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《菩提田》

 

BODHI FIELD

科學與性靈(續)
Science and Spirituality (continued)

馬丁‧維荷文博士 講於1997年11月加州柏克萊世界宗教研究院
A talk by Martin Verhoeven, Ph.D., at the Institute of World Religions, Berkeley Buddhist Monastery, November 1997
黃山山 中譯 Chinese translation by Huang Shanshan

當你再看看現在在做的研究工程如生命複製、基因工程食物、生化武器,對人類未來生存所帶來的威嚇,如正研製中的「癰」和「天花」的抵抗品種的生化武器,這些都足以消滅整個國家。看看這些,你就會發現宣公上人所講的話很不幸地,都言中了。

在1989年間斯里蘭卡的一位南傳和尚羅侯羅法師警告說,我們的日常生活沉浸在科學之中。他說:「我們差不多成了科技的奴隸。很快的,我們就得去崇拜它了。」他說這話時已經是二十世紀末葉,許多人已經崇拜科學了。這位老和尚觀察說:「早期的徵兆是人們想從科學那兒找到依據,去證明他們宗教信仰的正確性。」世界宗教學的一位著名學者休斯頓‧史密斯,最近在一次訪談中提出一個相似的觀點,那就是「現代宗教的具體失敗之處,在於宗教太隨順文化,而未能作適當的抵制和反影響。」史密斯先生所說的雙向擷取,是指「資料的獲取」和「對科學思想的一味屈從」。瓦波拉對這個觀點加以闡釋:「我們盡量地去給宗教尋根搜據,把它包裝得很摩登,很時髦,使之令人心生恭敬,使之易於入門。雖然這些主意是善意的,但卻是一些餿主意。科學與宗教在真理上有一些平行相似之處,如原子的性質、時間和空間的相對性,以及整體的相互關聯,相互依存的量子理論,所有這些東西都是靠內在智慧發展起來,並靠禪加以淨化的。法--或永恆的思想真理--的發現,是沒有靠任何的外在儀器的。」羅侯羅法師總結說,所以想要援引科學去證明宗教真理,是徒勞無益,沒有意義的,以科學概念之一日三變去驗證恆常不變之宗教真理是就如大相逕庭,前後顛倒。再者,他說:「科學所感興趣的只是對物質世界作精量分析和研究,是沒靈魂的,根本不知關愛、慈悲、正義和清淨心為何物,不知什麼是人類的內心世界;它只知我們身邊的外在物質世界。」

我之所以想引用原話的全文,是因為老和尚講的這段話很是擲地有聲,很越出傳統的慣例,特別是針對佛教和目前在西方無孔不入的科學的密切連繫。羅侯羅法師強調說:「相反的,宗教,尤其是佛教,著重於人類內心世界--倫理、精神、心理,和智能的發現和研究。佛教是一門從總體研究人類的精神和心理的學問。它是一種生活方式,也是一條人們遵循和奉行的道路;它教導如何培養一個人的情操,梵文稱之為「尸羅」;以及修心,稱「三摩地」;直至了悟究竟真理,稱「般若智慧」、「涅槃」。

讀到這兩段評論時,我怔住了。因為這兩位和尚都具亞洲宗教背景,在許多方面都比佛教的西方化要來得早。不像鈴木和卡勒斯那些深深地西化了的人士,一直提倡著佛教與科學的密切關係。宣公上人與瓦波拉法師都是佛教僧人,深具傳統智慧,對科學卻都冷眼看待,對西方哲學敢諸多指陳。

所以我開始重新檢驗我從《卡拉馬經》所引用的那段話--「當以良知,覺知善與非善……」,我相信這是區別佛教和現代科學的關鍵所在。這段話需要從探求道德的範疇去理解它,而不應是對西方經驗主義的簡單服從。這個「當以良知……」就已經把知識(科學),從目標和結果上,牢牢地根植於道德範圍內。它使用一種禪定式的探索方法去打通通往自然現象的本質之路。它所隱含的一個概念對科學來說是相當陌生的:知者與所知物、主體和客體、現實和價值,這些都不是純單向性的。知識的本身都不可避免地受人的倫理道德狀態的影響。有趣的是,這個觀點正是鈴木在看待現代科學時所缺少的,是他到後來才意識到的。他初至西方傳播佛教時,曾大聲讚揚佛教與西方科學之間的非比尋常的一種共鳴。直至本世紀五十年代,他的日暮之年,他的這種從「西方科學中去找尋佛教」的熱忱才漸消歇。他開始懷疑「純以科學立教的宗教」是否夠充實?他甚至看到了宗教對科學加以批評的必要。一九五九年,他對自己早期與卡勒斯和西方佛教徒達成的現代共識書中「宗教必須以科學為基石。……基督教過度地立教於神話」部份,自己加以批斥。

