Session 02 · 深層無聊與呼吸 · Meditative Humanities

不與萬法為侶者，是什麼人？ Who is it that keeps no company with the ten thousand things?

龐居士問馬祖道一 · Layman Pang asks Mazu Daoyi

這節課探問：無聊是什麼？不是日常意義的「無事可做」，而是一種深層的精神鬆弛——一種我們在現代世界中幾乎已失去的能力。 This session explores a question: what is boredom? Not the trivial kind — nothing to do — but a deep mental relaxation: a capacity we have nearly lost.

I · 被趕出自身 Banished from Oneself

1924年，克拉考爾在威瑪德國診斷了一種疾病：人們越來越無法與自己同在。不是因為痛苦，而是因為——工具。點擊以下三張卡，了解他所描述的三種「趕走」機制。 In 1924, Kracauer diagnosed a modern affliction: people have lost the ability to be with themselves — not because of suffering, but because of instruments. Tap each card to see the three mechanisms he identified.

01
廣告
Advertisement

"Illuminated words glide by on the rooftops, and one is banished from one's own emptiness into the alien advertisement… one's spirit – which is no longer one's own – [roams] the night and into the night."

「發光的文字從屋頂滑過，人從自身的空虛中被驅逐進入陌生的廣告之中……一個人的精神——已不再是自己的——在黑夜與黑夜之間遊蕩。」
02
電影
Cinema

"Should the spirit by chance return at some point, it soon takes its leave in order to allow itself to be cranked away in various guises in a movie theater… And once the images begin to emerge one after another, there is nothing left in the world besides their evanescence. One forgets oneself in the process of gawking, and the huge dark hole is animated with the illusion of a life that belongs to no one and exhausts everyone."

「萬一精神偶然回來，它很快又告別了自己，讓自己在電影院中以各種形式被搖晃而去……影像一個接一個湧現時，世界上就只剩下它們的消逝。在凝視的過程中，人忘了自己，那巨大的黑暗洞穴被一種不屬於任何人、卻耗盡所有人的生命幻象所充填。」
03
無線電廣播
Radio

"Radio likewise vaporizes beings, even before they have intercepted a single spark. Since many people feel compelled to broadcast, one finds oneself in a state of permanent receptivity, constantly pregnant with London, the Eiffel Tower, and Berlin… Silent and lifeless, people sit side by side as if their souls were wandering about far away."

「無線電同樣蒸發了人的存在，甚至在截獲任何一個火花之前。廣播迫使人進入一種永久接收的狀態，不斷地懷著倫敦、埃菲爾鐵塔和柏林……寂靜而毫無生氣，人們並排而坐，彷彿他們的靈魂在遠方遊蕩。」
人被不斷地推進嘈雜的漩渦之中，直到沒有人再知道自己的頭在哪裡，而那種讓人重新找回頭的非凡、激進的手段，永遠與他們保持著距離。 People are pushed deeper and deeper into the hustle and bustle until no one knows where their head is, and the extraordinary, radical means to reunite them with their heads remains eternally distant from them. — 克拉考爾〈無聊〉（1924），《大眾裝飾》，哈佛大學出版社，1995年，頁302
Siegfried Kracauer, "Boredom" (1924), The Mass Ornament, trans. Thomas Levin, Harvard UP, 1995, p.302

但如果一個人拒絕被趕走呢？ But what if one refuses to be chased away?

點開三張卡片繼續 · Tap all three cards to continue

II · 兩種無聊 Two Kinds of Boredom

俗庸無聊 · Vulgar Boredom
玻璃蚱蜢
The Glass Grasshopper
「被桌上那隻玻璃蚱蜢深深感動——它跳不起來，因為它是玻璃做的。」這是一種漫無目標的內在不安。不是真正在休息，而是在漂流。 "Sympathetically touched by the mere glass grasshopper on the tabletop that cannot jump because it is made of glass." An inner restlessness without a goal: not resting, but drifting.
深層無聊 · Profound Boredom
拉上窗簾
Draw the Curtains
在陽光明媚的午後，留在家中，拉上窗簾，將自己交給無聊。允許「只是與自己同在」。允許那份憂鬱（tristezza）。 On a sunny afternoon, stay home, draw the curtains, surrender to boredom. Allow "nothing more than to be with oneself." Allow the tristezza.
在陽光明媚、眾人都出門的午後，最好去火車站逛逛，或者更好的是，留在家中，拉上窗簾，讓自己在沙發上沉入無聊。 On a sunny afternoon when everyone is outside, one would do best to hang about in the train station or, better yet, stay at home, draw the curtains, and surrender oneself to one's boredom on the sofa. — 克拉考爾〈無聊〉，1924 · Kracauer, "Boredom," 1924
此後發生的 · What happens next
窗簾拉上之後，那些平時被排斥的念頭——浮現了，「甚至在這過程中變得相當可敬」。一個人開始無緣無故地考慮各種計畫，假裝認真。最後的境界是「做一個人自己」——一種對那種「沒有真正存在」（without really being）的疲倦。 When the curtains are drawn, ideas that are usually pushed aside appear — they "even become quite respectable in the process." One considers projects for no reason. Pretends to be serious. The deepest state: nothing more than "to be with oneself" — a weariness with existing "without really being."
如果一個人有耐心——那種只有在正當無聊中才有的耐心——就會體驗到一種幾乎超世間的喜悅。「五彩孔雀在遊走，充滿靈魂的人的意象映入眼簾。」 If one has the patience specific to legitimate boredom, one experiences a kind of bliss that is almost unearthly: "colorful peacocks strut about, and images of people suffused with soul come into view." — 克拉考爾〈無聊〉，1924 · Kracauer, "Boredom," 1924

III · 拉上窗簾 Draw the Curtains

閉上眼睛。什麼都不做。允許無聊。 Close your eyes. Do nothing. Allow boredom.

