失落的「海洋女神」—反思人性的自私

Sedna，the Inuit Goddess of the Sea (The 'Lost' Goddess)---About Selfish-ness.
Sedna is a very significant figure in Inuit mythology. There are a number of different versions of the myth of Sedna. I will share with you the one I prefer.
As the legend goes, Sedna was a beautiful Inuit girl who lived with her father. She was very vain and thought she was too beautiful to marry just anyone. Time and time again she turned down hunters who came to her camp wishing to marry her. Finally one day her father said to her "Sedna, we have no food and we will go hungry soon. You need a husband to take care of you, so the next hunter who comes to ask your hand in marriage, you must marry him." Sedna ignored her father and kept brushing her hair as she looked at her reflection in the water.
Soon her father saw another hunter approaching their camp. The man was dressed elegantly in furs and appeared to be well-to-do even though his face was hidden. Sedna's father spoke to the man. "If you wish to seek a wife I have a beautiful daughter . She can cook and sew and I know she will make a good wife." Under great protest, Sedna was placed aboard of the hunters kayak and journeyed to her new home. Soon they arrived at an island. Sedna looked around. She could see nothing. No sod hut, no tent, just bare rocks and a cliff. The hunter stood before Sedna and as he pulled down his hood, he let out and evil laugh. Sedna's husband was not a man as she had thought but a storm petrel in disguise (some version tells of “a raven in disguise”). She screamed and tried to run, but the bird dragged her to a clearing on the cliff. Sedna's new home was a few tufts of animal hair and feathers strewn about on the hard, cold rock. The only food she had to eat was fish. Her husband, the storm petrel, brought raw fish to her after a day of flying off in search of food.
Sedna was very unhappy and miserable. She cried and cried and called her father's name. Through the howling arctic winds Sedna's father could hear his daughter's cries. He felt guilty for what he had done as he knew she was sad. Sedna's father decided it was time to rescue his daughter. He loaded up his kayak and paddled for days through the frigid arctic waters to his Sedna's home. When he arrived Sedna was standing on the shore. Sedna hugged her father then quickly climbed into his kayak and paddled away. After many hours of travel Sedna turned and saw a black speck far off into the distance. She felt the fear well up inside of her for she knew the speck was her angry husband flying in search of her.
The big storm petrel swooped down upon the kayak bobbing on the ocean. Sedna's father took his paddle and struck at the storm petrel but missed as the bird continued to harass them. Finally the storm petrel swooped down near the kayak and flapped his wing upon the ocean. A vicious storm began to brew. The calm arctic ocean soon became a raging torrent tossing the tiny kayak to and fro. Sedna's father became very frightened. He grabbed Sedna and threw her over the side of the kayak into the ocean. "Here, he screamed, here is your precious wife, please do not hurt me, take her."
Sedna screamed and struggled as her body began go numb in the icy arctic waters. She swam to the kayak and reached up, her fingers grasping the side of the boat. Her father, terrified by the raging storm, thought only of himself as he grabbed the paddle and began to pound against Sedna's fingers. Sedna screamed for her father to stop but to no avail. Her frozen fingers cracked and fell into the ocean. Affected by her ghastly husbands powers, Sedna's fingers while sinking to the bottom, turned into seals. Sedna attempted again to swim and cling to her father's kayak. Again he grabbed the paddle and began beating at her hands (another version mentions “Sedna even got her fingers chopped off mercilessly while clinging at the boat’s rim”). Again Sedna's hands, frozen by the arctic sea again cracked off. The stumps began to drift to the bottom of the sea, this time turned into the whales and other large mammals. Sedna could fight no more and began to sink herself.
Sedna, tourmented and raging with anger for what had happened to her, did not perish. She became, and still is today, the goddess of the sea. Sedna's companions are the whales and the seals (the seals are said to be transformed from her chopped-off fingers) and they sit with her at the bottom on the ocean. Her anger and fury against man’s selfishness is what drums up the violent seas and storms . Hunters have a great respect for her. Legend has it that they must treat her with respect. Shaman's from the world above must swim down to her to comb her long black tangled hair. This calms Sedna down. Once this is done, she releases her mammals to allow the Inuit to eat from the bounty of the sea. It is for this reason in the north that after a hunter catches a seal he drops water into the mouth of the mammal, a gesture to thank Sedna for her kindness in allowing him to feed his family.

This is the legend of Sedna.
Retrieved from http://www.hvgb.net/~sedna/story.html

