Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion based on the spiritual and moral precepts of Siddhārtha Gautama (c. 5th century BCE), a teacher known as the Buddha, who stressed liberation from the cycle of suffering and rebirth. There are around 470 million Buddhists worldwide, the majority in East and Southeast Asia. Buddhism stresses the value of peace, and many Buddhist leaders and organizations today are outspoken in their promotion of non-violence. Protests by Buddhist monks have shaped the modern politics of Asia, particularly in Vietnam, Burma, and Tibet. Buddhism has no definitive scriptural canon; each of its main branches, Theravada, Mahayana, and Tibetan, accepts a wide variety of overlapping texts as authoritative.
ESSAYS ON BUDDHISM:
Buddhism
佛教
Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha (ca. 480-400 BCE), taught that life is suffering, that suffering is caused by attachments, and that the way to nirvana is to shed those attachments. In what is today northern India, the Buddha created an ascetic religious system that diverged from the ritualistic practices of the dominant priestly caste, the Brahmins. Against the idea that religion was the prerogative of a specialized group, the Buddha established religious life as open to all members of society as part of a monastic community, or sangha. Buddhist scriptures center on the monastic life but also outline general precepts of good conduct, including injunctions not to kill, steal, lie, commit sexual wrong, or partake of intoxicants. Historically, Theravada Buddhism, which is today common in Southeast Asia, has eschewed explicit social and political teachings and remained focused on the monastery. A second major strand of Buddhism common in East Asia, Mahayana, extols the example of Bodhisattvas who live in the world and set a broader example for society.
佛陀 乔达摩•悉达多（公元前480-400）谕之人生即苦，苦由执着，得涅槃则需破所执。佛陀于今日位于印度北部之地创立这一苦行宗教体系，自觉与占统治地位的祭祀种姓婆罗门仪式化的宗教相背离。佛教反对宗教为专门群体禁脔之主张，宗教生活向所有社会成员开放，使之成为僧团之部分。佛教经卷历经诸世纪而形成，重在修行生活，亦强调善行之全面规诫，如不杀生，不偷盗，不妄语，不邪淫，不饮酒。历史上，今日流传于东南亚的上座部佛教回避明晰的社会和政治学说，重在寺院修行。大乘佛教是普传于东亚的第二个主要流派，推崇居于世间菩萨为典范，以之为众生之广义例则。
Buddhist Beliefs
佛教信仰
Instead of deity worship, Buddhism focuses on a series of teachings (dharma) designed to achieve enlightenment and the cessation of suffering. Buddhism’s central teachings – the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path – put one on the path to the goal of nirvana. The first noble truth teaches that all existence is suffering. The second noble truth is that the root of suffering is attachment to desire. The third noble truth teaches that one can eliminate suffering by eliminating attachments to desire. The fourth noble truth is that following the Noble Eightfold Path – right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration – leads to nirvana Buddhists believe actions have consequences (karma), so our lives are conditioned by our past actions. Consciousness continues after death and finds expression in a future life. The wheel of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) is the cycle of suffering that one escapes by following the path to nirvana.
佛教重在实现觉悟和解脱苦难的系列学说（法），而不是神灵崇拜。佛教的核心学说是四圣谛和八正道，人沿此径得获涅槃。四圣谛之一是苦谛，人生皆苦；之二是集谛，苦因贪嗔痴之欲而来；之三是灭谛，脱离苦难应去绝欲望；四是道谛，遵从八正道，即正见、正思惟、正语、正业、正命、正精进、正念、正定以达涅槃。佛教徒相信行必有果（业力），众生现世生活系于过往因缘。识死后犹存，传承至来世。生、死、再生如车轮般轮回苦难，众生求得涅槃方能摆脱此道。
Buddhist Practices
佛教修行
Buddhist worship takes the form of meditation, devotion to the Buddha and Bodhisattvas, and living with moral purity in one’s thoughts, words, and actions. It has a wide variety of manifestations. Mahayana Buddhists may sit on the floor barefoot, facing an image of the Buddha, listen to monks chanting from religious texts, and take part in prayers to elicit a spiritual experience. The Theravada tradition emphasizes religious practice for monks but minimizes its importance for the laity. In Tibetan Buddhist communities, it is common to use prayer beads, wheels, and flags to assist in prayer (mantras) with the goal of becoming a buddha oneself. Zen is a form of Buddhist meditation that rejects both theoretical knowledge and the study of religious texts in favor of direct, experiential realization through meditation. At home, Buddhists often designate a room as a shrine where there will be a statue of the Buddha, candles, and an incense burner.
