，都可以在自然界中找到最甜美溫馨，純潔而令人鼓舞的社會關係。」就在梭羅為孤獨感而無助的那個鐘頭，外頭的雨聲則用最柔和的語調圍繞在他的小屋，表達伊無限佮算不清的情義。這款的相挺馬上讓那些與人作伙可得到的好處變的微不足道，此後他對那些好處再也沒有任何想頭。

寫到這裡，突然間，外頭原本吵鬧的機車聲似乎也變的可愛起來。原來廣州一街也可以是我的大自然。

禪學述原

2009-12-10T13:40:00.016+08:00

THIS IS A delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the wind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature's watchmen — links which connect the days of animated life.

『這是一個可口的黃昏，整個身體是一個感官，自每個毛孔吸入美味。我以一種奇特的自在進出於自然，而我實是她的一部份。』在我所曾讀過習禪的書中 ── 儘管我讀的並不多，還沒有看過這麼貼切的描述。這也許不是禪定的最高境界，但對我來說，也夠了。這個境界，正如湖水，波而不亂。

根據呂澂先生〈禪學述原〉一文，他認為，中國禪宗的三個系統，都源於印度大乘瑜伽學，“但以譯家傳述之詳略，而聞者因之立派分流，但得其仿佛而已”。呂澂的結論是禪宗三大系統“空談依教，究屬訛傳，誤解自覺、本覺、自性、菩提，輾轉束縛，愈溺愈深，此以大乘教義校量，而可斷言者也。… 眾生心妄，未曾本覺，榨沙取油，寧可得乎？即還其本來面目亦不過一虛妄分別而已。今講此題，禪學原形備見，詳猶不具，然必如是，決無可疑也。

又，印土大乘瑜伽學原以小乘上座化地部禪學為本，改進而為大乘。上座化地部是第二次部派分裂時形成，後來化地部分遣許多大德到各地宣揚而形成許多派別，如西北印迦濕彌羅、健陀羅一帶的說一切有部即其中一支。但是後來說一切有部反而跟原來的化地部不同調，轉而去支持原來與化地部分裂的犢子部觀點。犢子部是主張有我的，被認為是依附於佛法的外道。說一切有部在這一點上表面反對，暗中卻又採納。然而化地部的禪學由說一切有部所吸收，再傳給說一切有部分裂出的經部。經部以及它的前身譬喻師分別代表了小乘過渡到大乘的二個不同學派的階段。譬喻師的理論可為大乘中觀學說的開導；經部的理論可為唯識學說的開導。後來經部發展成佛教四大派別之一，反而與說一切有部在小乘佛教分庭抗禮。印順法師自稱是大乘中觀學者(但不是西藏所傳的後期中觀學者)，所以他在〈略說罽賓區（註：即健陀羅以北的雪山區，亦可包括迦濕彌羅，說一切有部亦在此區活動）的瑜伽師〉一文說：『等到(譬喻師)從禪出教，…，經部是大盛了，與有部對立了，也就成為學理的研究，不再有譬喻瑜伽者的自化化他的活力。』等於是連唯識學的小乘過渡都否定了。

那麼中國禪宗所傳承的大乘瑜伽又是怎麼來的？原來在譬喻師形成經部後，有一些禪師還是持行於罽賓山區，不斷地大乘化與秘密化，直到西元三四世紀間才分化出大乘瑜伽師。而傳宏大乘瑜伽師的重要人物，無著，從禪出教，集出唐玄奘魂縈夢牽的《瑜伽師地論》後，後學者也就化成法相唯識學，偏重於義理的精究了。

天籟

2009-12-05T11:21:00.008+08:00

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！」

高雄地名的由來

2009-11-26T11:23:00.013+08:00

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

2009-11-25T10:14:00.004+08:00

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

2009-11-21T22:07:00.033+08:00

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

2009-11-15T23:31:00.007+08:00

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

2009-11-14T23:16:00.015+08:00

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

2009-11-11T23:18:00.004+08:00

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

2009-11-09T02:50:00.016+08:00

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：

絕對的節約 a rigid economy.
比斯巴達還要嚴格的單純生活 a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life.
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

2009-11-07T10:31:00.011+08:00

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

2009-11-05T07:01:00.009+08:00

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。

台灣獨立紀念日

2009-10-30T17:45:00.004+08:00

The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.

註：梭羅於1845年三月底起造湖邊小屋，7月4日(美國獨立紀念日)正式入厝。

當我讀到這裡時，很不幸的，台灣正處於近幾年來最不獨立的年代，最令人氣餒的年代。雖然我希望像梭羅一樣，學公雞在清晨引頸高啼，試圖喚醒我的國人：盡可能的作一個自由自在的人，不要委身於任何東西－－不論是美國，日本，還是中國。並不是如憤青一般高唱台灣民族主義，只是站在一個台灣人的立場，真誠地喜愛他的國家與國內的事物。但是要聽的耳朵太少。

補充詩：庚戍歲九月中於西田穫早稻

2009-10-27T23:48:00.016+08:00

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. — Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."

莫留心於短暫無常之事物－－
因為繁華過盡，逝水如斯。

若是你家道殷實，要如棗樹般慷慨大方；
若是你囊篋俱乏，應似柏樹般了無罣礙。

註：《Flower Garden》，真境花園，13世紀阿拉伯著名穆斯林詩人、蘇菲主義學者薩迪 (Sadi，1213—1291)著。

補充詩：庚戍歲九月中於西田穫早稻

人生歸有道，衣食固其端．孰是都不營，而以求自安．

開春理常業，歲功聊可觀．晨出肆微勤，日入負耒還．

山中饒霜露，風氣亦先寒．田家豈不苦？弗獲辭此難．

四體誠乃疲，庶無異患干．盥濯息簷下，斗酒散襟顏．

遙遙沮溺心，千載乃相關．但願長如此，躬耕非所歎．

--　陶潛

經濟問題可以是枝微末節的事，但卻不可以因之棄之不顧。

如果開春就按步就班的下田，一年下來的收獲也會很可觀．

透早就出門，到了日落才回家；山中的霜露讓氣候冷得早．

（甭怕田水冷酸酸）

作田的豈不艱苦？但是這是免不了的．

雖然四肢疲憊，至少心安理得，不用害怕意外的麻煩．

在簷下洗濯乾淨，就可小酌一番，散盡一天的辛勞．

古代先賢的心，竟然就在此時向我揭露，告訴我他們就是這樣想的．

希望可以一直這樣下去，而不是說有什麼遺憾才這麼做．

The holiest son of God

2009-10-27T10:04:00.003+08:00

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.

梭羅臨終前他的姨媽來看望他，她說：「亨利，你同上帝講和了嗎？」梭羅睜開眼說：「我好像從來也沒有和他吵過嘴呀。我從沒和他爭吵過。」

他的姨媽大概從來沒有好好看過梭羅寫的東西。梭羅爭吵的對象不是上帝，是上帝的兒子。

華品

2009-10-24T16:19:00.013+08:00

I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? Under what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send light? Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even — for that is the seat of sympathy — he forthwith sets about reforming — the world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers — and it is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it — that the world has been eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet and wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.