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因纽特的海洋女神--賽德娜
　　很久很久以前，有一个美麗的因紐特（Inuit）女孩和自己的父親相依為命，她的名字叫做賽德娜。仗着姣好的容貌，她變得傲慢而虛榮，一次又一次地回絕了上門求婚的獵人們。後來有一天，她的父親對她說：「賽德娜，家裡的食物已经所剩不多，你還是盡快嫁人吧，那樣才有人照顧你的生活。這樣好了，無論下一個上門求婚的獵人是誰，你都必須嫁給他。」賽德娜卻對父親的話毫不理睬，只是繼續對照着自己水中的倒影梳理長長的頭髮。
　　没有幾天，他們的帳篷外就來了一個獵人。他衣着光鮮，但臉卻藏在低低的帽檐下面。賽德娜的父親走上前去對獵人說：「我有一個美麗的女兒，有一雙善於烹飪和縫補的巧手。如果先生您正準備婚娶的話，我相信她會成为您賢惠的妻子。」獵人相信了老人的話，劃着皮船把賽德娜帶回了家。
　　等到了目的地，下了船，賽德娜卻發現那裡没有草棚，也没有帳篷。她環顧四周，只見光秃秃的石頭和陡峭的悬崖。獵人在賽德娜面前摘下了帽子，他露出了自己的臉和魔鬼一樣的微笑。他根本就不是人類，而是一只偽裝好的叉尾海燕。賽德娜尖叫起来，準備轉身逃跑，卻被這只灰黑色的大鳥捉住並帶到了悬崖上的一片空地上，她的新家就建在那裡的冰冷堅硬的石堆上，堆滿了動物的皮毛。賽德娜就這樣開始了自己的新生活，每天只能以叉尾海燕黄昏帶回家的生魚為食。
　　日復一日的艱苦生活讓賽德娜變得越來越痛苦，她常常哭泣着念着父親的名字。她悲傷的哭声終於被呼嘯的北極寒風送到了父親的耳邊。他為自己曾經作的決定後悔不已，並決定把女兒救回來。他把行装準備好，然后劃着自己的皮船穿越冰冷的海洋去找自己的女兒。他到達那個島嶼的時候，女兒賽德娜就站在海岸邊，她冲上前去緊緊地擁抱自己的父親。兩人劃離島嶼，過了一會兒，賽德娜回頭望見遠處的天空出現一個黑点。她害怕起来，因為她知道，那黑点就是她憤怒的來抓她回家的丈夫。
　　叉尾海燕飛到跟前，向皮船俯冲下来。賽德娜的父親用船浆朝海燕掄過去，這只灰黑色的大鳥輕巧地躲開，繼續騷擾他們。叉尾海燕又一次飛撲下來，用翅膀拍打起冰冷的海水。一場風暴随之出現，平静的北冰洋頓時變成一股猛烈的急流，似乎要將小船撕裂。賽德娜的父親變得驚恐不安，他一把抓起賽德娜將她丢入了咆哮的海水。他叫着：「帶她走吧，請别傷害我。」

<--叉尾海燕(鸌鳥) Storm Petrel 　　

賽德娜在刺骨的海水中掙扎，身體漸漸失去了知覺。但她還是努力游向小船，並抓緊了船舷。但她胆小如鼠的父親為了自保，再一次將她推入水中，以船槳拍打她的手（另一傳說版本提到：就連賽德娜緊緊抓住船邊的手指也被無情地砍斷了）。賽德娜再也没有力氣堅持了，她任由自己冰冷的身體沉入海底。 賽德娜並没有消失，而是成為了海洋女神，在深深的北冰洋底，終日與鯨魚以及自己手指所化成的海豹為伴。她因為舊日面對男人自私自利之際遇而難以消散的盛怒化做了北極的巨浪和暴風。獵人因而對她又敬又怕。傳說只有當巫師游到海底為她梳理黑長糾結的頭髮的時候，風浪才會平息。然後，她會為獵人們放開那些海洋動物以示海洋的慷慨與博大。所以，即使到了現在，每當獵人捕獲一只海豹，他都會在海豹的口中滴入些水，向賽德娜的仁慈感恩。 這就是賽德娜的神話傳說。 後來，於2003年11月14日﹐在加州理工學院的邁克.佈朗、雙子天文臺的Chad Trujillo和耶魯大學的David Rabinowitz發現了一顆小行星，位於柯伊伯帶和奧爾特雲之間，就命名為塞德娜(Sedna)。這是由於「賽德娜」有着「失落之女神」外號的緣故，也就附和了太陽系中「第十大行星」的「失落 (被遺忘) 」身份。

故事中的哲理反思：
人類自遠古的老祖宗以來都對生命有着一股莫名的熱愛，尤其珍惜自己的性命，以致在潛意識裡總會有「貪生怕死」的劣根性種子存在，這劣根性的生命執着就是宗教所謂的「掛礙」或「我執」，以通俗話而言就叫做「自私」。其實，「自私」正是自古以來人類的最大弱點，也是「人性的最大污點」。還記得，在2001年911事件發生的那一刻，當恐怖分子襲擊紐約的世貿大樓雙峰塔時，大廈中部燃起熊熊火焰並且一層一層漸漸的坍塌下來，也有不少來不及逃生的人在面對死神逼迫之際，不想在大樓內活活地被燒死或被塌樓壓死，便從所處的高層往大樓窗口外跳，以結束自己的生命。那正是人類在被逼往死角而失去理智時，在潛意識中所作出最驚慌與痛苦的抉擇！
然而，上面這一則神話故事卻道出了「人性的自私」，那是在面臨自己生命受威脅的考驗時，所作出的、失去理智的醜陋抉擇。原本是持着與生具來的父愛，要把女兒從痛苦婚姻的魔爪中救出，可是卻在緊要關頭，又親手將女兒交還給那發狂的海燕。人性的自私使得骨肉親情也變得脆弱了，弱得不堪一擊。
孔子說的「克己復禮」應該是「克制」這個「自私」吧，也才能恢復本性的「善」！雖然這只是一則傳說，但是既然被愛斯基摩人流傳了數十個世紀那麼久了，應該含有一定程度的古人智慧或人生哲理吧，值得人們更進一步去品味與省思。相信將來在修道路程中各人所需面臨的「大考」（天理人情考、智慧考、道盤考--都是關系到各人和祖先的靈性之昇或降的、萬萬不可輕視的「大考題」），大有可能也是環繞於要修道人在面對「人性的自私」時如何作出理智的抉擇……。認理實修的人確實不得不謹慎自己的念頭，要真正做到「以大體為重」才行，定要多考量大體、少執着於一己之私。自古以來成聖成賢的修行人在修行過程中都不外是要去除這個對「小我」的執着罷了（犧牲小我--克己），也才能夠更進一步地完成「大我」--復禮。