佛教修行采用冥想形式，虔心礼佛及菩萨，通过个人的思、言、行在生活中保持道德清净。修行的表现形式多种多样：大乘佛教徒赤足盘坐，面对佛像，谛听僧人念诵佛经，参与祈愿，以得清修。上座部佛教传统重视僧侣的修行，但对居士则降低对修行的要求。在藏传佛教中，信徒普遍在念诵中用念珠、法轮和经旗辅助达到自身成佛的目标。禅为一种佛教冥想方式，拒绝理论知识和宗教文本研习，提倡通过禅定并依靠直接体验而开悟。佛教徒在家常置一室为佛堂，供奉佛像、香烛和香炉。
Demographics of Buddhism
佛教人口分布
Buddhism has approximately 470 million adherents across the globe. It represents a major component of the spiritual heritage of East and Southeast Asia. The two main branches of Buddhism are Mahayana and Theravada. Mahayana Buddhism is practiced by around 185 million people and is the dominant form of Buddhism in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Vietnam. Theravada Buddhism has about 125 million followers and is dominant in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Burma. Another significant strand of Buddhism related to the Mahayana is Tibetan Buddhism, which is practiced by 20 million people largely in Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, and surrounding areas in India, China, and Russia. Buddhism is a growing spiritual influence in the West, and many new religious movements are affiliated with Buddhism, especially in Japan and Korea.
全球佛教徒约有4.7亿人，是东亚和东南亚信仰传统的主要组成部分。大乘佛教和上座部佛教为佛教两大分支。大乘佛教徒约有1.85亿人，在中国、日本、韩国、台湾地区、新加坡和越南佛教中占主导地位。上座部佛教徒约有1.25亿人，在柬埔寨、泰国、老挝、斯里兰卡和缅甸占主导地位。与大乘佛教相关的另一支是藏传佛教，信徒有2000万，大部分在西藏地区、不丹、蒙古、以及印度、中国和俄罗斯周边地区。今日佛教对西方世界精神影响不断增加。此外，众多新兴宗教运动也与佛教有关，在日本和韩国尤为如此。
Buddhist Scriptures
佛教经典
Buddhism has a wide range of sacred texts and scriptures. In Theravada Buddhism, the Pali Canon contains the Buddha's teachings in three groups of writings, known as the “Three Baskets” (Tipitaka). The Vinaya Pitaka (discipline basket) contains precepts for monks and nuns; the Sutta Pitaka (teaching basket) contains the discourses of Buddha; and the Abidhamma Pitaka (metaphysical basket) contains Buddhist theology. Mahayana Buddhism reveres the Pali Canon as a sacred text, but adds to it the sutras, written between 200 BCE and 200 CE, which reflect distinctively Mahayana concepts. There are over two thousand sutras, but some texts, such as the Lotus Sutra and Heart Sutra, are important to most branches of Mahayana. The Book of the Dead is the Tibetan text most well known to the West, describing in detail the stages of death from the Tibetan Buddhist point of view. Zen, a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, rejects scripture altogether in its early stage.
佛教文本与经卷众多。上座部佛教有“三藏圣典”（巴利三藏），是关于佛陀教导的经卷。毗奈耶藏 （律藏）为僧尼戒律；素怛缆藏（经藏）为佛陀之言；阿毗达磨藏（论藏）为佛教教法要义。大乘佛教尊三藏为宝典，但增补了公元前2世纪至公元2世纪之间著就的契经，大乘佛教的观念在这些经文中有明晰体现。此类契经有2000余种，但如《妙法莲花经》和《般若波罗蜜多心经》等一些经文在大乘佛教大多数宗派中地位显要。藏传经卷《度亡经》在西方知名度最高，以藏传佛教徒的观点详细描述死亡各阶段。禅宗是大乘佛教的一支，在其早期全然排斥经卷。
THEMES
Buddhism on Wealth and Poverty
佛教关于富裕和贫穷的观念
From a Buddhist perspective, excessive wealth and an extravagant way of life can become a source of attachment, as well as fear of loss and of ceaseless craving. However, Buddhism does not see wealth as intrinsically evil, and does not claim that nirvana – the state of being free from suffering and the attachments that cause it – is especially difficult for the wealthy to attain. On the contrary, rich people are in a privileged position to practice the virtue of generosity, and traditional Buddhism sees economic success as derived in part from acts of charity in earlier lives. Wealth itself is not the problem, as long as it is attained by honest means and used for the benefit of the wider society. Some currents in the Buddhist tradition encourage giving to the monastic community in particular, in order to accumulate spiritual merit for future lives. However, Buddhism also advocates compassionate giving to the poor and the sick as a virtue in its own right. According to one account, the Buddha walked thirty miles to teach a poor person, and first made sure he was fed before turning to spiritual matters.
