禪定的境界

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

1. on the alert 是準備好面對各種可能發生的情況。

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

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

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

是什麼時候讓他覺得連讀書工作都是一種浪費呢？

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

幾經辛苦，他來到舍衛城。在他的再三請求下，佛陀說了幾句：

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

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

註：以上的故事節錄自 Studying Buddhism