待續


When you look at some of the research that is now being conducted—cloning, genetically-programmed foods, and the awful prospects that biochemical weapons pose to life, for example, in developing resistant strains of anthrax and smallpox with which to wipe out entire countries—Master Hua's words have an unfortunately all-too-true ring to them.

In 1989, Venerable Walpola Rahula, a Theravadan monk from Sri Lanka, warned that daily life is being permeated by science. He cautioned, "We have almost become slaves of science and technology; soon we shall be worshipping it." This was well into the final decades of the twentieth century when many people were already worshipping science. The Venerable monk observed, "Early symptoms are that they tend to seek support from science to prove the validity of our religions." Huston Smith, the eminent scholar on the world's religions, recently made a similar point in an interview: that the failure of modern religions in the West specifically roots to their accommodation to culture, rather than exerting a countervailing influence on culture. Smith specifically saw such cooption taking place in terms of material acquisition and bowing to scientific thought. Rahula Walpola elaborated on this point: "We justify them [i.e. religions] and make them modern, up-to-date, respectable, and accessible. Although this is somewhat well-intentioned, it is ill-advised. While there are some similarities and parallel truths, such as the nature of the atom, the relativity of time and space, or the quantum view of the interdependent, interrelated whole, all these things were developed by insight and purified by meditation." Dharma, or abiding spiritual truths, were discovered without the help of any external instrument. Rahula concluded, "It is fruitless, meaningless to seek support from science to prove religious truth. It is incongruous and preposterous to depend on changing scientific concepts to prove and support perennial religious truths." Moreover, he said, "Science is interested in the precise analysis and study of the material world, and it has no heart. It knows nothing about love or compassion or righteousness or purity of mind. It doesn't know the inner world of humankind. It only knows the external, material world that surrounds us."

I want to give rather full quotes for you because this monk's viewpoint is both powerful and rather unconventional, especially in regard to the facile linking of Buddhism and science that seems so ubiquitous these days in the West. Rahula emphasized, "On the contrary, religion, particularly Buddhism, aims at the discovery and the study of humankind's inner world: ethical, spiritual, psychological, and intellectual. Buddhism is a spiritual and psychological discipline that deals with humanity in total. It is a way of life. It is a path to follow and practice. It teaches man how to develop his moral and ethical character, which in Sanskrit is sila, and to cultivate his mind, samadhi, and to realize the ultimate truth, prajna wisdom, Nirvana."

When I came upon these two comments, I had to pause, because both monks came out of the Asian tradition, and in many ways predate the "Westernization" of Buddhism. Unlike Suzuki and Carus, heavily Westernized people who had been promoting a very strong link between Buddhism and science, Masters Hua and Walpola emerged from a monastic discipline and a more traditional understanding that was less enamored of modern science and more critical of Western philosophy.

So, I started to reexamine this passage that I have quoted from the Kalamas: "When you know for yourselves what is wholesome and unwholesome..." This, I believe, holds the key to understanding the difference between Buddhism and modern science. The passage needs to be understood within a specific context of moral inquiry, and not simply as a nod to Western empiricism. This "knowing for yourself " locates knowledge ('scientia') firmly within the moral sphere, both in its aims and its outcomes. It is using a meditative form of inquiry to penetrate the ultimate nature of reality. It implies a concept quite foreign to modern science: that the knower and what is known, the subject and object, fact and value, are not merely nondual, but that knowledge itself is inescapably influenced by our moral and ethical being. Interestingly, this is exactly what Suzuki said was lacking in modern science—a position he came to over time. When he first came to the West as a missionary for Buddhism, Suzuki extolled upon the remarkable resonance between Buddhism and Western science. By the 1950's and towards the end of his life, however, that enthusiasm for identifying Buddhism with modern science waned. He came to doubt the sufficiency of a religion based on science, and even saw the need for religion to critique science. In 1959, Suzuki partially repudiated his early modernist agreement with Carus and Western Buddhists that "religion must stand on scientific grounds... that Christianity was based too much on mythology."

To be continued

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