..续本文上一页e dislike too. We are enslaved insofar as we cannot help disliking them and are unable to remain unmoved by them. In disliking things, we are being active, we are becoming emotional about them. They manage to control us just as do the things we like, affecting each of us in a different way. So the expression "slavery to things" refers to the reactions of liking and disliking. All this shows that we can escape from slavery to things and become free by means of insight. The Buddha summed up this principle very briefly by saying: "Insight is the means by which we can purify ourselves." He did not specify morality or concentration as the means by which we could purify ourselves, but insight, which enables us to escape, which liberates us from things. Not freed from things, one is impure, tainted, infatuated, passionate. Once free, one is pure, spotless, enlightened, tranquil. This is the fruit of insight, the condition that results when insight has done its job completely.
Have a good look at this factor, insight, the third aspect of the threefold training. Get to know it, and you will come to regard it as the highest virtue. Buddhist insight is insight that results in backing away from things by completely destroying the four kinds of attachment. Those four attachments are ropes holding us fast; insight is the knife that can cut those bonds and set us free. With the four attachments gone, there is nothing left to bind us fast to things. Will these three modes of practice stand the test
Are they soundly based and suitable for all in practice
Do examine them. When you have another look at them you will see that these three factors do not conflict with any religious doctrine at all, assuming that the religion in question really aims at remedying the problem of human suffering. The Buddhist teaching does not conflict with any other religion, yet it has some things that no other religion has. In particular it has the practice of insight, which is the superlative technique for eliminating the four attachments. It liberates the mind, rendering it independent and incapable of becoming bound, enslaved, overpowered by anything whatsoever, including God in heaven, spirits, or celestial beings. No other religion is prepared to let the inpidual free himself completely, or be entirely self reliant We must be fully aware of this principle of self-reliance, which is a key feature of Buddhism.
As soon as we see that Buddhism has everything that any other religion has and also several things that none of them have, we realize that Buddhism is for everyone. Buddhism is the universal religion. It can be put into practice by everyone, in every age and era. People everywhere have the same problem: to free themselves from suffering-suffering which is inherent in birth, aging, pain and death, suffering which stems from desire, from grasping. Everyone without exception, celestial being, human being, or beast, has this same problem, and everyone has the same job to do, namely to eliminate completely the desire, the unskillful grasping which is the root cause of that suffering. Thus Buddhism is the universal religion.
《The Threefold Training》全文阅读结束。