《法句經》第54偈：

奇草芳花，不逆風熏；近道敷開，德人逼香。

此偈意謂道德的香氣更勝於花香，能遍及於各個方向，不似花香會受風向的影響。梭羅說，他不以慈悲和正直來衡量一個人，他認為那只是人的莖和葉－－他要的是人的花和果！與充滿花果香的「德人」交往應是如沐春風，或似春風化雨；給人勇氣而非悲情，給人健康及輕快(ease)而非病恙(disease)。若是我們的慈善團體多的是這樣的人，吳念真的妹妹也不會覺得無處可逃，寧可一個人忍受痛苦。台灣佛教徒所強調的大悲心，其實只是佛教教義的莖和葉。讓這些在世界各地救苦救難的菩薩們最痛心的不在苦難的世人，而在他們自己的病恙。若是有一天他的病體得癒，春天走向他、晨光重臨他的床榻，他會毫不猶豫地向他的同修道別，連一聲抱歉也沒有。

慈濟的慈善事業

2009-10-22T10:17:00.008+08:00

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted. It is human, it is divine, carrion. If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me — some of its virus mingled with my blood. No — in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way. A man is not a good man to me because he will feed me if I should be starving, or warm me if I should be freezing, or pull me out of a ditch if I should ever fall into one. I can find you a Newfoundland dog that will do as much.

吳念真有一次上談話性節目時談到他因重度憂鬱而過世的妹妹。他的妹妹生前曾經打電話拜託吳念真，要他去跟那些宗教慈善事業團體說，不要再打電話或到家裡來安慰她了，因為她實在沒有能力應付這些人。梭羅說，腐敗的善有著最難忍受的臭味。他說，並不是人家餓時你給他飯吃，冷時你給他衣服穿，你就是好人；一隻訓練有素的狗也可以做到這個。即使有上千百個慈濟團體，你覺得世界就會變得比現在好嗎？我並不是意指慈濟人所做的都是白費 -- 台灣如果沒有慈濟肯定還會更糟；而是以他們所擁有的資源，應該還有更重要的事可以做；是不是可以少救一些窮苦的人，多製造一些有價值的人？

如何選擇職業？

2009-10-21T10:57:00.007+08:00

For more than five years I maintained myself thus solely by the labor of my hands, and I found that, by working about six weeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living. The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had free and clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what is called a good business. When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice — for my greatest skill has been to want but little — so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep the flocks of Admetus. I also dreamed that I might gather the wild herbs, or carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to be reminded of the woods, even to the city, by hay-cart loads. But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.

As I preferred some things to others, and especially valued my freedom, as I could fare hard and yet succeed well, I did not wish to spend my time in earning rich carpets or other fine furniture, or delicate cookery, or a house in the Grecian or the Gothic style just yet. If there are any to whom it is no interruption to acquire these things, and who know how to use them when acquired, I relinquish to them the pursuit. Some are "industrious," and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say. Those who would not know what to do with more leisure than they now enjoy, I might advise to work twice as hard as they do — work till they pay for themselves, and get their free papers. For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer's day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.

In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial. It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.

One young man of my acquaintance, who has inherited some acres, told me that he thought he should live as I did, if he had the means. I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.

工作的時間要儘量的少，除非你不知道如何運用閒暇的時間。
在衣著和交通無需額外的費用。
不要賠上了你的思想及信仰。
無需分散太多心力於其上，而可專心於自己想做的事物。
最好不要從商；因為交易的行為會在交易的物品中下符咒。
考慮自己的自由。
不要把時間花在賺取豪宅名車，除非獲取這些東西的過程並不違背上述的原則。
維生只是消遣，如何生活的更單純更藝術才是人生最重要的職業。
過自己想過的生活方式；如果你不知自己想過怎樣的生活，想想北極星如何指引人們方向。

圓明園「鼠、兔獸首」

2009-10-18T23:20:00.011+08:00

I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Not long since I was present at the auction of a deacon's effects, for his life had not been ineffectual: —

"The evil that men do lives after them."

As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had begun to accumulate in his father's day. Among the rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things were not burned; instead of a bonfire, or purifying destruction of them, there was an auction, or increasing of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, bought them all, and carefully transported them to their garrets and dust holes, to lie there till their estates are settled, when they will start again. When a man dies he kicks the dust.

　　　　"It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.”

”我們最好從一開始就遠離邪惡。”梭羅連別人好意送他一個腳踏墊他都拒絶，因為根據莎士比亞的名言，『人之過惡，雖死猶存』，所以人死後最好什麼也別留下來。然而梭羅的這段文字還把輪迴的概念用上了。他說在一個拍賣會場上，那些東西是賣家的父親就開始累積的。梭羅認為這些東西都該送到梵化爐燒個乾淨，結果卻由買家買去，等到有一天讓故事重新來過。

台灣的「故宮」拒收圓明園「鼠、兔獸首」，看來是我們政府難得正確的決定，最好連「故宮」的東西都送回去，和「萬惡」的共匪斷的乾乾淨淨。可是你看這有多難，這就是梭羅之所以這麼說的原因：

　　　　"It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.”

OS/2

2009-10-13T11:37:00.006+08:00

人從農夫墮落為工人正像人從人墮落為農夫一樣值得紀念。

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was concerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get clothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a farmer's family — thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for I think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable as that from the man to the farmer; — and in a new country, fuel is an encumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat, I might purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I cultivated was sold — namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it was, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on it.

在梭羅的時代都很難在商家買得到甜美的粗麵粉，更何況是現在呢！

梭羅在他那個時代偏偏去作已經很少人在做的事，自己種吃的、做傢俱，凡是能自己動手做的，很少假手他人；我由於從小只被要求要讀書，什麼都不作也沒關係，所以到現在想要學學做點什麼也沒力了。當我用OS/2這種已經很少人在用的作業系統播放mp3時，是不是可以美其名為Walden 2.0呢？一般來說，2.0好像表示比較先進的意思。但是，從梭羅的觀點來看，也許是另一回事吧！他也許會說，從1.0墮落到2.0就像人從工人墮落到上班族一樣值得紀念。

這台裝載OS/2及Windows 98中文版的機器是我在1999年買的，到現在滿10年了。幾年前曾經換了一顆硬碟，其他運作一切尚稱平順。前陣子去海盜灣下載了OS/2 Warp 4.52來玩，把我原先裝載的德文版Windows98刪了，之後又安裝了兩三次，到現在才完全滿意。

最近也是最後一次的安裝正是我在牙痛的時候。當時，牙痛難耐，只好找事情轉移注意力；也是在那時才發現自以為是的修行是多麼不堪考驗。作業系統安裝完成後，必須自行安裝音效卡驅動程式。因為我有一個老舊的英文電子字典要用到Win-OS/2的模式，所以也作了一番設定。

正像梭羅的時代的他並不完全孤單，現在還是有不少人在用OS/2。所以這個在mp3還沒開始流行時就有的作業系統，現在也有人為它設計了播放mp3的程式；也有人為它寫了fat32檔案系統的驅動程式，也因此我才能讀取存放在Windows 98 硬碟分割區的檔案。

2009年9月20日，發現螢幕開始有閃爍的情形。於是我將她收起來，也許日後接上外接螢幕再用。沒多久，11月10日，因為幫朋友作了一些木工，他拿了500釦來給我當工資。我心想這是意外之財，正好日前在一間電腦維修店的櫥窗看到一台17吋的CRT二手螢幕，標價也是500釦，便去買回來接上。自此我又可以用她來聽mp3及學英文單字；我在想，是不是也應該好好學一下REXX電腦語言...

