The Taste of Freedom

　　By Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　The clarion call of our present age is, without doubt, the call for freedom. Perhaps at no time in the past history of mankind so much as at present has the cry for freedom sounded so widely and so urgently, perhaps never before has it penetrated so deeply into the fabric of human existence.

　　In response to man”s quest for freedom, far-reaching changes have been wrought in almost every sphere of his activity — political, social, cultural and religious. The vast empires which once sprawled over the earth, engulfing like huge mythical sea-monsters the continents in their grasp, have crumbled away and disintegrated, as the peoples over whom they reigned have risen up to repossess their native lands — in the name of independence, liberty and self-rule.

　　Old political forms such as monarchy and oligarchy have given way to democracy — government by the people — because every man demands the right to contribute his voice to the direction of his collective life. Long-standing social institutions which kept man enthralled since before the dawn of history — slavery, serfdom, the caste-system — have now disappeared, or are rapidly disappearing, while accounts of liberation movements of one sort or another daily deck the headlines of our newspapers and crowd the pages of our popular journals.

　　The arts, too, bear testimony to this quest for greater freedom: free verse in poetry, abstract expression in painting, and atonal composition in music, are just a few of the innovations which have toppled restrictive traditional structures to give the artist open space in his drive for self-expression. Even religion has not been able to claim immunity from this expanding frontier of liberation. No longer can systems of belief and codes of conduct justify themselves, as in the past, on the grounds that they are commanded by God, sanctified by scripture, or prescribed by the priesthood. They must now be prepared to stand out in the open, shorn of their veils of sanctity, exposed to the critical thrust of the contemporary thinker who assumes himself the right to free inquiry and takes his own reason and experience for his court of final appeal. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of action have become the watchwords of our public life, freedom of thought and freedom of conscience the watchwords of our private life. In any form in which it obtains, freedom is guarded as our most precious possession, more valuable than life itself. "Give me liberty or give me death," an American patriot exclaimed two hundred years ago. The succeeding centuries have echoed his demand.

　　As though in response to mankind”s call for wider frontiers of freedom, the Buddha offers to the world His Teaching, the Dhamma, as a pathway to liberation as applicable today as it was when first proclaimed twenty-five centuries ago.

　　"Just as in the great ocean there is but one taste — the taste of salt — so in this Doctrine and Discipline (dhammavinaya) there is but one taste — the taste of freedom": with these words the Buddha vouches for the emancipating quality of His doctrine.

　　Whether one samples water taken from the surface of the ocean, or from its middling region, or from its depths, the taste of the water is in every case the same — the taste of salt. And again, whether one drinks but a thimble-full of ocean water, or a glass-full, or a bucket-full, the same salty taste is present throughout. Analogously with the Buddha”s Teaching, a single flavor — the flavor of freedom (vimuttirasa) — pervades the entire Doctrine and Discipline, from its beginning to its end, from its gentle surface to its unfathomable depths. Whether one samples the Dhamma at its more elementary level — in the practice of generosity and moral discipline, …

《The Taste of Freedom》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…