袈 裟

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

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

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

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。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

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。