她是梭羅失去的那隻斑鳩。

西元前的麵包食譜

2009-10-12T17:23:00.008+08:00

Bread I at first made of pure Indian meal and salt, genuine hoe-cakes, which I baked before my fire out of doors on a shingle or the end of a stick of timber sawed off in building my house; but it was wont to get smoked and to have a piny flavor, I tried flour also; but have at last found a mixture of rye and Indian meal most convenient and agreeable. In cold weather it was no little amusement to bake several small loaves of this in succession, tending and turning them as carefully as an Egyptian his hatching eggs. They were a real cereal fruit which I ripened, and they had to my senses a fragrance like that of other noble fruits, which I kept in as long as possible by wrapping them in cloths. I made a study of the ancient and indispensable art of bread-making, consulting such authorities as offered, going back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, when from the wildness of nuts and meats men first reached the mildness and refinement of this diet, and travelling gradually down in my studies through that accidental souring of the dough which, it is supposed, taught the leavening process, and through the various fermentations thereafter, till I came to "good, sweet, wholesome bread," the staff of life. Leaven, which some deem the soul of bread, the spiritus which fills its cellular tissue, which is religiously preserved like the vestal fire — some precious bottleful, I suppose, first brought over in the Mayflower, did the business for America, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading, in cerealian billows over the land — this seed I regularly and faithfully procured from the village, till at length one morning I forgot the rules, and scalded my yeast; by which accident I discovered that even this was not indispensable — for my discoveries were not by the synthetic but analytic process — and I have gladly omitted it since, though most housewives earnestly assured me that safe and wholesome bread without yeast might not be, and elderly people prophesied a speedy decay of the vital forces. Yet I find it not to be an essential ingredient, and after going without it for a year am still in the land of the living; and I am glad to escape the trivialness of carrying a bottleful in my pocket, which would sometimes pop and discharge its contents to my discomfiture. It is simpler and more respectable to omit it. Man is an animal who more than any other can adapt himself to all climates and circumstances. Neither did I put any sal-soda, or other acid or alkali, into my bread. It would seem that I made it according to the recipe which Marcus Porcius Cato gave about two centuries before Christ. "Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu." Which I take to mean, — "Make kneaded bread thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have kneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover," that is, in a baking kettle. Not a word about leaven. But I did not always use this staff of life. At one time, owing to the emptiness of my purse, I saw none of it for more than a month.

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the store. I saw that I could easily raise my bushel or two of rye and Indian corn, for the former will grow on the poorest land, and the latter does not require the best, and grind them in a hand-mill, and so do without rice and pork; and if I must have some concentrated sweet, I found by experiment that I could make a very good molasses either of pumpkins or beets, and I knew that I needed only to set out a few maples to obtain it more easily still, and while these were growing I could use various substitutes beside those which I have named. "For," as the Forefathers sang, —

"we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips."

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it altogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that the Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.
（此段話在梭羅1845年12月25日的日記中第一次寫到。）

有機會可以試試看：

買黑麥及玉米並用磨咖啡機將之磨成粉（或直接買黑麥粉及玉米粉）
把手及用來揉麵粉的槽洗乾淨
將黑麥粉及玉米粉放入槽中，慢慢加水，仔細徹底地揉
揉好後和成麵團
放入烘麵包機（不是烤麵包機）中烘焙

大悲湖

2009-10-10T14:21:00.032+08:00

By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the village in the meanwhile, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two years — not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on hand at the last date — was

Rice ................ $1.73½
Molasses ............. 1.73 Cheapest form of the saccharine.
Rye meal ............. 1.04¾
Indian meal .......... 0.99¾ Cheaper than rye.
Pork ................. 0.22

All experiments which failed:

Flour ................ 0.88 Costs more than Indian meal,
both money and trouble.
Sugar ................ 0.80
Lard ................. 0.65
Apples ............... 0.25
Dried apple .......... 0.22
Sweet potatoes ....... 0.10
One pumpkin .......... 0.06
One watermelon ....... 0.02
Salt ................. 0.03

Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field — effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say — and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to
$8.40¾
Oil and some household utensils ....... 2.00

So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received — and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world — were

House ................................ $28.12½
Farm one year ........................ 14.72½
Food eight months .................... 8.74
Clothing, etc., eight months ......... 8.40¾
Oil, etc., eight months .............. 2.00
In all ............................... $61.99¾

I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get. And to meet this I have for farm produce sold

$23.44
Earned by day-labor .................. 13.34
In all ........................... $36.78,

which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21¾ on the one side — this being very nearly the means with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred — and on the other, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.

These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they may appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value also. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account. It appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt; and my drink, water. It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who love so well the philosophy of India. To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a comparative statement like this.

簡單的說，梭羅在1845年7月4日到1846年3月1日，8個月的期間，共花掉了將近62美元。他的農作物賣了23.44元，作散工賺了13.34元，一共是$36.78。透支的25元，差不多是他原本預估要發生的。當時一美元相當於今日100美元，所以梭羅渡了8個月的假所花的代價為2,500美元，每個月大約新台幣壹萬元。當然這還包括他自己蓋的湖濱小屋。我因為住在父母親的房子，所以花費應該可以更省。

2008年，520的早上，外頭飄著毛毛細雨，雖是五月天，卻微有涼意。我一個人騎了我的川崎125（相當於梭羅所失去的栗色馬）來到大貝湖，真的是一時心血來潮，因為起床後無心看書。可能由於開始工作讓心變得有些散亂，不聽使喚。大貝湖其實是一個人工湖，湖面面積103公頃，由於遊客不多，非常清幽，甚至比天然的湖泊還有韻味；如果華爾騰湖是「神之滴」(God's Drop)，那大貝湖就是「人之滴」。大貝湖本只是曹公圳的一條支流，用來供應農田灌溉用水。後因太平洋戰爭爆發，日軍乃將之改為蓄水池，供應工業用水。之後又由自來水公司經營擴張，乃有今日之規模。

5月23日一早，政府又派人來對街的巷子裡敲打路面，依照我父親的說法是國民黨的白色恐怖幽靈又在蠢蠢欲動了。但這應該是綠色執政的高雄市政府幹的好事，不能把帳算在國民黨頭上。梭羅能夠把一切過手的東西都多多少少作成記錄「Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account.」, 他是這麼說來著。我曾經試過多次都失敗了。但是希望有一天我也能像他一樣，口袋空空一個多月，依然還能過活。莊子曾經說過這麼一個故事：

　　子輿和子桑是好朋友。有一次連續下了十天的雨，子輿就說：「我看子桑必定是餓壞了！」於是就包了些飯菜過去看他。果然在門外就聽到子桑在哭爸哭母。子輿進了他家，問道：「哪Aㄚ奶？」回說：「我想攏無為何我會落到這款地步。甘講我的父母會希望我沒錢嗎？天和地哪會管我有窮嘸？按怎想嘛想無是ㄚ哪卡會這慘。可能著是命吧！」

五月下旬，台灣就進入了梅雨季。六月初高雄連續下了一個禮拜的雨，雖然處於M型化社會中比較沒有多餘的那一塊，所幸我並沒有餓到肚子。雨停後，小狗卻因天氣潮濕得了皮膚病一直沒有好轉。蹓狗的同好中有人告訴我可以帶去泡泡海水自然就會好。我想這倒是去海邊一個不錯的理由，於是挑了一個早晨載著小狗到西子灣坐渡輪去旗津，一直玩到將近中午，喝了杯咖啡，學著齊天大聖在如來佛的掌中撒了泡尿，才又搭船回來。

不偏不倚的良心之見

2009-09-29T15:44:00.003+08:00

The next year I did better still, for I spaded up all the land which I required, about a third of an acre, and I learned from the experience of both years, not being in the least awed by many celebrated works on husbandry, Arthur Young among the rest, that if one would live simply and eat only the crop which he raised, and raise no more than he ate, and not exchange it for an insufficient quantity of more luxurious and expensive things, he would need to cultivate only a few rods of ground, and that it would be cheaper to spade up that than to use oxen to plow it, and to select a fresh spot from time to time than to manure the old, and he could do all his necessary farm work as it were with his left hand at odd hours in the summer; and thus he would not be tied to an ox, or horse, or cow, or pig, as at present. I desire to speak impartially on this point, and as one not interested in the success or failure of the present economical and social arrangements. I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off as before.

