播 種

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。