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《菩提田》

 

BODHI FIELD

在西方建立佛教教育所面臨的挑戰
Bringing Buddhism West: The Educational Challenge

1998年7月24日臺灣中央研究院佛學研討會 July 24, 1994, Buddhist Studies Symposium at the Taiwan Academia Sinica
包果勒居士 講 By Doug Powers
比丘尼恆田 中譯 Chinese translation by Bhikshuni Heng Tian

編按:本文應接在11月份第354期之後。該期文後之「全文完」字樣為編者不察之誤,特此道歉並更正。

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包果勒:

對不起,因為我得用英文講,由朱建和(現場)翻譯,你們有些人可以聽我用英文講,有些人卻要稍等幾分鐘。

當宣公上人來到美國,他瞭解要把佛法傳入美國和歐洲的社會,需要把佛法的觀念翻譯成美國人可以瞭解的觀念。這是加州柏克萊世界宗教中心的主要任務之一。此學院隸屬法界佛教大學及萬佛聖城,位於加州柏克萊,在柏克萊加州大學神學院隔鄰。實際上這是佛教與西方哲學及科學概念的聯繫。所以每隔數週,我們主辦研討會,邀集柏克萊大學的一些主要思想家、佛教學者、佛教的修行人來互相研討。尤其是最近我們正與量子物理人士討論量子物理。

我曉得在聽眾當中有已經懂得佛法與科學之間有關聯。為了把佛教介紹給美國社會,必須以西方思想解釋佛教的觀念。佛教與科學有相同和相異的地方。我會快快地向大家簡述一下可能有關聯的地方。

首先,佛陀不停地質問表象背後的真理。他從來不滿足於表面而不去探討更深一層的真理。這也正是科學的精神。佛教和科學都對傳統的自我存疑。雖方向不同,但兩者皆將對自我的分析,推展到我們的經驗之外。

另外一個把科學和佛教聯繫的共同點就是這兩者都極具仁性。換句話說,知識即是人在生存和經驗中具有的。就科學觀點而言,不是在人類理解範圍之外。佛教不贊同牛頓物理,亦即傳統物理學的一些基本道理,最主要的就是它很明顯地將主觀知識和客觀知識的劃分,而沒有一個觀念,說意識在我們對宇宙的瞭解上,扮演著最主要的角色。這一點上,佛教與傳統的知見無法契合。

幸而當佛教逐漸在西方被認知的時候,西方物理學正經歷一個極大的轉變(量子革命或量子物理、量子力學)。當波爾及海森保發現到宇宙與肯定性的力學模型有相當的差異時,其中有些不肯定的地方。他們能做到的只是談論到趨向及趨向事項等等。宇宙的另一個模型開始在二十及三十年代發展的時候,這為佛教和新物理的聯繫打開了門路。

除了這項突破外,在過去十至十五年間,繼續有重要的新突破,把意識帶入了方程式。換句話說,波爾及海森保還是在討論一個相對的傳統局面。但是在過去十至十五年問,現代的量子物理學家已經開始瞭解到,在討論宇宙時不能不考慮到心意識。

很幸運的,一些研究這些問題的最先進宇宙學家是在柏克萊工作。他們在思惟一個宇宙論以使量子物理與牛頓物理結合,但卻面臨一些還沒解決的新問題。當他們在思惟這個宇宙論時,我們剛好在柏克萊與他們討論佛學。

就這件事情而論,我推薦一本最近由其中一位最先進的宇宙學家亨利‧史戴所寫的(心、物質及量子力學)。在這本書中他嘗試依據海森保的根本思想來推演一個同源的宇宙論。由於時間有限,我不深人討論其中細節。他是常與我在柏克萊研討的人士之一。我想與你們分享他的一些看法,及佛教徒與他討論關於他的一些看法的內容。

我們討論的量子物理學的基本問題及矛盾是依據愛因斯坦及羅森的矛盾,即必定有超光速的即時隔遠作用。換句話說,與光的傳送沒有時空關聯的事項有某種機械性的聯繫。

另一位很著名及重要的人物波爾,做了一些實驗,證明了超光速事項間的聯繫,機械性的即時聯繫是完全超出一般法則,甚至於愛因斯坦的相對論也不適用。史戴書中的結論是,一個區域的實驗,能影響到另一區域所發生的事項。

這個量子物理的新觀念,即是說每一件在心中產生的事項,即時與宇宙發生的每一事項相關。換句話說,宇宙中所發生的事項,沒有一件能與其他事項分得開;宇宙中的每一事項必須如此,我們在座每位才會有我們的當下一念。所以,心是無法與大自然分開的;意識和大自然是深深地完全交絡分不開的。

所以這個量子物理的新概念,不副和舊的觀念--如宇宙是完全由它初始的形態所決定的;宇宙只是一套順著或然率的趨向,或許會發生或許不會發生。從教教的立場講,每發生一件事,就有一整套潛在的可能性。因此每一事件的發生,即是在創造一整個新的宇宙及潛力,所以因果是絕對的。

很明顯的,宇宙中的每一事項,完全與其他事項相聯繫的,你無法把任何一個層面分隔。正如《華嚴經》所說的寶網;這寶網只要你牽動宇宙中的任何一顆寶珠,它就會牽曳著整個宇宙。

所以這就有了各種有趣的論點。你開始看到在科學的搆架上,討論傳統的佛教論點的潛勢,是很有可能性的。從佛教立場來說,自由意志是永遠存在而受業的影響。自由意志即是每一瞬間事項的自由意志。當宇宙被某一事項所測定,那一事項的發生就有了業的因;既有了業,就有了佛教的業的觀念,也有了佛教的每一剎那的自由意志的觀念。

待續


Editor's note: The text below should have been continued after Issue 354. That issue indicated that the series had already ended. We apologize for the oversight and present the rest of the series.