由於對當今一般人所認同的成功或失敗不感興趣，我因而比任何一位高雄市民來的獨立；我既不被一間房子給拖住，也不為一份工作而虧待自己的靈魂。尤其我想東西的速度有如孫悟空的筋斗雲，日遊四海，所以就算高雄市由國民黨執政，我還是能過的和現在一樣好。

Windows 7

2009-09-27T08:39:00.012+08:00

As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improvements"; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough. After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey. I doubt if Flying Childers ever carried a peck of corn to mill.

9/26(2009)，與朋友到里港一遊，回程時繞到旗山老街吃暗頓。吃飽之後，走進小7，發現微軟的 Windows 7竟然就放在架上賣(應該只是廣告)。真不知在這條老街上有誰會用到這種作業系統，因為我們還看到一家賣錄音帶的商店。

一直以來，微軟作業系統所謂的新功能就很少是正面的；總是在怕遭淘汰的情況下才去增加使用者需要的功能。這個公司從20年前就開始賺錢，但是到現在也沒有因為產品的任何進步而能讓地球被少砍一棵樹。朋友拿了一支智慧型手機給我；它的智慧就在於幫使用者管理行程及待辦事項。但我實在沒有什麼重要行程可記。我相信有不少人花了錢買了這種手機，結果都是在記別人的行程，看看別人有沒有攤。有了電子郵件之後，人們反而不寫信了；只剩下垃圾信，但是實體信箱內的廣告傳單還是沒有少。人們不寫信的原因大概是因為寄出去太容易，怕麻煩收到信的人回信，心裡不安。使用即時通及噗浪或推特，多半不是在作什麼嚴肅的事，但是卻會使我們對馬上要去做的事更不專心，反正終有一天會噗出一個台灣國來。目的並沒有任何進展，手段方法及工具卻變的比任何時期都強大。Windows 7不就號稱是史上最強大的作業系統！

山寨機

2009-09-13T21:03:00.017+08:00

It would be worth the while to build still more deliberately than I did, considering, for instance, what foundation a door, a window, a cellar, a garret, have in the nature of man, and perchance never raising any superstructure until we found a better reason for it than our temporal necessities even. There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.

在網路上買了種植小麥草的培養盒，盒裡有小石子及種子。這種小麥草是用來幫寵物清除胃腸的毛髮的。我拆了一盒放在陽台上，卻在還沒發芽前就被不知道那裡來的小鳥吃掉了。一開始我還不知道是怎麼回事，只見盒內的種子都不見了，石子則有很多散在盒外。然後才想到應該是小鳥鑽到陽台來，在挑種子吃時把石子撥出來了。陽台是有鐵窗圍著的，所以小鳥應該不會很大。

陳玉峰先生節省到生活所需只要過去的五分之一就可以。他認為拼經濟是最大的錯誤；從每個人開始做起，生活只要現在所需的一半就足夠，明明煮三個馬鈴薯就夠，你煮五個就是錯。可是這樣的說法誰聽的進去。觀光客來不就是要他們買越多越好？我的父母親去澳門深圳旅遊，回來母親跟我說大陸現在好進步，我們台灣實在不能比，他們那個表演真厲害，小孩子身體可以彎來彎去，疊到好幾層樓高的地方。我跟她說那不叫進步，只有落後的國家才會叫小孩作那種表演。我母親才說，台灣的父母親才捨不得讓小孩去學那些。我的父親帶了一支山寨版的鑽石機回來。他已經快70歲，有時連手機響了都不知要接。可是卻買了一支連我都不會用的智慧型手機。他說這一台在台灣買正版的要一兩萬，他那一支只要兩三千。真不知是何種心態。但是現在這樣的老人家應該不少。如果可以，我父親大概也會學學台灣首富去討個嫩妻吧！

我一直很嚮往美國在拓荒時期的生活。一個男人，一輛馬車，載著老婆孩子，到一個新世界開始新生活。他們一開始可能只是在山坡下挖個地洞，作為最初的遮蔽處。梭羅說的好，最可以入畫的不是那些豪宅大廈，而是窮人的小木屋和村舍；使這些屋子有看頭的，不是它們的外表，而是住在裡頭的人的生活。如果每個人都能像鳥一樣築自己的巢，而不是靠建築師，設計師及營造商來蓋房子，那這個世界就不會這麼醜陋，而是處處寫生的材料。世間最動容的詩篇不會是在室內寫就，悅耳的鳴聲也不會來自洞窟的鳥叫。

雜阿含經

2009-09-03T11:37:00.008+08:00

I hewed the main timbers six inches square, most of the studs on two sides only, and the rafters and floor timbers on one side, leaving the rest of the bark on, so that they were just as straight and much stronger than sawed ones. Each stick was carefully mortised or tenoned by its stump, for I had borrowed other tools by this time. My days in the woods were not very long ones; yet I usually carried my dinner of bread and butter, and read the newspaper in which it was wrapped, at noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the friend than the foe of the pine tree, though I had cut down some of them, having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the wood was attracted by the sound of my axe, and we chatted pleasantly over the chips which I had made.

2008年3月21日，星期五，我在筆記本上寫下這段文字：

卷39 第827經

重點整理

修不淨觀斷貪欲。
修慈心斷瞋恚。
修無常想斷我慢。
修安那般那念斷覺想。

經過了一年的時間，2009年5月1日，也是星期五，我則寫下這個：

放空自己，包括好幾個部分：

想要寫信給誰給誰，都可以不用。
眼睛老花，以後看書寫字很吃力，就不要再看。
想把電腦學好，這輩子不可能。
手上的兩台電腦，一台筆記型，一台桌上型，可以用到死都不用再換。
人生最重要的就是要放空自己！
有能力的話，就讀讀《法句經》和《雜阿含經》。
再有能力的話，就讀讀《Walden》.
再有能力的話，就讀讀《Programming Abstractions in C》.
要精進，精進，再精進，不放逸。
學習安那般那念。
只用減法，不用加法；減法即修行之法。

到現在為止都沒有什麼問題。

2010年，我多加了一條：

12. 學習寂止禪修(奢摩他)及內觀禪修(毗鉢舍那)。

廣州一街

2009-08-27T17:10:00.031+08:00

Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall, arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark-colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and I had cut a green hickory for a wedge, driving it with a stone, and had placed the whole to soak in a pond-hole in order to swell the wood, I saw a striped snake run into the water, and he lay on the bottom, apparently without inconvenience, as long as I stayed there, or more than a quarter of an hour; perhaps because he had not yet fairly come out of the torpid state. It appeared to me that for a like reason men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they should feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life. I had previously seen the snakes in frosty mornings in my path with portions of their bodies still numb and inflexible, waiting for the sun to thaw them. On the 1st of April it rained and melted the ice, and in the early part of the day, which was very foggy, I heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog.

