..續本文上一頁s do not study the arts, Buddhism, or anything that would be called the humanities—anything that is hard to prove. And even if anyone has the interest, that interest is usually discouraged by his or her parents, because it doesn”t make any money. Parents are worried about the well-being of their children, and there is very little prestige in studying something that is not measurable, provable, or tangible. Those who nevertheless do study the humanities must limit these hard-to-prove concepts into little, tangible bites-they have to be able to prove them anyway, so they have to oversimplify very complex ideas and put them in little boxes.
現在人耳邊聽的話都是說，去作工程師、科學家，去修商業管理、法律、醫學，因爲那樣既受人尊敬，又能賺錢。我並不是說那是不好，因爲每一門行業都有其方法，都有幫助人類的潛力；這點是可以肯定的，但是不幸的是當今社會不再強調以提升人的道德作爲職業的目標了。事實上，科學業急功近利；科學方法如此速效風靡，于是世界上就産生了越來越時髦的學者所稱的「後現代主義」。我們不再處于「現代」社會了；不再處于科學真理和實驗的社會，而是處在「後現代」的社會了。
People today are encouraged to become engineers, scientists, business majors, lawyers, and doctors, mostly because those are respected and profitable professions. I”m not trying to say that this is a bad thing necessarily, because all of these profession have methods, and they have potentials of helping human beings. There”s no question about this. But unfortunately, these days ethics is not emphasized as the goal of these professions. In fact, these scientific professions are only concerned with short-term usefulness and quick results. As a reaction to this scientific approach that is so efficient and quick, and is taking over, we now have something that is increasingly popular in this world, which the scholars call "postmodernism." We are not in the modern world anymore, in the world of scientific truth and experiments, but in the postmodern world.
現代科學世界十分僵化，樣樣都得講證明；二加二總是等于四。人類對此的反應是什麼呢？就是形成了「後現代」社會。
The modern world of science was very rigid. It always had to have proofs. Two and two was always four in the modern world. Now we have a reaction to this, and that is the postmodern world.
何爲「後現代主義」呢？這指許多東西，是飄浮在空中的古文化的點點滴滴。但總體而言，這是對于僵化的科學規則的一種反叛。我們或許都還沒有注意到，這是一場浩大的反科學革命。這裏面有相當積極的因素在裏面，有我認爲對十足狹隘方法體系非常好的反彈。但也如同其他的事情一樣，「後現代主義」也是很難謹遵循中道的。
What is postmodernism
It is a lot of things. It is the bits and pieces of ancient culture that are floating about the earth. But mostly, it is a rebellion against the rigid scientific approach to life. We might not be aware of this, but it is a very serious revolution against science. And there are elements in it that are quite positive, that I consider to be very good reaction to the very narrow approach. But, like everything else in this world, in postmodernism too, it is very hard to find and stick to the Middle Path.
「後現代主義」是很自由化的，鼓勵人從僵化死板的傳統形態中解放出來--這些形態經常是「現代主義」的産物。「現代主義」講求正式，樣樣都要有一個邏輯在後面；而「後現代主義」則鼓勵我們去解除束縛，爭取自由；可是一但自由了，下一步又是什麼呢？就沒有下文了。這是一個世界自己丟出來的問題：「好啦，我們現在掙脫框框了！打破傳統了！又該怎辦呢？」這是一個很嚇人的問題。
Postmodernism is very liberated, because it encourages people to free themselves from those rigid, petrified old traditions and their forms-forms that were very often created by modernism. Modernism was very formal; it had to have logic behind everything it did. Postmodernism encourages us to free ourselves from this. But, once we are free, then what
The answer is simply not there. And that is the question which the world is posing to itself today. "Alright, we broke all the forms, we broke all the traditions—now what
" It”s a very scary question.
許多人，尤其是佛教徒，都認爲這些新生事物都有其積極好的一面。尤其是喜歡修禅的人也許會說：「好啦，我們現在無有形態了，那又怎麼樣呢？」有很多人，包括佛教徒，都知道「物極必反」的潛在危害性。這對于「現代主義」、「科學方法」與「後現代主義」都一樣的。所以我們佛教徒和從事教育的佛教徒，管他是「現代」或是「後現代」形式，都應當慈悲地爲世人指出中道來。
Many of us, particularly Buddhists, can say that there is something positive and good in all of this. Particularly Buddhists who like the Chan practice may say, "Alright, so we don”t have a form--so what
" But there are many other people, in…
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