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Doug Powers:

Excuse me because I am going to speak in English and John Chu will translate [on location]. Some of you will follow me in English and some of you will have to wait for a couple of minutes.

When [the Venerable Master] Hsuan Hua came to America, he realized that translating Buddhism into American society and European society would require rephrasing a lot of Buddhist concepts within a context that Americans could understand. This is a major task that is carried out at the Institute for World Religions in Berkeley, California, which is an offshoot of the Dharma Realm Buddhist University and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. [Located] in Berkeley, California, it is right next to UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. This is actually an interface between Buddhism and Western philosophical and scientific ideas. Every few weeks, we have a symposium or discussion between some of the major thinkers at UC Berkeley and Buddhist scholars/ practitioners. Lately, we've been talking to people in quantum physics.

I know that people in this audience already know that there is a linkage between Buddhism and science. To introduce Buddhism to American society, Buddhist concepts should be explained in the context of Western thought. Buddhism has similarities and differences with the scientific approach. Let me quickly go through some of the areas of possible connection between Buddhist approaches and scientific insights.

First of all, the Buddha questioned, continually questioned, the truth behind the surface. He was never satisfied with the surface without looking into the deeper level of truth. This is the spirit of science as well. Both Buddhism and science question traditional notions of self and self-identity. Both push analysis of self past our immediate impulse and experience (although in different directions).

Another very important point that links science and Buddhism is that both are profoundly humanistic. In other words, knowledge is something within human existence and experience. From a scientific view, knowledge is not something outside and beyond human understanding. Buddhism disagreed with some of the fundamental principles of Newtonian, classical physics, primarily with the radical separation between subjective and objective spheres of knowledge. There was no real model in which consciousness played a dominant role in understanding the way in which we constructed our sense of the universe. Buddhism would not have been able to connect to this classical understanding.

Fortunately, at the same time Buddhism became better known in the West, Western physics has gone through a tremendous change (the quantum revolution or quantum physics, quantum mechanics). Bohr and Heisenberg began to realize that the universe was quite different from the deterministic mechanistic model—that there was indeterminacy. They talked about its tendency, events or tendencies and so forth. When this other model of the universe was beginning to develop in the 20's and 30's, it opened a way to a profound connection between Buddhism and modern physics.

In addition to this breakthrough, in the last ten to fifteen years, there have been major new breakthroughs that bring consciousness into the equation. In other words, Bohr and Heisenberg were still talking about a relatively classic situation. But in the last ten or fifteen years, quantum physicists have begun to realize that you cannot talk about the universe without taking into account consciousness.

Fortunately, some of the foremost cosmologists who are working on these problems, work in Berkeley. As they are thinking out a cosmology that will make quantum physics fit with the Newtonian one; there are new problems that have not been resolved. As they try to think out a cosmology we happened to be there in Berkeley discussing Buddhism with them at the same time.

On this matter, I recommend the book that was written very recently, by one of the foremost cosmologists whose name is Henry Stapp, called Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics. In this book he attempted to develop the beginning of a coherent cosmology based on Heisenberg's original thought. Obviously in the short time that I have, I will not be able to go into too much detail. This is one of the people we have been talking to regularly in Berkeley. But I just want to give you a few of his ideas. In the course of this talk, I'll speak about what we as Buddhists are discussing with him about in relation to some of his ideas.

The basic problem and paradox within quantum physics that we have discussions about, and which I am going to discuss in the next few minutes, is based on Einstein and Rosin's paradox. This paradox suggests that there are instantaneous actions at long distance that must be faster than the speed of light. In other words, there is an automatic relationship between events that are occurring without relationship to time and space in the sense of transmission of light.

Bohr, another very famous and important person, did some sort of experimentation that showed the relationship between certain events occurring faster than the speed of light. This was an entirely automatic and instantaneous relationship, even beyond the usual laws that we would apply, that even Einstein's theory of relativity would not fit. In his book, Stapp concluded that if an experiment is made in one region, it affects what is happening in another region simply by virtue of the experimentation being carried out.

This new view of quantum physics means that every event occurring in the mind is instantaneously connected to every other event occurring in the universe. In other words, there is nothing occurring in the universe that can possibly be separate from any other event. Every event in the universe has to be exactly as it was for us to have the last thought that each of us had in this room. It's impossible to separate the mind from nature. Consciousness and nature are totally intertwined in a very profound sense and cannot be separated.

So this new view of quantum physics disagrees with the old ideas that the universe is totally determined by its original, initial state. The universe is simply a set of tendencies that may or may not occur based on probability.

From a Buddhist standpoint, every event that occurs creates a whole new set of potentiality. So as each event occurs, it's creating a totally new universe, potentialities, and so cause and effect is absolute.

Obviously the entire universe—every single event in the universe—is totally connected to every other event and you cannot separate any aspect. It's like a jewel net from the Avatamsaka Sutra, a jewel net where you draw any pearl in the universe and it pulls the whole universe with it.

This brings all kinds of interesting issues, but you can begin to see already the potential for discussing issues (that are tradi­tionally issues of Buddhism) within a scientific framework is very possible. From a Buddhist standpoint, there is always free will conditioned by karma. Free will is free will in each instantaneous event. Once the universe is determined by that event, once the event occurred, then you have the causation of karma. So you have karma; you have the Buddhist concept of karma. But you also have the Buddhist concept of the free will of each instantaneous moment.

To be continued

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