..续本文上一页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.
现在人耳边听的话都是说，去作工程师、科学家，去修商业管理、法律、医学，因为那样既受人尊敬，又能赚钱。我并不是说那是不好，因为每一门行业都有其方法，都有帮助人类的潜力；这点是可以肯定的，但是不幸的是当今社会不再强调以提升人的道德作为职业的目标了。事实上，科学业急功近利；科学方法如此速效风靡，于是世界上就产生了越来越时髦的学者所称的「后现代主义」。我们不再处于「现代」社会了；不再处于科学真理和实验的社会，而是处在「后现代」的社会了。
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.
现代科学世界十分僵化，样样都得讲证明；二加二总是等于四。人类对此的反应是什么呢？就是形成了「后现代」社会。
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.
何为「后现代主义」呢？这指许多东西，是飘浮在空中的古文化的点点滴滴。但总体而言，这是对于僵化的科学规则的一种反叛。我们或许都还没有注意到，这是一场浩大的反科学革命。这里面有相当积极的因素在里面，有我认为对十足狭隘方法体系非常好的反弹。但也如同其他的事情一样，「后现代主义」也是很难谨遵循中道的。
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.
「后现代主义」是很自由化的，鼓励人从僵化死板的传统形态中解放出来--这些形态经常是「现代主义」的产物。「现代主义」讲求正式，样样都要有一个逻辑在后面；而「后现代主义」则鼓励我们去解除束缚，争取自由；可是一但自由了，下一步又是什么呢？就没有下文了。这是一个世界自己丢出来的问题：「好啦，我们现在挣脱框框了！打破传统了！又该怎办呢？」这是一个很吓人的问题。
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.
许多人，尤其是佛教徒，都认为这些新生事物都有其积极好的一面。尤其是喜欢修禅的人也许会说：「好啦，我们现在无有形态了，那又怎么样呢？」有很多人，包括佛教徒，都知道「物极必反」的潜在危害性。这对于「现代主义」、「科学方法」与「后现代主义」都一样的。所以我们佛教徒和从事教育的佛教徒，管他是「现代」或是「后现代」形式，都应当慈悲地为世人指出中道来。
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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