..续本文上一页可因爱与慈惠而化解，邪恶为善良所战胜。你要说，也许这是事实，而在个人情形中也是可行的。但要应用到国家与国际事务上去，那是一定行不通的。人常为政治宣传所习用的术语如“国”、“邦”、“国际”等所炫惑，心理迷蒙，盲目受骗。国家是什么？还不是一大群个人的集团？国与邦并不能有行动，有行动的就是个人。个人所想所做的，就是邦国所想所做的，能适用于个人的，就能适用于邦国。个人规模的仇恨，可以用爱与慈惠来化解，国家以及国际规模的仇恨化解，一定也同样地可以实现。就在个人方面，要用慈惠来对付仇恨，也须有极大的勇气以及对道义力量的信念、胆识与坚心。以国际事务而言，所需要的这一切自然更多。假如“不切实际”一语的意义是“不容易”，那倒是对的。这事决不容易，可是仍应勉力一试。你可以说这种尝试是冒险的，但决不会比尝试一场原子战争所冒的险更大。
You will say this is all very beautiful, noble and sublime, but impractical. It is practical to hate one another
To kill one another
To live in eternal fear and suspicion like wild animals in a jungle
Is this more practical and comfortable
Was hatred ever appeased by hatred
Was evil ever won over by evil
But there are examples, at least in inpidual cases, where hatred is appeased by love and kindness and evil won over by goodness. You will say that this may be true; practicable in inpidual cases, but that is never works in national and international affairs. People are hypnotized, psychologically puzzled, blinded and deceived by the political and propaganda usage of such term as ”national”, ”international”, or ”state”. What is a nation but a vast conglomeration of inpiduals
A nation or a state does not act; it is the inpidual who acts. What the inpidual thinks and does is what the nation or the state thinks and does. What is applicable to the inpidual is applicable to the nation or the state. If hatred can be appeased by love and kindness on the inpidual scale, surely it can be realized on the national and international scale too. Even in the case of a single person, to meet hatred with kindness one must be tremendous courage, boldness, faith and confidence in moral force. May it not be even more so with regard to international affairs
If by the expression ”not practical” you mean ”not easy”, you are right. Definitely it is not easy. Yet it should be tried. You may say it is risky trying it. Surely it cannot be more risky than trying a nuclear war.
今日想起来，在过去曾有一位历史上著名的伟大统治者，他有勇气、有信心、有远见，敢于实施这倡导非暴、和平与友爱的教诲，将它们应用于治理一个广袤帝国的内外事务上，实在令人不胜忭慰之至。这位西元前三世纪顷的伟大佛教帝王阿输迦，曾被称为“天人所敬爱者”。
It is a consolation and inspiration to think today that at least there was one great ruler, well known in history, who had the courage, the confidence and the vision to apply this teaching of non-violence, peace and love to the administration of a vast empire, in both internal and external affairs - Asoka, the great Buddhist emperor of India (3rd century B.C.) -”the Beloved of the gods” as he was called.
At first he followed the example of his father (Bindusāra) and grandfather (Chandragupta), and wished to complete the conquest of the Indian peninsula. He invaded and conquered Kalinga, and annexed it. Many hundreds of thousands were killed, wounded, tortured and taken prisoner in this war. But later, when he became a Buddhist, he was completely changed and transformed by the Buddha”s teachings. In one of his famous Edicts, inscribed on rock, (Rock Edict XIII, as it is now called), the original of which one may read even today, referring to the conquest of Kalinga, the Emperor publicly expresses his ”repentance”, it was for him to think of that carnage. He publicly declared that he would never draw his sword again for any conquest, but that he ”wishes all living beings non-violence, self control, the practice of serenity and mildness. This, of course, is considered the chief conquest by the Beloved of the gods (i.e., Asoka), namely the conquest by piety (dhamma-vijaya).” Not only did he renounce war himself, he expressed his desire that ”my sons and grandsons will not think of a new conquest as worth achieving. .. let them think of that conquest only which is the conquest by piety. That is good for this world and the world beyond.”
起先他完全步他父亲宾头沙罗王以及祖父旃陀菊多王的后尘，想要完成征服整个印度半岛的伟业。他侵入并征服了迦陵迦国，予以兼并。在这次战役中，…
《佛陀的启示 第八章 佛的教诫与今日世界 Chapter VIII· What the Buddha Taught and the World Today》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…