Sunday, December 22, 2013

一念天堂,雖死猶生

冬至。

每年大概這個時候,都會夢見父親的。「因為」下星期是父親的生日(生忌)。「因為」要括住,因為那不是一個站得住脚的原因。

如果是一個基督徒,你會説,那是聖神的提示,要我到已經在天堂「歎緊世界」的父親留在世上的地方探望一下他。相信傳統中國民間宗教的會説那是他托夢提醒我要冬至「祭祖」。倘若認為心理科學可以解釋人類一切行為,那是我濳意識内的「日記」提醒了我,冬至到了,離父親生忌不遠矣。

剛離世的彼德奥圖,他有一部較少人知的電影 The Ruling Class,他是一個癲佬貴族,以為自己是耶稣,但於我印象最深刻的開場時一個心理醫生的説話,「不要跟我要答案,我只給予解釋」。姑勿論是甚麽原因,唯心唯物,都是我們嘗試在這個複雜的世界裡作出一些簡單讓人可以明白解釋而已,所以,原因其實無甚重要,重要的是今天我要去探望父親。

天氣那麽好,買了幾朵小青菊,到長沙灣的墳場,步上一段階梯,見到爸爸的相片,仍然是西裝筆挺的模樣,是我見慣了的他。這裡人是那麽少,空氣是那麽清新,回頭一望,密密麻麻的墓碑,滿山十架聖像,不遠的山上有洋樓幾棟,一幅寂靜而安祥的圖畫,逝者的無言,彷如最近天國的一處,心裡有一總説不出來的舒服。如果這就是天堂,我願意留下來啊。




網上部落友人分享了 Ennio Morricone 為電影《戰火浮生》 The Mission 的原聲音樂演奏。電影非常震撼,音樂非常震撼。兩個耶稣會傳教士和南美原居民跟殖民者抗爭,最後和他們一同殉道,電影末教會認為事件解决了,紅衣主教呈報教宗,他説出了心底的一句,

So, your Holiness, now you priests turned dead, but I am left alive. In truth it is I who am dead and they who live. For as always, your Holiness, the spirit of the dead will survive in the memory of the living.

『一念天堂,雖死猶生』。

電影的主題曲恰巧名為 On Earth as it is in Heaven,正是那下午那一刹的心情,用來作結。

也祝願各位好友聖誕快樂。



8 comments:

  1. Christmas and Winter Solstice are both days when one thinks about renewing family bonds. Originally we're given "holidays" so that we may think about our relation with the Christian God, who gave away his own's son's life to save mankind from the wrongs they did to one another, theologically called "sin". We're told we are born with a blemished beginning: we are said to be tainted with "original sin",the sin committed by the first man and the first woman. In Christmas, we are given a holiday to reflect on re-establishing our bond with God, who is thought to give us first a death to our inequitous profane past and then a rebirth into a new life of the spirit, one united to the almighty, all knowing, all perfect and all loving God and if we persist in our new path, eventually to eternal glory in heaven, a place of infinite bliss. Today Christmas has become a "break" from incessant toiling under the break-neck speed of maximization of profit under the intrinsic logic of capitalist economy so that we may pay for the ever accelerating momentum of change in the relevant fad for "innovative" products for mass consumption and the cycle of production, saving, consumption, production, saving,.... which like Ouroboro, feeds upon itself. Under such a mindless cycle of production, saving and consumption, we accumulate not only "material wealth" but a harvest of crops of endless competition in the rat race for one-upmanship, masses and masses of social derelicts in mental hospitals, heart-surgeries in the operating theatres, all kinds of previously unknown carsinoma, non-existent family life, it may not be a bad thing at all, that we stop a little amongst the eternal silence of the deceased who are no longer subject to the kind of inhuman pressures pressures generated by our present way of life under the dominant capitalist ideology which has conquered even two of the oldest and most populous civilizations, India and China which appear to be thrusting themselves headlong into that same mindless game for nominal per capita GDP growth along with the apparently unstoppable pace of globalization. No wonder you felt that peace which perhaps now, can only be found by those who have stepped out of this world hurtling towards its faster and faster cycles of "booms and bursts..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Regrettably only few can stop and start thinking about the meaning of Christmas and about the meaning of the endless cycle of wealth-chasing. Most around us still believe that the hustle and bustle is all they have in their life. They wrongly prioritise this over their family and other things truly important to them. Perhaps it gives them some peaceful moments when they go hear the mass or pay respect to their ancestors; then they can introspect more and realise what the meaning of life is. So some quiet, private moment is very important for us.

      Delete
  2. Ennio Morricone is one of the best movie sound track composers around. He never disappoints!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, absolutely. I love his Cinema Paradiso very much too

      Delete
  3. 節日懷人自然的事。Clemente兄慎終追遠, 有此份孝心, 想令尊在天亦必莞爾而笑矣。
    祝節日愉快, 身體安康!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 也祝願 Peter 兄,來年身體健康,平安,愉快。

      Delete
  4. 聽過最好的讚美說話:若果有天堂,現在我就在天堂裏。

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 人的天堂就在心坎之中。這也是最難做到的事。一念天堂,之後又要面對現實生活,對一些人來説生活猶如地獄,如果真能每一天都感覺自己活在天堂之中,就是福樂,就是覺悟。

      Delete