名著精讀:《悉達多》 沙門(1)

"You have come," said Siddhartha and smiled.

"I have come," said Govinda.

WITH THE SAMANAS

In the evening of this day they caught up with the ascetics, the skinny Samanas, and offered them their companionship and--obedience. They were accepted.

Siddhartha gave his garments to a poor Brahman in the street. He wore nothing more than the loincloth and the earth-coloured, unsown cloak. He ate only once a day, and never something cooked. He fasted for fifteen days. He fasted for twenty-eight days. The flesh waned from his thighs and cheeks. Feverish dreams flickered from his enlarged eyes, long nails grew slowly on his parched fingers and a dry, shaggy beard grew on his chin. His glance turned to icy when he encountered women; his mouth twitched with contempt, when he walked through a city of nicely dressed people. He saw merchants trading, princes hunting, mourners wailing for their dead, whores offering themselves, physicians trying to help the sick, priests determining the most suitable day for seeding, lovers loving, mothers nursing their children--and all of this was not worthy of one look from his eye, it all lied, it all stank, it all stank of lies, it all pretended to be meaningful and joyful and beautiful, and it all was just concealed putrefaction. The world tasted bitter. Life was torture.

A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.

Silently, Siddhartha exposed himself to burning rays of the sun directly above, glowing with pain, glowing with thirst, and stood there, until he neither felt any pain nor thirst any more. Silently, he stood there in the rainy season, from his hair the water was dripping over freezing shoulders, over freezing hips and legs, and the penitent stood there, until he could not feel the cold in his shoulders and legs any more, until they were silent, until they were quiet. Silently, he cowered in the thorny bushes, blood dripped from the burning skin, from festering wounds dripped pus, and Siddhartha stayed rigidly, stayed motionless, until no blood flowed any more, until nothing stung any more, until nothing burned any more.

Siddhartha sat upright and learned to breathe sparingly, learned to get along with only few breathes, learned to stop breathing. He learned, beginning with the breath, to calm the beat of his heart, leaned to reduce the beats of his heart, until they were only a few and almost none.

Instructed by the oldest if the Samanas, Siddhartha practised self-denial, practised meditation, according to a new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest--and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, was blown across the fields. And Siddhartha's soul returned, had died, had decayed, was scattered as dust, had tasted the gloomy intoxication of the cycle, awaited in new thirst like a hunter in the gap, where he could escape from the cycle, where the end of the causes, where an eternity without suffering began. He killed his senses, he killed his memory, he slipped out of his self into thousands of other forms, was an animal, was carrion, was stone, was wood, was water, and awoke every time to find his old self again, sun shone or moon, was his self again, turned round in the cycle, felt thirst, overcame the thirst, felt new thirst.

Siddhartha learned a lot when he was with the Samanas, many ways leading away from the self he learned to go. He went the way of self-denial by means of pain, through voluntarily suffering and overcoming pain, hunger, thirst, tiredness. He went the way of self-denial by means of meditation, through imagining the mind to be void of all conceptions. These and other ways he learned to go, a thousand times he left his self, for hours and days he remained in the non-self. But though the ways led away from the self, their end nevertheless always led back to the self. Though Siddhartha fled from the self a thousand times, stayed in nothingness, stayed in the animal, in the stone, the return was inevitable, inescapable was the hour, when he found himself back in the sunshine or in the moonlight, in the shade or in the rain, and was once again his self and Siddhartha, and again felt the agony of the cycle which had been forced upon him.

“你來了。”席特哈爾塔說，微微一笑。

“我來了。”戈文達說。

和沙門在一起

這天晚上，他們追上了那幾個苦行僧，那幾個枯瘦的沙門，表示願意跟他們同行並服從他們，因而被接納了。

席特哈爾塔把自己的衣服送給了街上的一個窮婆羅門。他只系一條遮羞帶，身披沒有縫過的土色斗篷。他每天只吃一餐，而且從來不吃煮過的食物。他齋戒了十五天。他齋戒了二十八天。他腿上和臉上的肉都逐漸消失了。熱烈的夢想在他那顯然變大的眼睛裏閃爍，枯瘦的手指上長出了長長的指甲，下巴上也長出了乾枯、蓬亂的鬍子。他遇見女人時目光變得冷冰冰，穿過城市碰到穿戴華麗的人時就輕蔑地撇撇嘴。他看見商販做買賣，貴族外出打獵，服喪者爲死人哀哭，妓女賣弄色相，醫生診治病人，僧侶擇定播種的日子，變人相親相愛，母親給孩子餵奶——然而，他對這一切又不屑一顧，一切都是欺騙，一切都是臭哄哄的，一切都散發着謊言的惡臭，一切都僞裝成高雅、幸福和美好的樣子，一切都在腐爛變質。世界的味道真苦澀，生活就是煩惱。