So I went on for some days cutting and hewing timber, and also studs and rafters, all with my narrow axe, not having many communicable or scholar-like thoughts, singing to myself, —

Men say they know many things;
But lo! they have taken wings —
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances;
The wind that blows
Is all that any body knows.

2008年二月中旬，我決定在這裡住下來。原本想要學梭羅跑到森林裡住一陣子，過自給自足的生活；自在地過生活，讓自己不要在死前發現自己沒有真正活過。後來覺得住在離父母親家不遠的市區反而更省錢，衣服可以丟到洗衣機去洗，晚餐可以回家吃。若是需要什麼生活用品，也可以順手牽羊而不必擔心被抓去警察局。並非每個人都像我一樣佔盡所有便宜，但如果梭羅能在那種環境下生活，相信其他人也應該為自己想到辦法，更何況我也並不是一點問題都沒有。

之後，我為自己買了一台桌上型電腦(HP Pavilion g3220tl). 2009年五月，自行下載 Solaris作業系統並安裝完成，但是安裝程式找不到網路卡的驅動程式，不能上網。6月9日，終於在 Free NIC drivers for Solaris 找到驅動程式。10日安裝完成，11日設定ADSL撥接上網。我將安裝結果上傳至昇陽公司(Sun Microsystems, Inc.)，他們也給我回了信，內容如下：

Record ID: 33523
Submitter Name: Onkell Wang
Type: System - Desktop System
Manufacturer: HP
Model: Pavilion g3220tl

Hello Onkell Wang,

Your HCL submission has been approved.

This item is expected to be published on the sun HCL next week.

Thank you for your submission and for contributing to the BigAdmin site.

Sincerely,
Sarah Yang

HCL Auditing Team
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

30年前，在這附近還沒有這麼多房子時，文化中心也是一大片空地；國小老師會帶我們去那裡焢土窯。下課後，小孩子會一起在庭仔腳玩橡皮筋，把十條打個結，放在一條線上，用橡皮筋將它射出一個距離外；橡皮筋是色彩鮮豔而透明的活筋而不是死筋。或者捌牌仔，每個參賽者出幾張疊成一榻，將這榻圓牌中的一張用牌仔打出來算贏。捌牌仔的人要小心，要確定自己這一摔就能把標的打出來且完全和其他牌仔分離，否則就會作牌給別人。用來捌的那一張要養的厚，打起來才會有力；有時候會凹一小折來捌。還有巷仔底有一塊小泥土地，可以挖五個洞玩天國窟彈珠遊戲。現在那塊泥土地已變成水泥地了，巷子也不像現在有一堆汽機車停放著，可以玩稻草人跳格子遊戲，小孩子多時就玩踢銅罐仔，忍者哈特利真人電影裡有作到這個。下雨天可以作土丸子。好像是挖一些灰色的黏土，揉成球狀，外頭再覆上泥土，然後埋起來。過一陣子挖出來後慢慢將表皮抹去，可以看到亮亮的一層。

無論我的想像力有多豐富，都很難把住處想像成一個適合旅行的神仙歇腳的地方。雖然決意在這裡住下來，還是希望有朝一日能在山上找個地方，那裡有清晨的風吹出天籟，可以不斷創造天上才有的詩歌。

愛情中有自由，靈魂中有自在。

2009-08-19T09:56:00.006+08:00

And when the farmer has got his house, he may not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the house that has got him. As I understand it, that was a valid objection urged by Momus against the house which Minerva made, that she "had not made it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood might be avoided"; and it may still be urged, for our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. I know one or two families, at least, in this town, who, for nearly a generation, have been wishing to sell their houses in the outskirts and move into the village, but have not been able to accomplish it, and only death will set them free.

人類為了解決生活上的問題，往往想了一個比此問題更複雜的問題給自己。為了喝杯牛奶養一條牛就是典型的此類情況。為了得到一些舒適，他設計了一連串的圈套，卻沒想到先把自己給套牢了。這就是我們貧窮的原因，即便我們週遭都被奢華的物質給包圍，卻犠牲了所有野蠻人所能享受到的。為何當初智慧之神否決了享樂之神所造的房子，就是因為享樂之神所造的房子不能移動，要是碰到了壞鄰居怎麼辦？我的叔叔嬸嬸十多年前就想要搬家，到最近終於還是決定不搬了。梭羅說：只到了死才能讓他們撒手。

就連我之前想要從我原來租屋處搬到隔了兩條街父母親的房子去住，便覺得非常困擾。人的問題是，一旦在一個地方定下來，就不想再搬了。這樣到最後還是會陷入自己所設的圈套之中。也許我要去一個地方之前，要先想好要怎麼離開。要不就是買一個可供窩身的空箱子，打幾個孔，讓空氣進的來，重點是要讓愛情中有自由，靈魂中有自在。

用減法過日子

2009-08-16T07:14:00.010+08:00

When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who are at least as well off as the other classes, I find that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which commonly they have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with hired money — and we may regard one third of that toil as the cost of their houses — but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is true, the encumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that the farm itself becomes one great encumbrance, and still a man is found to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants, that a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to fail, is equally true of the farmers. With regard to the merchants, however, one of them says pertinently that a great part of their failures are not genuine pecuniary failures, but merely failures to fulfil their engagements, because it is inconvenient; that is, it is the moral character that breaks down. But this puts an infinitely worse face on the matter, and suggests, beside, that probably not even the other three succeed in saving their souls, but are perchance bankrupt in a worse sense than they who fail honestly.

很難相信，150年前的美國，人們為貸款所苦的情形，一直到現在都沒有改變。台灣樂透彩公司的經理說，幾乎所有頭獎得主拿到錢後第一件要做的事就是把房貸還清。我持續的買樂透已經一段時間，但一直到最近我才確定，若是我中了頭彩，我還是要過目前這樣的生活；除了會把為朋友作的事停掉之外。雖然多了錢，但一樣的用減法過日子；如果有增加了什麼東西，那只是為了更快速的消化之前已有的。

所謂用減法過生活，除了是物質上的，主要還是精神上的。當初釋迦牟尼提出輪迴轉世說法的重點在於解釋現象，而不在教化人心。釋迦牟尼在成道後自然認清了他的前世今生，於是他把他的體驗加上原本在印度就有的觀念加以說明。而也許在那個時代此種轉世的現象不像現在這麼稀有，佛陀的說法就為普羅大眾解釋了那些現象。

但是知道了自己的前世並無助於佛教解脫的目的。如果沒有因此而體認到整個世界體系在無止盡的、周而復始中生起與消滅，前生的記憶將只是一項負擔、一項無用且不必要的心靈累贅。死亡的作用不只是釋放衰壞的身體，還包括了過份擁擠的知識、習慣了的常規、僵化的意見與偏見、不重要的記憶累積。這些會把我們綑在過去，抑制我們在面對新的情境與較廣的關係時可能的醒覺。恢復了前生的記憶而沒有正確的體認，會使死亡的釋罪失去作用。要想過一種新的生活，不能佔用舊的軀殼，因為舊的軀殼只會腐朽。

用減法過生活就是一種釋罪的生活。

修行之非無政府主義者

2009-08-04T11:42:00.036+08:00

Formerly, when how to get my living honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night; and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of.

