..续本文上一页attainment of that goal — final deliverance from suffering — can be achieved only from within his own dispensation. The best known instance of this claim is the Buddha”s assertion, on the eve of his Parinibbana, that only in his dispensation are the four grades of enlightened persons to be found, that the other sects are devoid of true ascetics, those who have reached the planes of liberation. 初察之下，这种观点的采纳，似乎是走向宗教宽容的不可或缺的踏脚石，坚持教义上的分歧不仅存在于文字表达，而且有其真实性与重要性，或许看来几近顽固不化。因此，出于对单神宗教之教条与狭隘的反对而接纳佛教的人们可能会发现，面对那些宗教独家掌握真理的典型坚称，这样一种观点——何等地柔和、通融——不啻为可取的避风港。然而，不带偏见地对佛陀口述的经文作一番考察，即可以明确地显示，普遍主义者的论点并未得到这位觉悟者本人的支持。相反，佛陀反复地宣称，通往梵行生活之殊胜目标的途径，只有在他本人的教导中阐明，因此，该目标的实现——也就是苦的终极解脱——也只能在他本人的教派中成就。此说的最佳例证，存在于佛陀般涅槃之夜的指称，他说，只有在他的教派中存在四种层次的觉悟者，其他教派缺乏真正的沙门即已证达解脱境界者。

　　The Buddha”s restriction of final emancipation to his own dispensation does not spring from a narrow dogmatism or a lack of good will, but rests upon an utterly precise determination of the nature of the final goal and of the means that must be implemented to reach it. This goal is neither an everlasting afterlife in a heaven nor some nebulously conceived state of spiritual illumination, but the Nibbana element with no residue remaining, release from the cycle of repeated birth and death. This goal is effected by the utter destruction of the mind”s defilements — greed, aversion and delusion — all the way down to their subtlest levels of latency. The eradication of the defilements can be achieved only by insight into the true nature of phenomena, which means that the attainment of Nibbana depends upon the direct experiential insight into all conditioned phenomena, internal and external, as stamped with the "three characteristics of existence": impermanence, suffering, and non-selfness. What the Buddha maintains, as the ground for his assertion that his teaching offers the sole means to final release from suffering, is that the knowledge of the true nature of phenomena, in its exactitude and completeness, is accessible only in his teaching. This is so because, theoretically, the principles that define this knowledge are unique to his teaching and contradictory in vital respects to the basic tenets of other creeds; and because, practically, this teaching alone reveals, in its perfection and purity, the means of generating this liberative knowledge as a matter of immediate personal experience. This means is the Noble Eightfold Path which, as an integrated system of spiritual training, cannot be found outside the dispensation of a Fully Enlightened One. 佛陀把终极解脱限定在他本人的教说之内，并非是出自狭隘的教条主义，或者是由于慈心不足，而是立足于对终极目标之本质与其成就之必要手段的精准确定。这个目标，既不是死后永生天界，也不是某种概念模糊的灵性启示态，而是无余涅槃，从生死轮回之中的解脱。这个目标的成就，来自彻底摧毁心的杂染——贪、嗔、痴——直至最细微的潜在层次。杂染的灭除，只能借着洞见诸法实相才可能成就，那就意味着，涅槃的证得有赖于亲见内在、外在一切有为现象之“三特征”: 无常、苦、非我。佛陀断言，他的教导提供从苦中最终解脱的唯一法门，他的依据是，对诸法本质如实完整的知见，只能透过他的教导才能达到。之所以如此，在理论上，是因为定义此知见的原则为他的教导所独有，并且与其他教派基本教义的关键部分有重大分歧; 还因为在实践上，只有他的教导完整、纯净地揭示了亲证这个解脱知见的途径。这就是八圣道，它作为一个综合系统，在一位彻底觉悟者的教说之外是不存在的。

　　Surprisingly, this exclusivistic stance of Buddhism in regard to the prospects for final emancipation has never engendered a policy of intolerance on the part of Buddhists toward the adherents of other religions. To the contrary, throughout its long history, Buddhism has displayed a thoroughgoing tolerance and genial good will toward the many religions with which it has come into contact. It has maintained this tolerance simultaneously with its deep conviction that the doctrine of the Buddha offers the unique and unsurpassable way to release from the ills inherent in conditioned existence. For Buddhism, religious tolerance is not achieved by reducing all religions to a common denominator, nor by explaining away formidable differences in thought and practice as accidents of historical development. From the Buddhist point of view, to make tolerance …

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