The Establishment of the Buddhist Research Center is Deeply Felt

亚洲佛教研究中心成立有感

（2008-12-18）

Chinese source posted by Lin Meifeng in a comment to: Lin Mingya’s Curriculum Vitae
The exact same source can be seen at this cn buddhism page

● 林明雅 Lin Ming Ya

早报12月11日的报道说：“国大东南亚研究院与新加坡佛教居士林合作成立亚洲佛教研究中心。”读后思潮起伏。

The December 11 issue of the Early Report (早报) newspaper said: “the the National University of Singapore’s (国大) Southeast Asia Research Academy has set up the Asian Buddhist Research Center in cooperation with Singapore Buddhist Lodge.” After reading it, disquieting thoughts surged.

上个世纪初，韦伯在《儒教与道教》一书中认为，无论是儒教或道教都有碍于现代合理资本主义精神的产生，他把现代资本主义的产生归功于新教伦理。然而，当上个世纪东亚经济续西方之后而起，并且取得骄人的成绩时，人们又把眼球转向经济增长因素以外的东亚地区的儒、佛与伊斯兰文化因素。

At the turn of the previous century, elder brother Wei (韦伯) recognized in the book Confucianism and Taoism that, no matter whether it’s Confucianism or Taoism, both are obstructed in fostering the spirit of modern rational capitalism, and he pressed the fostering of modern capitalism into service as the new educational ethics. However, beginning from when East Asia’s economy succeeded the West in the last century, together with the attainment of proud achievements, people once again turned their attention to East Asian cultural factors of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam, apart from economy-growing factors.

首先用儒家伦理来解释政治经济现代化的因素是罗伯特•贝拉（Robert Bellah），他于1955年在其博士论文《德川宗教》里说：“融合了儒教、佛教和神道的日本宗教在日本的政治和经济理性化过程中发挥了重要的作用。”

The first to use Confucianist ethics to elucidate governmental and economic modernization was Robert Bellah. In his 1955 doctoral dissertation Tokugawa Religion he said: “Japanese religion, being melded together from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism, proved to be very useful over the course of Japan’s governmental and economic rationalization.”

其后，美国未来学家赫尔曼•康恩（Herman Kahn）在1979年出版了《1979年及其以后的世界经济发展》一书中提出，“美国因为新教精神的衰落而衰落了，而东亚的新儒家社会因儒家伦理而具备高于任何其他社会的增长潜力。”

After him , American futurologist Herman Kahn put forward in his book World Economic Development of 1979 and Beyond, “In America, because the spirit of Protestantism is more and more in decline, the East Asian Neoconfucianist community, because of Confucianist ethics, has a greater latent growth potential than any other community.”

　　1995年3月20日杜维明教授曾在新加坡发表一篇题为“文化中国与儒家传统”的演说，杜教授继《新加坡的挑战》（1989）之后发表了《现代精神与儒家传统》（1996）。但是，1997年在亚洲发生了金融危机之后，学者们开始指责东亚社会的经济体制，指责亚洲价值观的家族主义、温情主义和官僚主义等，它们交互影响形成了腐败的“裙带资本主义”，这才导致了金融危机。显然的，儒家的“大同世界”与“和而不同”的阐述已经不足以满足时代的需要。

On March 20, 1995, Prof. Du Weiming (杜维明) in Singapore published a lecture put forward as “Civilized China and the Confucianist Tradition”; Prof. Tu continued with Singapore’s Challenge (1989), and after that published The Spirit of Modernism and the Confucianist Tradition (1996). But the thing is that after the financial crisis of 1997, scholars started to criticize the economic structure of East Asian society, and criticized such East Asian values as nepotism, sentimentality, and bureaucratic mentality, which by mutually influencing each other brought about the corrupt “pettycoat capitalism,” and it was just this which led to the economic crisis. Obviously, the Confucianists’ explications of “World of Great Harmony” amd “Together but not the same” ((or “Together by not being the same” -xp)) are already not sufficient to satisfy the needs of the era.

