..续本文上一页ic religions, Christianity and Islam, it is not one toward which Buddhism has a ready affinity, for the ethical guidelines of the Dhamma naturally tend to foster an attitude of benign tolerance toward other religions and their followers. Though there is no guarantee against the rise of a militant fundamentalism from within Buddhism”s own ranks, the Buddha”s teachings can offer no sanctification, not even a remote one, for such a malignant development. 第一个极端是朝向原教旨主义的退却，采取的态度是对自身信仰的激烈肯定，结合着对仍位于同道圈外者的传教狂热。对多元性挑战的这种回应，虽然在诸大单神宗教即基督教与伊斯兰教之中已达到示警的比例，对于这个极端，佛教是不具备现成亲和力的，因为佛法的伦理准则自然地倾向对其它宗教及其追随者培育良性的宽容态度。虽不能保证佛教自身的教众中不会产生一种好战的原教旨主义，佛陀的教言对这样的恶性发展，不能够提供任何支持依据，甚至连边也够不上。

　　For Buddhists the more alluring alternative is the second extreme. This extreme, which purchases tolerance at the price of integrity, might be called the thesis of spiritual universalism: the view that all the great religions, at their core, espouse essentially the same truth, clothed merely in different modes of expression. Such a thesis could not, of course, be maintained in regard to the formal creeds of the major religions, which differ so widely that it would require a strenuous exercise in word-twisting to bring them into accord. The universalist position is arrived at instead by an indirect route. Its advocates argue that we must distinguish between the outward face of a religion — its explicit beliefs and exoteric practices — and its inner nucleus of experiential realization. On the basis of this distinction, they then insist, we will find that beneath the markedly different outward faces of the great religions, at their heart — in respect of the spiritual experiences from which they emerge and the ultimate goal to which they lead — they are substantially identical. Thus the major religions differ simply in so far as they are different means, different expedients, to the same liberative experience, which may be indiscriminately designated "enlightenment," or "redemption," or "God-realization," since these different terms merely highlight different aspects of the same goal. As the famous maxim puts it: the roads up the mountain are many, but the moonlight at the top is one. From this point of view, the Buddha Dhamma is only one more variant on the "perennial philosophy" underlying all the mature expressions of man”s spiritual quest. It may stand out by its elegant simplicity, its clarity and directness; but a unique and unrepeated revelation of truth it harbors not. 对佛教徒来说，更具诱惑力的是第二种极端。这个以正直为代价购买宽容的极端，或者可称为灵性普遍论: 认为诸大宗教的核心基本上拥护的是同一个真理，只不过为不同的表达模式所包裹。当然这种论说不可能依靠各大宗教的正式教义来维持，其旨趣如此歧异，须得下一番大功夫扭曲文字，才能够把它们整束一致。普遍论者的立场改由一条间接的途径得出。它的主张者们论辩说，我们必须把宗教的外在表面—— 它的具体信条与外在持守——与其内在的体验核心区别开来。在这个区别的基础上，他们接着坚持说，我们将会发现各大宗教在迥异的外表之下，其核心——也就是引生宗教的灵性体验与其指向之目标——实质上是等同的。因此，诸大宗教的区别仅仅在于，它们是达到同一种解脱体验的不同手段、不同方便，而这个解脱体验则可以不加区别地称为“开悟”、“救赎”、或者“神的实现”，因为这些异称仅是在显示那同一目标的不同侧面。有道是: 条条蹊路通山顶，山顶月色同一景。照这个观点，佛法只不过是人类精神追求之一切成熟表达所共同蕴涵的“长青哲学”的另一变异。也许它以简洁、清晰、直接而出类拔萃，然而它所揭示的真谛却并非独一无二、未见重复。

　　On first consideration the adoption of such a view may seem to be an indispensable stepping-stone to religious tolerance, and to insist that doctrinal differences are not merely verbal but real and important may appear to border on bigotry. Thus those who embrace Buddhism in reaction against the doctrinaire narrowness of the monotheistic religions may find in such a view — so soft and accommodating — a welcome respite from the insistence on privileged access to truth typical of those religions. However, an unbiased study of the Buddha”s own discourses would show quite plainly that the universalist thesis does not have the endorsement of the Awakened One himself. To the contrary, the Buddha repeatedly proclaims that the path to the supreme goal of the holy life is made known only in his own teaching, and therefore that the …

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