經濟是枝微末節的事，大事則是修行。修行是為了讓自己像夜間的穀類一樣生長(grow like corn in the night)，讓時間在不知不覺中流逝，或者說是靜止。讀書則是我修行的一部份。讀書最重要的目的在讓人學會如何思考。只要學會怎麼思考，你便具有無限的適應性；無論世態人心如何改變，你都一樣可以過的下去。歷史上最會思考的兩個人，一個是釋迦牟尼，另一個則是亨利大衛梭羅。他們兩個都把了解自身當作是最重要的事。因為他們知道，一個人若連自己都不瞭解，如何談到其他的事物。他們二人在完全理解自己之後，才知道如何運用自己的思想改變自己對世界的看法。所以梭羅才會說，我們應該改變事物的順序，只有週日工作，其餘的六天都用來休息。佛陀則說，這個世界就是人的感官知覺及其對象所組成，即便有其他的存在，說了也是白說。他們兩個也都不認為自己的思想能改變世界的狀態。佛陀認為一切都是因緣和合而成；梭羅則說作散工是最好的維生方式，卻從不考慮到如果人人都作散工，勢必將無散工可作的問題。所以，如果我在這裡住的夠久，高雄市的這一帶在我眼中應該會是另一個光景。

"Thoreau is being every bit as revolutionary and anti-capitalistic as Karl Marx, but his solution depends on the actions of individuals rather than on the actions of armies and mobs. If you want a Marxist revolution, you have to join with others to overthrow the present system, but if you want a Thoreauvian revolution, you need to change only your own life, not that of others." - Ken Kifer

（梭羅就像馬克斯一樣的反資本主義和具有革命性格，但他的解決之道不是依賴軍隊或者群眾的行動而是自己本身。如果你要的是馬克斯主義的革命，那麼你就得加入其他人去推翻現有的制度；若是你要採取梭羅的方法，你只要改變你自己的生活，而非其他人的。 - Ken Kifer）

因為原本計劃是要到森林或鄉間去住，所以在未搬進來之前就去認養了一隻小狗。每當我無處話淒涼之時，還有牠來作伴。梭羅所失去的那隻獵犬算是被我尋回來了。事實上我對自己的人生是相當滿意的，只是我想如果臺灣想要成為一個正常的國家，不能沒有像梭羅這樣的人。梭羅說，當時美國人民無法跟他們的政府有關而不感到屈辱，而梭羅一分鐘也無法承認這個販賣奴隸的政府也是他的政府。就是因為他的文字才使美國漸漸變成一個可以讓人尊重的國家，而不是因為她的武力和財富。

在梭羅的眼裡，所有的政權都是不義的。一個主權獨立的政府並不能保証這個國家的人民受到其他地方的人的尊重；一個標榜自己是本土政權的政府往往破壞本土最深，以至於把本土的根都挖了。但是要從自作聰明的老人腦子裡把康固力刮掉，幾乎是不可能的事。不管你教他多少遍：他所執取不捨的這個虛妄的本土政權，是他們錯誤看法的產物 ── 他還是無法相信，而且認為你到現在還沒有辦法覺醒，因為幫他們編織這個東西的報紙是「自由」的！我必須再說：凡是心繫"祖國"的人，是沒有希望的 ──

你腳下踏著的這點土，你如果不覺得它比這世界上（或是任何世界上）任何別的土更甜潤，那我就認為你這人毫無希望了。

我們曾經跟中國人有過交往，只要他是為了自由而來到這裡、真正地把他的祖國留在背後了，我們就沒有不歡迎他的道理。

下民應是難欺

2009-08-01T21:25:00.016+08:00

The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men.　They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again; and then there would be some one in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even fire kills these things, and you would have lost your labor.

梭羅的年代距離美國獨立已超過50年，但當時美國本土所崇尚的還是在歐洲流行的事物。愛默森說：『從來沒有一個人比梭羅更是一個真正的美國人。他對他的國家與國內情形的喜愛是真誠的，而他對於英國與歐洲的禮儀與嗜好具有一種反感，幾乎到了蔑視的程度。他不耐煩地聽著從倫敦社會中蒐集來的新聞或是雋語；雖然他想保持禮貎，這些軼事使他感到疲倦。』

台灣是這麼小的一個國家，沒有像美國那樣的機會成為世界強權，人民難以建立自信心；所以即使台灣真正獨立50年後，還一樣會有一堆易虐的下民。他們不敢承認自己的東西是好的，一定要等到國際的肯定以後才敢大聲肯定自己。為什麼中國的孫悟空頭上戴了金箍，台灣的彌猴就得要跟著戴呢？「下民易虐，上天難欺」不就是讓人頭痛的緊箍咒嗎？司法人員喜好引用封建時代廟堂上的用語也就罷了，還引據失義，實在不可思議。難怪梭羅會懷疑人到底能不能幫忙弄點真正單純而誠摯的東西出來。他說：要產生真正單純而誠摯的東西（譬如海角七號），必須要用力的壓過去，把那些舊觀念全擠出來，讓它們沒有機會再站起來；問題是這個時候就會有一些腦袋長蛆的人在旁邊（譬如金馬獎評審），在你的周圍下蛋，使你的一切努力都付東流。

袈裟

2009-07-28T14:48:00.014+08:00

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be. Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

聖經馬太福音第九章：
16.沒有人把新布補在舊衣服上；因為所補上的反帶壞了那衣服，破的就更大了。
17.也沒有人把新酒裝在舊皮袋裡；若是這樣，皮袋就裂開，酒漏出來，連皮袋也壞了。惟獨把新酒裝在新皮袋裡，兩樣就都保全了。

梭羅寫這段文字時想必正讀著聖經；他說：除了像蛻變的蝴蝶一樣換了個人，否則是沒有必要換新衣的；若只是為了包裝而換衣服，那如同掛著綠色的旗子航向對岸，最後無可避免的被自己放棄，也被別人放棄。

法句經有：不吐毒態，欲心馳騁，未能自調，不應法衣；能吐毒態，戒意安靜，降心已調，此應法衣。或者如 Acharya Buddharakkhita 的英譯：

Whoever being depraved, devoid of self-control and truthfulness, should don the monk's yellow robe, he surely is not worthy of the robe.

But whoever is purged of depravity, well-established in virtues and filled with self-control and truthfulness, he indeed is worthy of the yellow robe.

一個真正解脫了的人，即便身不著袈裟，也會比欲心馳騁的出家人更為人所重；或者不為人所重，但春服既成，景物斯和，偶影獨游，亦欣慨交心。正如陶潛的《時運》一詩：

邁邁時運，穆穆良朝。襲我春服，薄言東郊。

山滌餘靄，宇曖微霄。有風自南，翼彼新苗。

想起小時候過年時穿新衣服的感覺，不正像蝴蝶破繭而出嗎？

台客宅男敗犬

2009-07-26T09:33:00.012+08:00

Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on. Every day our garments become more assimilated to ourselves, receiving the impress of the wearer's character, until we hesitate to lay them aside without such delay and medical appliances and some such solemnity even as our bodies. No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience. But even if the rent is not mended, perhaps the worst vice betrayed is improvidence. I sometimes try my acquaintances by such tests as this — Who could wear a patch, or two extra seams only, over the knee? Most behave as if they believed that their prospects for life would be ruined if they should do it. It would be easier for them to hobble to town with a broken leg than with a broken pantaloon. Often if an accident happens to a gentleman's legs, they can be mended; but if a similar accident happens to the legs of his pantaloons, there is no help for it; for he considers, not what is truly respectable, but what is respected.