从佛教的观点来看，多余的财富和奢侈的生活方式是束缚、害怕失去（已经拥有的东西），以及贪求更多（的事物）的源头。但佛教并不认为财富本质就是邪恶的，佛教也并未声称涅槃对于富人来说尤其困难。相反，就布施功德而言，富人处于一种有利地位；而且，传统佛教将经济上的成功视为以往慈善行为的后果。问题并不在财富自身，只要财富是以诚实的方式获得，且用于造福更广泛的社会。
传统佛教尤其鼓励向僧众布施，以为来世生活积累功德。但是，佛教同样鼓励针对贫者和病者的慈悲布施，因为这本身就是一种美德。据说有一次，佛陀步行30里去教导一个贫穷的人，在首先确保此人获得食物以后，佛陀才向他宣讲精神修行之道。
Buddhism on Peace and Violence
佛教关于和平和暴力的观念
The Buddhist tradition is most clearly associated with non-violence and the principle of ahimsa (“no harm”). By eliminating their attachments to material things, Buddhists are to combat covetousness, itself a source of anger and violence against others. By tradition the Buddha himself prevented a war between the Sakyas, his own clan, and the Koliyas. He went to the battlefield, found out that the reason for the war was a dispute over water, and asked the opposing rulers what was more worthy, water or the blood of fellow human beings. Another paradigmatic example is the Emperor Ashoka, who ruled on the Indian subcontinent during the third century BCE and, after his conversion to Buddhism, felt remorse for the death and suffering caused by his military campaigns and embraced the dharma (Buddhist teaching). Some Buddhist texts do sanction the taking of human lives in exceptional cases to protect the sangha or defend the innocent. But most Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists today reject even these exceptional justifications of killing. Influential proponents of an engaged Buddhism committed to non-violence include Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnam) and Maha Ghosananda (Cambodia).
非暴力和不杀生的原则（“无损害”）是最清楚的佛教传统。佛教徒通过消除对物质的依恋去战胜贪婪，而这正是对他人的愤怒和暴力的来源。佛陀自己曾阻止了一场释迦族（佛陀本人所属的氏族）与科利雅族之间的战争。他来到战场，发现战争起因于争水，于是，他问对立双方的首领，什么更重要，是水？还是人类同伴的血？另一个经典例证来自印度的阿育王（公元前272-236年），在皈依佛教后，他对由于他的武力征服所带来的死亡和痛苦感到悔恨。。
有些佛教文献认可在保护僧伽及无辜者的特殊情况下的杀戮。但今天，主流的小乘和大乘佛教都拒绝这种作为例外的“正当的杀戮”。 致力于非暴力入世佛教的重要支持者包括一行禅师（越南）和马哈•戈萨南达僧王（柬埔寨）。
Buddhism on Justice and Injustice
佛教关于正义和非正义的观念
The Buddhist approach to justice begins with individual behavior. The moral law of karma, in which good actions generate positive consequences and bad actions negative ones, is at its core. Buddhism has proved historically compatible with any number of different political forms. Because it has traditionally been centered on the monastery, Buddhism has limited itself to general social prescriptions—the five precepts of good conduct (not to kill, steal, lie, commit sexual wrong, or partake of intoxicants)—and tended to acknowledge the existing political regime. Rulers, in turn, have often patronized the sangha, providing a mixture of protection and resources, in return for the blessing of the monks—and the wider political legitimacy it afforded them. These basic arrangements go back as far as King Ashoka on the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE and continue through many contemporary democratic and autocratic regimes in Buddhist-majority countries. The last two decades have seen the growth of socially engaged Buddhism in Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma), and support for the Dalai Lama and greater Tibetan autonomy from China among Buddhists based in North America and Europe.
