佛法的兩面性
[中譯]良稹
Two Faces of the Dhamma
by Bhikkhu Bodhi
On first encounter Buddhism confronts us as a paradox. Intellectually, it appears a freethinker”s delight: sober, realistic, undogmatic, almost scientific in its outlook and method. But if we come into contact with the living Dhamma from within, we soon discover that it has another side which seems the antithesis of all our rationalistic presuppositions. We still don”t meet rigid creeds or random speculation, but we do come upon religious ideals of renunciation, contemplation and devotion; a body of doctrines dealing with matters transcending sense perception and thought; and — perhaps most disconcerting — a program of training in which faith figures as a cardinal virtue, doubt as a hindrance, barrier and fetter. 初遇佛法，我們面臨一個悖論: 在智力上，它冷靜、現實、非教條，令自由思考者心悅。在世界觀與方法論上，它幾乎還具有科學性。但是我們若走進活生生的佛法內部 ，不久便發現它還有另一副面貌，似乎背離了我們對它的一切理性假設。我們仍不見刻板的教條與隨機的臆測，看見了出離、冥思與崇敬等宗教理想; 我們看見了一套教義，闡述那些超越了官感與思維的事物; 或許更令人困惑的是，我們看見了一個訓練方案，在其中信念被當成一個至關重要的美德，而存疑則是一種妨害、障礙、與羁絆。
When we try to determine our own relationship with the Dhamma, eventually we find ourselves challenged to make sense out of its two seemingly irreconcilable faces: the empiricist face turned to the world, telling us to investigate and verify things for ourselves, and the religious face turned to the Beyond, advising us to dispel our doubts and place trust in the Teacher and his Teaching. 我們在嘗試決定自身與佛法的關系時，最終都會發現受到挑戰，需要對這兩副看上去不可調和的面貌作出合理的解釋: 經驗主義的那一面朝向世界，告誡我們對萬事親自作調查與驗證，宗教性的那一面朝向超世，告誡我們遣除疑念，信賴尊師佛陀與他的教導。
One way we can resolve this dilemma is by accepting only one face of the Dhamma as authentic and rejecting the other as spurious or superfluous. Thus, with traditional Buddhist pietism, we can embrace the religious side of faith and devotion, but shy off from the hard-headed world-view and the task of critical inquiry; or, with modern Buddhist apologetics, we can extol the Dhamma”s empiricism and resemblance to science, but stumble embarrassingly over the religious side. Yet reflection on what a genuine Buddhist spirituality truly requires, makes it clear that both faces of the Dhamma are equally authentic and that both must be taken into account. If we fail to do so, not only do we risk adopting a lopsided view of the teaching, but our own involvement with the Dhamma is likely to be hampered by partiality and conflicting attitudes. 我們解決這個困境的辦法，一個是把佛法的一面作爲真法來接受，而把另一面作爲僞造或附贅加以排斥。這樣一來，在傳統的崇拜式佛教裏，我們包容了信仰的宗教性與崇敬那一面，卻回避了腳踏實地的世界觀與批評探索的任務; 或者，爲現代佛法作辯，我們可以贊揚佛法的經驗性、與科學的相似性，但在宗教那一面尴尬地躊躇不前。然而在思考了真正的佛教精神必須具備的因素之後，很清楚，佛法的兩個面貌都是真實的，必須同時兼顧。如果做不到這點，不僅涉險于只接受部分教導的不平衡性，我們個人的佛法修持，也可能受偏向性與沖突態度的障礙。
The problem remains, however, of bringing together the two faces of the Dhamma without sidling into self-contradiction. The key, we suggest, to achieving this reconciliation, and thus to securing the internal consistency of our own perspective and practice, lies in considering two fundamental points: first, the guiding purpose of the Dhamma; and second, the strategy it employs to achieve that purpose. The purpose is the attainment of deliverance from suffering. The Dhamma does not aim at providing us with factual information about the world, and thus, despite a compatibility with science, its goals and concerns are necessarily different from those of the latter. Primarily and essentially, the Dhamma is a path to spiritual emancipation, to liberation from the round of repeated birth, death and suffering. Offered to us as the irreplaceable means of deliverance, the Dhamma does not seek mere intellectual assent, but commands a response that is bound to be fully religious. It addresses us at the bedrock of our being, and there it awakens the faith, devotion and commitment appropriate when the final goal of our existence is at stake. 然而，怎樣協調佛法的這兩面同時避免自我矛盾，仍…
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