我們這個地方的多樣性是朝著梭羅的思考在走的 -- 除了政治人物和老人家以外；只是步調稍嫌慢了一點。政論節目是銀髮族的最愛，這是有民調根據的；所以那些在電視上評論政治的名嘴才是名符其實的啃老族。梭羅所熟識的人認為如果穿著有補丁的褲子在街上走被看到，那麼一輩子就毀了。我們現在不會這樣了；雖然不是每個人都敢於自稱是台客宅男敗犬，但大部份的人並不怕被歸類於哪一族，有些人還自詡為某一族類代表。什麼時後從中國來的住民也能像台客原住民那樣，自豪於自己的根源，而不因自身是少數族類而自妄呢？既然台灣已是一個國家，那應該是沒有省這個行政區域的，但台派的老人家總是把外省人掛在嘴上罵個不停，一點不覺得有什麼矛盾的地方；他們老糊塗不是很明顯嗎？但是他們總是喜歡說我們已經老了，這麼上街頭拼是為了下一代，可是年輕人都還不曉得覺醒。如果是這樣，他們的"下一代"怎麼感受不到，不陪著他們一起出來，讓"家中的寶"這麼日曬雨淋？可是當要這些老人家少用一個塑膠袋，為後代的人想一想，他們卻死也不肯！從來沒想到他們下一代最大的問題正是他們自己。

修行

2009-07-20T09:32:00.005+08:00

如果我的看法沒錯，這就是梭羅的修行方式：

每天早上，試圖幫太陽自地表昇起
幫風傳遞消息
傍晚站在山頂給太陽送行
當義務的巡山員，保持林中道路的暢通
照顧牧場周圍的野生動物
幫一些野生植物澆水，以免它們在旱季枯萎

但是，每個人的體質不同，造化因緣也不同；所以你無須削足適履，刻意使用梭羅的修行方式。如果你知道在你的職位上可以盡情施展你的才能，那麼你也無須服用梭羅所開的藥方。

BIG PAPI

2009-07-18T09:44:00.015+08:00

老爹是我的小狗的名字，取自於大聯盟紅襪隊David Ortiz的外號；因為他們都長的黑黑壯壯的。2007年中出生，雖然不知道確實的出生日期，但從小就註定要成為一隻了不起的“犬物“。牠堅強而具有勇氣，不論上天或者入地都沒問題；每每能從生活中獲取靈感，並像對待愛人那樣小心呵護，不讓那些靈感輕易溜走。

老爹把我每天帶牠出去當作一天最重要的事；只要看到我穿起準備要出門的褲子，就興奮的轉圈跳躍。我並沒有為他的興奮付出什麼；反而是牠給我機會讓我離開電腦桌前，到戶外透一口氣，看看文化中心廣場上的夜空，或者到新光碼頭聽聽海風帶來什麼遠方的訊息；若是風向轉了，也順便麻煩它幫我捎個回文。

If I should attempt to tell how I have desired to spend my life in years past, it would probably surprise those of my readers who are somewhat acquainted with its actual history; it would certainly astonish those who know nothing about it. I will only hint at some of the enterprises which I have cherished.

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate.

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.

我們每個人都有曾失去的，而當我們跟其他人提起時，如果他是一個「同人」，就會心有戚戚；五年級同學共有的記憶，豈是七年級以後的學生可以瞭解。曾經對一個朋友說，常常不確定一個人在國外讀書的時候留下的回憶到底是真的還是夢境，或是自己後來想像的；因為沒有其他人共同參與，無法求証。但是那些刻在手杖裡的記錄，實在清晰，難以磨滅。我的朋友說，她知道我的感覺。

哲學家

2009-07-16T23:25:00.007+08:00

At the present day, and in this country, as I find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, lamplight, stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost. Yet some, not wise, go to the other side of the globe, to barbarous and unhealthy regions, and devote themselves to trade for ten or twenty years, in order that they may live — that is, keep comfortably warm — and die in New England at last. The luxuriously rich are not simply kept comfortably warm, but unnaturally hot; as I implied before, they are cooked, of course à la mode.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor. The ancient philosophers, Chinese, Hindoo, Persian, and Greek, were a class than which none has been poorer in outward riches, none so rich in inward. We know not much about them. It is remarkable that we know so much of them as we do. The same is true of the more modern reformers and benefactors of their race. None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty. Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art.

現在，在台灣這個國家，很少聽過餓死人的；但是大部份的人卻活在恐懼之中，害怕自己退休後沒錢用。據說，我們的國家有免於恐懼的自由。如果這麼說你還是不能安心，那你可以遷到更暖的南部來；這裡不但氣候暖，人心也暖。只要你不為自己設限，要保持你體內的生機熱應該是沒問題。我並不敢要求每個人都要變成哲學家，但是當哲學家就不要想成為樂透頭彩得主；這兩者你只能選擇一個。一個過著神仙般生活的人，對實相不會有所領悟，更不會想要解脫；人們總以為登高才能眺遠，但人類生命中的難題還是得在地面上解決。

孤獨

2009-07-15T09:44:00.024+08:00

I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. The incessant anxiety and strain of some is a well-nigh incurable form of disease. We are made to exaggerate the importance of what work we do; and yet how much is not done by us! or, what if we had been taken sick? How vigilant we are! determined not to live by faith if we can avoid it; all the day long on the alert, at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to uncertainties. So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, "To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge." When one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that basis.

無論你是富翁還是乞丐，孤獨的感受不會不同，而且不是身邊圍繞著一群人就不會感到孤獨。但是我們也常會有喜歡一個人不被打擾的時候。人類所能完成的偉大之作沒有一件不是獨自完成的。因為偉大的東西超越是非，只有偉大的心靈能夠產生，不能忍受任何的遷就。詩人 Tennyson 說：

I held it truth, with him who sings

To one clear harp in diver tones,

That men may rise on stepping-stones

Of their dead selves to higher things.

從他伴著清揚的豎琴聲中所唱的,

我以為正是如此的調調 ──

人可以踩在槁木死灰的自身所砌成的石階上,

昇華成更高一點的玩意兒。

為了看《莊子》我得要去啃深澀的文言文，為了看原文的《湖濱散記》也讓我吃盡苦頭；這一切都是值得的嗎？難道沒有更好的事該做？會不會因為這樣而讓我更加孤獨呢？其實清晨的陽光可以輕易的將這些念頭一掃而空。這並沒有什麼深刻的道理，只是衪讓你覺得你可以這樣過下去。太陽不是也這麼來來去去的過了千百億年嗎？尼采說，若是沒有萬物來承受陽光的照射，衪也會為自己的偉大感到厭煩。這就是尼采瘋狂的原因。太陽對我說了：『怎麼會呢？這真是想太多了。』

人的內心與腦的容量一樣，並不是無限的大；只要真誠地對身外之物投注一些關心，就可以減少對自己過度的憂慮；這就是大乘佛教的菩提心。傳說以前柴山上的彌猴在每年北風開始刮起的時候就會成羣的遷徒到大崗山避寒。後來因遷徒的路線給建了房子，開了道路，猴子就不再過去了。我想也有可能是因為溫室效應，高雄的氣候愈來愈暖，根本就無需避冬了。

