慈濟的慈善事業

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？令慈濟人最悲哀的不是他們對世人苦難的大悲心，而是他們自己的無明。

如何選擇職業？

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.

1. 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。
2. 在衣著和交通無需額外的費用。
3. 不要賠上了你的思想及信仰。
4. 無需分散太多心力於其上，而可專心於自己想做的事物。
5. 最好不要從商；因為交易的行為會在交易的物品中下符咒。
6. 考慮自己的自由。
7. 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。
8. 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。
9. 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」

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

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

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