病與禪——許渾病中抒懷與自我療癒探析

The analysis of the Sensation and Healing in Xu Hun’s Illness Poem about the relationship of Illness and Zen Buddhism

本文以晚唐詩人許渾詠病書寫為主要研究對象，分項探討其病中抒懷所流露的病困乏力與不遇寥落的情緒，以及依循南宗禪清淨無事而自我療癒的軌跡，標舉出許渾「病」與「禪」兩者相即且相離的生命情境。因此，於研究過程中考論許渾因病衰無為、病閑無事而參悟清淨自性，形成理想狀態中質樸自然之禪療進路，順其自然的雙面化解了糾結在羈宦中的病苦。反之，於禪療歷程中，若仍受到心上宦情紛起的影響，陷入身勞多事的桎梏中時，許渾刻意求隱入境，擺落躁動執著以靜心息慮的過程，實則透漏了禪療不得究竟的困局。
疾病是許渾禪療自悟的媒介，同時也寄寓了求宦艱難的情緒，因此，許渾病中禪療首先要調適的是病痛在事功糾纏中所帶來的束縛痛苦，然而，根據本文研究成果顯示，如若心沒有歸常，仍然造作於「功成終隱」的妄求取捨，先「執」了事功榮華，再「執」了居隱求靜，最終，許渾只是個禪門山林的暫棲者，而非原鄉人。許渾亦洞悉自身禪療的困境，因此，此生最苦不是病苦，而是苦於塵迷中取捨造作的自己。

This article centers around the work of the late Tang poet Xu Hun, and in particular the writings he created that expressed the pain of illness. It will explore the way in which the writings he created amidst illness reveal both his physical exhaustion as well as sense of desolation amidst professional failure and turmoil, as well as the way in which Xu Hun turned to Southern ChanBuddhism as a form of self-therapy, in which the goal was to calm the mind and body. This article will probe Xu Hun’s lived circumstances, in which “Illness” and “Chan” were intertwined in complex ways. It will illuminate the therapeutic road that Chan Buddhism provided Xu Hun, in which the state of inaction and idleness brought on by his condition of illness enabled a doubled process of enlightenment, in which a state of negativity could be turned into a positivity, asXu Hun movedtowards self-purification and an ideal state of unadorned modesty. As such, by following the natural way of things, the burdens of a career far away from home serving as an official could be allayed. However, in the course of Zen therapy, if Xu Hun was still experiencing the mental effects of the various entanglements of officialdom, shackled by the demands of worldly affairs, he would deliberately set out to immerse himself in the solitude of meditation, seeking to un-shackle himself from restless behavior in order to calm his mind and ease his anxieties. In doing so, he in fact revealed some of the unresolved challenges facing his Chan therapy.
Illness was the medium of Xu Hun’s self-realization, illness which was connected to Xu Xun’s emotions surrounding the difficulty of realizing his professional ambitions in officialdom. As such, the first thing that Xu Hun’s Chan therapy had to address was the painful sense of constraint engendered by the entanglements of career ambitions. However, the research in this paper suggests that if Xu Hun’s mind did not turn back to a normal state, if he was still trapped in the artificial and presumptuous affectations regarding his desire to “accomplish great deeds and then retire from public service in solitude,” and if he sought to first “persist” in accomplishing great deeds, and then “persist” in seeking solitude in meditation, in the end he would only succeed in being a temporary and superficial dweller within the realm of Chan Buddhism, rather than making it truly his native home. Xu Hun understood clearly such dilemmas of his Chan self-therapy. As such, the most painful thing in his life was not illness, but the affected self which emerged from the confused dust of worldly pain.