1862年，史溫侯發表《福爾摩沙的哺乳類》一書，為台灣彌猴命名為Macaca cyclopis，是台灣島上除了人類之外，唯一的靈長類。這一年，也是梭羅過世的那一年。這個事件，梭羅應是不知道的。也許史溫侯也不知道梭羅這個人吧！不過他們的生命卻透過達爾文有了連結。梭羅引述自然學家達爾文的話說，住在南美洲火地群島(Tierra del Fuego)這個地方的人，因為常年居住在寒冷之地，一點都不怕冷；當達爾文和他的一夥人圍在火堆旁取暖還覺得冷的要命，那些人卻躲的遠遠的，光著身子，揮汗如雨。儘管每個人一生的際遇各有不同，卻都必須過這一生。而我們雖不是自願來到這世上，又要靠自己才能生存下去－－這顯然很不合理。人一出生既然就要接受這種不合理性，為什麼有些人一定要窮盡一生去謀求人類社會的合理性，為那些火地群島的居民製作衣物呢？莊子說：『知其無可奈何，安之若命。』又說：『古之真人，不知說生，不知惡死，… 不忘其所始，不求其所終；受而喜之，忘而復之，是之謂不以心損道，不以人助天，是之謂真人。』-- 這就是真正的覺悟，這就成就了菩提！

註：達爾文於1859年10月在倫敦出版了《物種起源》。隔年2月，梭羅讀到了該書美國首版，是最早閱讀這本書的美國人之一。

人生的目的

2009-07-13T10:28:00.019+08:00

Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests?

據說現在台北年輕人認為人生的目的就是繳房貸和養小孩。雖然我不認為人生有什麼目的，但這樣的人生會比沒有目的的人生好嗎？長遠來說，人的目標是什麼，你就會達到什麼。這一代不成功，下一代總會成功；所以很多人正繳著上一代留下來的房貸。事實上他們人生的目的就只有繳房貸，如果他們的下一代不跟著繳，就發覺自己是白活了。我的父母親作了一輩子這種意見的奴隸和囚徒，還希望我繼續跟著他們這樣作，真是夠了！他們可以對著不同政治立場的言論義憤填膺，但在經濟之神面前卻鬼祟畏縮，惶惶不可終日，一點都不覺得自己有什麼不妥。若說經濟不是命運的同義詞那又怎麼會這樣？然而，如果經濟之神賣的了錢，他們也是可以把它拿去市場上賣的。

不是說相由心生嗎？梭羅說：What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. 難道這就是我們的命運，還是我們可以掌握自己的命運，讓經濟只是經濟？給我貧窮，讓我可以享用真正的財富！

在城市安居

2009-07-12T09:38:00.021+08:00

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

年紀愈大，也就愈孤獨，因為老人的名字就叫孤獨。由於台灣人的共業，許多老人不但孤獨，而且已經活在無間的地獄中受苦。他們被來自異域的夜叉看守著，偶爾坐在刑車上到牢籠外透氣，但多半是躺在暗無天日的房間裡，身形逐漸消瘦，令人不忍卒賭。這樣的地獄幾乎家家戶戶都有一個，可是人人都認為自己以後不會和他的長輩一樣，而是會快快活活的上天堂。稍有一點警覺性的就每天早起到公園運動，注重飲食養生，然後把自己的日後交給不可知的天意。不知即時強健自己的心志，讓自己可以死得其所；只知道儲存那蛾子會吃的，鏽會爛的，小偷會偷的財物，而不知道匹夫不可奪志也！

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance — which his growth requires — who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

生活在台灣，這個相對來說比較自由的國家，大部份的人卻仍為不必要的瑣事纒身，無法親自去摘取生命中最美好的果實；尤其是上班族，根本沒有能力和空閒去維持人格的一致性、與人維持最基本的真誠關係；因為一旦他這麼做，他的勞力在市場上就會貶值。所以，在勞動市場上可以保持人格一致的人，往往是卑劣的。

現在“經濟“這兩個字就是“命運“的同義詞。一個人沒了頭路就好像犯了什麼不可饒恕的罪似的。貪婪自私卻和英雄好漢畫上等號；為了賺錢而卑躬屈膝也成為一種美德、一種時尚。什麼時候銅臭味變香了？如果天使或是神仙知道人類這麼糟蹋與生俱來的感官知覺會怎麼想？因為他們是沒有這些的。他們之所以會想下凡塵來不正是因為只有人類才有的感知嗎？可是天使和神仙要錢幹什麼呢？他們想要多少就有多少。可以用錢買的東西只會使我們對於痛苦更加麻木不仁而已。就好像”爛蘋果日報”一樣，因為它的新聞都腐朽了，也只能腐蝕人心。生活在糞池中的蛆是聞不出它的臭的。也許「做人太苦，成仙太難」，人類只好這麼逃避？但是神仙如果知道下凡來要變成這樣，那寧可讓祂安樂死吧！

"The false society of men —
— for earthly greatness
All heavenly comforts rarefies to air."

"愚癡的人們 —
— 為了塵世的所謂美好
任由上天的賞賜化為烏有。"

高雄

2009-07-11T16:45:00.005+08:00

I would fain say something, not so much concerning the Chinese and Sandwich Islanders as you who read these pages, who are said to live in New England; something about your condition, especially your outward condition or circumstances in this world, in this town, what it is, whether it is necessary that it be as bad as it is, whether it cannot be improved as well as not.
（此段話在梭羅1845年12月25日的日記中第一次寫到。）

Walden 2.0也不打算談中國人或者夏威夷人，雖然我對這兩種人都很有興趣。有些住在這裡的人對中國仍然有所依戀；那我也要求他大膽的去做，把他的根真正植在那塊地方，而不是只在這裡幻想。會對這個部落格有興趣的，應該是想在這個稱為寶島的地方安居的人，想要讓這個地方更適合人居的人。即使有一天這個地方歸中國政府管轄，我還是這麼認為；因為敵人攻進城來，我依然可以從容不迫，兩手空空的走進山裡去，等到城裡適合人居時再回來。百萬富翁有百萬富翁的煩惱，億萬富翁有億萬富翁的煩惱，真正覺悟的人則沒有煩惱。

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of.

繼承5000年的文化遺產真有這麼好嗎？還是一種不幸？看看那些對中國仍有所依戀的台灣人，要他們捨棄這些文化遺產當真不是這麼容易！若是我們生出來就是在一個開放的環境下受教育，那應該能看清這些文化遺產的真相。為什麼一定要背著復興中華民族及文化的包袱過活？400年的台灣史對我來說也太多了。

ECONOMY

2009-07-11T10:26:00.001+08:00

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.

這個部落格裡所貼出來的東西，大部分是我住在高雄市廣州一街，靠近文化中心的一棟二樓三的透天厝時所寫下的。這棟房子是我父母親的，樓下及半樓仔租給機車行作生意，我則可以使用二樓及厝尾頂。我靠著為朋友打打零工過活，日子還過的去。

由於收入少，所以儘量回去吃父母親的。這樣似乎有點像所謂的啃老族；然而，因為他們不差我一個吃，只要時時做點勞動服務當作回報就行。父母親住的地方離我的住處僅兩條街，通常騎自行車往返兩處。一個人住有時會覺得孤單；但孤單對我來說一直都不是太大的問題，更何況我還有一隻土狗相陪。

梭羅要求每個寫作的人都應該為自己的一生作一簡單而真實的描述；就好像你寫信給遠方的友人信裡會描述的一般。因為，梭羅說，如果你想要日子過的真實，那一定要住在遠方。