03:00
如果一個人有耐心，就會體驗到一種幾乎超世間的喜悅。 …a kind of bliss that is almost unearthly. — Kracauer, 1924
在那三分鐘的靜默中，什麼升起了？ In those three minutes of stillness, what arose?

IV · 夢之鳥 The Dream Bird

無聊是孵化經驗之卵的夢之鳥。 Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. — 班雅明〈說故事的人〉（1936）· Walter Benjamin, "The Storyteller," 1936
班雅明的診斷 · Benjamin's Diagnosis
如果睡眠是身體放鬆的頂點，那麼無聊就是精神放鬆的頂點。在這種深層無聊中，故事能被吸收、保存、重述——人獲得了「聆聽的禮物」。這種狀態在現代城市中越來越稀少：夢之鳥的巢穴正在消失。 If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. In this state, stories can be absorbed, retained, and retold — the "gift of listening" is possible. But this state is vanishing: "the dream bird's nesting places are already extinct in the cities."
韓炳哲的延伸 · Han's Extension
韓炳哲引用班雅明，並將之與當代連接：我們欠人類一切文化成就——包括哲學——於深層的、沉思的注意力。文化預設了深層注意力得以存在的環境。然而，這種沉浸式反思，正日益被一種截然不同的注意力形式所取代：超注意力。在不同任務、信息來源和過程之間的倉皇切換，構成了這種分散式意識。由於它對無聊的容忍度極低，它不允許那種有益創造過程的深層閒置。 Han extends Benjamin into the present: "We owe the cultural achievements of humanity — which include philosophy — to deep, contemplative attention. Culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible. Increasingly, such immersive reflection is being displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyperattention. A rash change of focus between different tasks, sources of information, and processes characterizes this scattered mode of awareness. Since it also has a low tolerance for boredom, it does not admit the profound idleness that benefits the creative process."
純粹的忙碌之衝不會產生任何新事物。它只是複製和加速已有之物。 A purely hectic rush produces nothing new. It reproduces and accelerates what is already available. — 韓炳哲《倦怠社會》第三章（英譯版，史丹佛大學出版社，2015）· Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, "Profound Boredom," Stanford UP, 2015
故事 · 資訊 · 公案  ·  Story · Information · Kōan
班雅明對比故事與資訊：資訊在「新」的那一刻最有價值，隨即失效。故事保存力量——幾千年後仍能激發思考。公案屬於哪一類？它拒絕立即的解釋，留下空間讓意義孵化。這正是深層無聊所做的事：拒絕給出答案，讓某些東西得以成熟。 Benjamin contrasts story and information: information has value only while it is "new," then quickly expires. Stories preserve force — they can ignite thought millennia later. Where does kōan fit? It refuses immediate explanation, leaving space for meaning to hatch. This is exactly what deep boredom does: it refuses to deliver an answer, and lets something ripen.

結 · Coda Closing

一口吸盡西江水 Drink up the waters of the West River in a single gulp — 深沉無聊的轉化

馬祖道一答龐居士 · Mazu Daoyi answers Layman Pang

龐居士問：「不與萬法為侶者，是什麼人？」
馬祖答：「待汝一口吸盡西江水，即向汝道。」 Layman Pang asked: "Who is it that keeps no company with the ten thousand things?"
Mazu replied: "Wait until you have drunk up the waters of the West River in a single gulp, and then I will tell you."
參「一口吸盡西江水」· Sit with the kōan · 15 min
15:00
這節課開始於孤獨的探索：誰能不與萬物為伍？孤獨的重點是什麼？能不能用吸盡西江水來回答？

班雅明說，一篇真正的故事不急著解釋，它留下空間，讓讀者幾千年後仍能在其中思索。馬祖的回答也是如此。深層無聊也是如此。 This session opened with a question about solitude. The closing is not an answer — it is an impossible demand. Both are the same gesture: stop running, settle down, let the question keep hatching.

Benjamin says a true story never rushes to explain — it leaves space in which a reader might still find meaning centuries later. Mazu's reply is like that. So is deep boredom.
在那種拒絕平息的無聊中，人孵化出一些與它本身一樣平凡的瑣事——但這些瑣事，卻擁有一個靈魂。 In the boredom that refuses to abate, one hatches bagatelles that are as boring as this one — but ones that possess a soul. — 克拉考爾〈無聊〉，1924年結語 · Kracauer, "Boredom," closing line, 1924