台灣獨立紀念日

The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length, for convenience putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.

註：梭羅於1845年三月底起造湖邊小屋，7月4日(美國獨立紀念日)正式入厝。

當我讀到這裡時，很不幸的，台灣正處於近幾年來最不獨立的年代，最令人氣餒的年代。雖然我希望像梭羅一樣，學公雞在清晨引頸高啼，試圖喚醒我的國人：盡可能的作一個自由自在的人，不要委身於任何東西 －－ 不論是美國，日本，還是中國。並不是如憤青一般高唱台灣民族主義，只是站在一個台灣人的立場，真誠地喜愛他的國家與國內的事物。但是要聽的耳朵太少。

補充詩：庚戍歲九月中於西田穫早稻

I read in the Gulistan, or Flower Garden, of Sheik Sadi of Shiraz, that "they asked a wise man, saying: Of the many celebrated trees which the Most High God has created lofty and umbrageous, they call none azad, or free, excepting the cypress, which bears no fruit; what mystery is there in this? He replied, Each has its appropriate produce, and appointed season, during the continuance of which it is fresh and blooming, and during their absence dry and withered; to neither of which states is the cypress exposed, being always flourishing; and of this nature are the azads, or religious independents. — Fix not thy heart on that which is transitory; for the Dijlah, or Tigris, will continue to flow through Bagdad after the race of caliphs is extinct: if thy hand has plenty, be liberal as the date tree; but if it affords nothing to give away, be an azad, or free man, like the cypress."

莫留心於短暫無常之事物 －－
因為繁華過盡，逝水如斯。

若是你家道殷實，要如棗樹般慷慨大方；
若是你囊篋俱乏，應似柏樹般了無罣礙。


註：《Flower Garden》，真境花園，13世紀阿拉伯著名穆斯林詩人、蘇菲主義學者薩迪 (Sadi，1213—1291)著。


補充詩：庚戍歲九月中於西田穫早稻

人生歸有道，衣食固其端．孰是都不營，而以求自安．

開春理常業，歲功聊可觀．晨出肆微勤，日入負耒還．

山中饒霜露，風氣亦先寒．田家豈不苦？弗獲辭此難．

四體誠乃疲，庶無異患干．盥濯息簷下，斗酒散襟顏．

遙遙沮溺心，千載乃相關．但願長如此，躬耕非所歎．

--　陶 潛

經濟問題可以是枝微末節的事，但卻不可以因之棄之不顧。

如果開春就按步就班的下田，一年下來的收獲也會很可觀．

透早就出門，到了日落才回家；山中的霜露讓氣候冷得早．

（甭怕田水冷酸酸）

作田的豈不艱苦？但是這是免不了的．

雖然四肢疲憊，至少心安理得，不用害怕意外的麻煩．

在簷下洗濯乾淨，就可小酌一番，散盡一天的辛勞．

古代先賢的心，竟然就在此時向我揭露，告訴我他們就是這樣想的．

希望可以一直這樣下去，而不是說有什麼遺憾才這麼做．

The holiest son of God

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology. My excuse for not lecturing against the use of tobacco is, that I never chewed it, that is a penalty which reformed tobacco-chewers have to pay; though there are things enough I have chewed which I could lecture against. If you should ever be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing. Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. Take your time, and set about some free labor.

梭羅臨終前他的姨媽來看望他，她說：「亨利，你同上帝講和了嗎？」梭羅睜開眼說：「我好像從來也沒有和他吵過嘴呀。我從沒和他爭吵過。」

他的姨媽大概從來沒有好好看過梭羅寫的東西。梭羅爭吵的對象不是上帝，是上帝的兒子。

華 品

I would not subtract anything from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind. I do not value chiefly a man's uprightness and benevolence, which are, as it were, his stem and leaves. Those plants of whose greenness withered we make herb tea for the sick serve but a humble use, and are most employed by quacks. I want the flower and fruit of a man; that some fragrance be wafted over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse. His goodness must not be a partial and transitory act, but a constant superfluity, which costs him nothing and of which he is unconscious. This is a charity that hides a multitude of sins. The philanthropist too often surrounds mankind with the remembrance of his own castoff griefs as an atmosphere, and calls it sympathy. We should impart our courage, and not our despair, our health and ease, and not our disease, and take care that this does not spread by contagion. From what southern plains comes up the voice of wailing? Under what latitudes reside the heathen to whom we would send light? Who is that intemperate and brutal man whom we would redeem? If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even — for that is the seat of sympathy — he forthwith sets about reforming — the world. Being a microcosm himself, he discovers — and it is a true discovery, and he is the man to make it — that the world has been eating green apples; to his eyes, in fact, the globe itself is a great green apple, which there is danger awful to think of that the children of men will nibble before it is ripe; and straightway his drastic philanthropy seeks out the Esquimaux and the Patagonian, and embraces the populous Indian and Chinese villages; and thus, by a few years of philanthropic activity, the powers in the meanwhile using him for their own ends, no doubt, he cures himself of his dyspepsia, the globe acquires a faint blush on one or both of its cheeks, as if it were beginning to be ripe, and life loses its crudity and is once more sweet and wholesome to live. I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.

《法句經》第54偈：

奇草芳花，不逆風熏；近道敷開，德人逼香。

此偈意謂道德的香氣更勝於花香，能遍及於各個方向，不似花香會受風向的影響。梭羅說，他不以慈悲和正直來衡量一個人，他認為那只是人的莖和葉 －－ 他要的是人的花和果！與充滿花果香的「德人」交往應是如沐春風，或似春風化雨；給人勇氣而非悲情，給人健康及輕快(ease)而非病恙(disease)。若是我們的慈善團體多的是這樣的人，吳念真的妹妹也不會覺得無處可逃，寧可一個人忍受痛苦。台灣佛教徒所強調的大悲心，其實只是佛教教義的莖和葉。讓這些在世界各地救苦救難的菩薩們最痛心的不在苦難的世人，而在他們自己的病恙。若是有一天他的病體得癒，春天走向他、晨光重臨他的床榻，他會毫不猶豫地向他的同修道別，連一聲抱歉也沒有。

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。