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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

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

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：

1. 絕對的節約 a rigid economy.
2. 比斯巴達還要嚴格的單純生活 a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life.
3. 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

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

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。