佛教的正义观念从个人行为入手。羯磨（“业”）中的道德律是其核心，也即“善有善报、恶有恶报”的思想。历史上，佛教证明了可以与任何政治形式相调和。由于其传统上主要集中于寺庙生活，佛教将自身限定于一般的社会规范，如五种善行的戒律（不杀生、不偷盗、不妄语、不邪淫、不饮酒），同时倾向于认可既存的政权。相应地，统治者则庇护僧团，包括提供保护和资源，以回报僧侣们的祝福，以及佛教赋予他们的政治合法性。这些基本安排可以追溯到公元前3世纪印度次大陆的阿育王统治时期，并在佛教徒占多数的国家通过现代民主和专制的政权中得以继续。过去几十年间，入世佛教在东南亚（越南、柬埔寨和缅甸）蓬勃兴起，欧美的佛教徒则支持达赖喇嘛和西藏自治。
Buddhism on the Religious Other
佛教关于宗教他者的观念
Buddhism was born into a context of thriving cultural diversity and has since maintained its openness to other religious and philosophical traditions. The Buddha lived and formulated his own system during a period of flourishing religious activity in northern India. He was fundamentally opposed to certain key teachings of the Vedic tradition—one of the forerunners of modern-day Hinduism—in particular its dual insistence on the individual soul and the universal soul. He insisted, by contrast, that there is no permanent self or soul and that all entities are interdependent and in flux. The existence of certain core beliefs within Buddhism has not, as a rule, translated into intolerance of other traditions or an attitude of proselytism. On the question of right and wrong doctrines, the Buddha counseled tolerance and restraint from disputation, insisting that his own dharma (teachings) were best understood as a means to the end of reducing suffering. This openness to other faith traditions is exemplified by contemporary Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama, who emphasizes the importance of following the best of one’s own religious tradition rather than conversion to Buddhism.
佛教诞生于一个繁荣的多元文化处境，至今保持对其他的宗教和哲学传统的开放态度。佛陀生活和创立其自身思想体系的时期，正是印度北部宗教活动蓬勃发展的时期。佛陀从根本上反对吠陀传统的某些核心教义——这是今日印度教的来源之一——尤其是其对个人灵魂和普遍灵魂的双重肯定。相反，他认为并没有永恒的自我和灵魂，所有事物都是非实在和缘起的。作为一项原则，佛教内部存在的某些核心信仰也没有被转化成对其他传统不容忍和改教的态度。相对于教义的“正确”、“错误”这一问题，佛陀劝告要宽容和无争，即甚至“法”——即佛之所教——也不过是一种能够“拔苦”的方便法门。在今天，这一精神常被现代佛教领袖如达赖喇嘛所表述，他强调，重要的是跟随各自宗教传统中最好的部分，而不是皈依佛教。
Buddhism on Health and Illness
佛教关于健康和疾病的观念
For Buddhism, physical suffering is an inevitable part of life. Like old age and death, sickness is unavoidable and bound to produce some degree of suffering. This does not mean that one should not mitigate pain through available medical means, but the suffering that remains should be accepted and mindfully endured. Within the Buddhist tradition, moreover, physical pain and illness can be the occasion for the cultivation of healthy mental states such as forbearance and patience. It is not illness per se but our response to it that has spiritual value. The Buddha condemned any form of self-mortification and mistreatment of either body or mind. Underlying this approach to health and illness is Buddhism’s view of body and mind as interrelated and interdependent. The body is a valuable instrument whose good health is indispensable for maximizing spiritual development. Meditation techniques, a core part of the Buddhist tradition, are designed in part to prevent and address physical and mental illness.
对于佛教来说，身体的痛苦是生活无可避免的一部分。疾病同衰老和死亡一样不可避免，并一定会带来某种程度的痛苦。这并不意味着一个人不应该用现有的医疗手段去减轻痛苦。但（人们）应当接纳痛苦，以及用心忍受。而且，在佛教的传统里，身体的疾病和痛苦是培养健康精神状态（如宽容和忍耐）的机缘。具有精神价值的并非疾病本身，而是我们针对它们的精神反应。佛陀反对任何形式的身心虐待或自残。这一健康和疾病观念的基础在于佛教的身心一体、相互关联思想。身体是有价值的工具，身体是有用的工具，健康的身体对于精神的超越来说必不可缺。作为佛教传统核心内容的禅修，即是用来避免和应对身心的疾病。
Buddhism on Defamation of Religion
With so much diversity within the tradition and lacking a strong hierarchy in many
places, Buddhism has no standard approach to the defamation of religion. Overall,
however, Buddhist religious leaders generally do not seek to deny anyone the right
to speak one’s mind, though they may criticize specific instances of disrespectful or
slanderous speech as misuses of that right. Perhaps uniquely among religions, certain
strands of Buddhism may even support the defamation of religion as spiritually valuable:
a well-known koan from Zen Buddhism says, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill
him,” admonishing believers not to cling to any set ideas about enlightenment or what
is sacred. Buddhist practice largely focuses on improving oneself rather than regulating
the affairs of others, leaving most Buddhist authorities largely unconcerned by the
defamation of religion. However, individual Buddhists may naturally take offense at
attacks against their faith.