席特哈爾塔眼前有一個目標，一個唯一的目標，那就是萬事皆空，沒有渴求，沒有願望，沒有夢想，也沒有苦和樂。自動消亡，不再有自我，爲變空的心覓得安寧，在捨棄自我的思索中等着奇蹟出現，這就是他的目標。如果整個自我都被克服了消亡了，如果心中的慾望和本能都已沉寂，那麼，最後的東西，那個不再是自我的內在本性，那個大祕密，就會覺醒。

席特哈爾塔默默地站在直射的烈日下，疼痛得厲害，乾渴得厲害，一直站到他不再感覺到疼痛和乾渴。雨季裏，他默默地站在雨中，水珠從他的頭髮滴落到冰冷的肩膀上，滴落到冰冷的腰上和腿上，這個懺悔者卻站着不動，直到雙肩和兩腿都不再感覺到冷，直到它們麻木，直到它們平靜下來。他默默地蹲在荊棘叢中，灼痛的皮膚淌出了血，潰爛的傷口流出了膿，席特哈爾塔木然地蹲着，一動不動地蹲着，直到不再出血，直到不再針扎般疼痛，直到不再燒灼般疼痛。

席特哈爾塔挺直地坐着，學習節省呼吸，學習稍加呼吸即可，學習屏住呼吸。他由呼吸開始，進而學習平定心跳，學習減少心跳的次數，一直到很少甚至幾乎沒有了心路。

席特哈爾塔受年紀最老的那個沙門指教，練習擺脫自我，練習專心潛修，按照新的沙門規矩來苦練。一隻鷺鳥飛過竹林——席特哈爾塔讓靈魂鑽入了鷺鳥，飛越森林和山脈。他變成了鷺鳥，吞吃鮮魚，像鷺鳥那樣捱餓，發出鷺鳥的啼叫聲，像鷺鳥那樣死去。一隻死狼躺在沙岸上。席特哈爾塔的靈魂鑽進了那具屍體，變成了死狼，躺在沙灘上，膨脹，發臭，腐爛，被鬣狗撕碎，被兀鷹啄食，變成了骨架，化作塵土，吹散到原野裏。席特哈爾塔的靈魂又回來了，經過了死亡、腐爛和塵化，已經堂到了輪迴的可怕滋味，在新的渴望中就像一個獵手那樣期待着衝出缺口，以逃脫這種輪迴，一直找到起因的盡頭，從而開始無痛苦的永恆。他破壞了自己的知覺，破壞了自己的記憶，從自我變成成千上萬種陌生的形象，變成了動物、腐屍、石頭、木頭和水，但每次又總是重新醒來，太陽或者月亮當空，他重新變成自我，在這種徨中搖擺晃動，感到乾渴，克服乾渴，又感到新的乾渴。

席特哈爾塔從沙門那兒學到了很多東西，他學會了從自我出發走許多條路。他經歷了痛苦，經歷了自願受的痛苦，克服了痛苦、飢渴與睏乏。他通過冥思苦想，通過對各種想法的含義進行空想，走上了擺脫自我之路熗 學會了走這些路以及別的路，千百次地擺脫他的自我，在非我中逗留幾個鐘頭乃至幾天。可是，儘管這些路都是從自我出發的，其終點卻又總是回到自我。雖然席特哈爾塔千百次地逃離自我，在虛無中留連，在動物、石頭中留連，迴歸卻是無可避免的，重新尋獲自己的時刻是逃脫不了的，不論是在陽光下還晨月光下，不論是在樹蔭裏還是在雨中，他重又變成了自我和席特哈爾塔，重又感覺到承受輪迴的痛苦。