目光投向儒家以外的文明

Casting our gaze towards extra-Confucianist civilization

德国哲学家雅斯贝尔斯（Karl Jaspers）曾经提出“轴心世纪”的说法。他认为，在公元前600年前后，不论是中国、印度及西方，都有革命性的思潮涌现。在中国，轴心文明的标志是孔子，西方是苏格拉底与亚里士多德，而印度是释迦牟尼。雅斯贝尔斯在《历史的起源与目标》一书中说：“人类一直靠轴心时代所产生的思考和创造的一切而生存，每一次新的飞跃都回顾这一时期，并被它重新燃起火焰。”

The German philosopher Karl Jaspers has proposed the “Axial Age” explanation. He recognized that at about 600 B.C. more or less, it didn’t matter whether it was China, India, or the West, all had revolutionary trends of thought coming to the fore. In China, the representative of the axial civilization was Confucius, in the West it was Socrates and Aristotle, and in India it was Shakyamuni. Karl Jaspers said in the book History’s Origin and Goal “Humanity consistently relies on the totality of the thought and innovation produced in the axial age for its subsistence. Every new leap looks back to this period, and also has its (vital) fire newly and more vigorously ignited by it.

进入21世纪，学者们纷纷地把研究的目光投向儒家以外的文明，人类又再一次地对历史的回顾。其中就把目光投向释迦牟尼，希望其菩提的智慧能够重新再燃起火焰。2006年4月《首届世界佛教论坛》在中国的浙江省举办，随后，11月4日新加坡举行了由新加坡外交部及佛教总会联合协办的《那烂陀－佛教文化联系南亚和东亚研讨会》。2009年3月28日至4月1日，《第二届世界佛教论坛》将在中国的无锡与台北举行。

On entering the 21st century, scholars variously turned their attention to civilization apart from the Confucianists, and humanity once again looked back at history. In the midst of this, they then cast their glance on Shakyamuni, hoping that his Bodhi-wisdom could once again light up the (vital) fire. In April of 2006 the First World Buddhist Conference was conducted in China’s Zhejiang province, and following that, on the 4th of November in Singapore Nalanda – the Integrated South Asia and East Asia Buddhist Culture Symposium was held jointly by the Singapore Foreign Affairs Bureau and the Buddhist Association. On March 28 to April 1, 2009, the Second World Buddhist Conference was held in China’s Wuxi and Taibei.

笔者曾在早报发表过《浅析和谐世界的构建》中曾说过：“人类早期圣人的思想是共通的，而伟大的智慧是沟通东西方社会的桥梁”。并就释迦牟尼思想对西方哲学的影响作过分析。其中就有西方著名哲学家叔本华的意志哲学。叔本华除了继承康德的“纯粹理性”思想之外，还继承了释迦牟尼的菩提智慧，并对以往西方哲学界观察世界的方式提出了批判。1818年，当叔本华发表他的名著《作为意志与表象的世界》时，第一句话就是“世界是我的表象”。他继承康德的思想，却在“意志”这里与康德思想分道扬镳，就如释迦牟尼的“菩提”与“梵”的分道扬镳一样。

The author has said in A Superficial Analysis of Building an Harmonious World published in the Early Report newspaper (早报): The thought of humanity’s early holy men is universally applicable, and Great Wisdom is a bridge between Eastern and Western society.” Then I analyzed the influence of Shakyamuni’s thought on Western philosophy. In the midst of that, then, was the philosophy of Will of the famous philospher Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer, besides inheriting Kant’s thought of “Pure Reason,” also inherited Shakyamuni’s Bodhi-Wisdom, and furthermore he criticized Western philosophy’s method of looking at the world. In 1818 when Schopenhauer published his famous The World as Will and Representation, the first sentence was exactly: “The world is my idea.” He inherited Kant’s thought, but with respect to “Will” his parting of the ways with Kant was the same as the parting of the ways between Shakyamuni’s “Bodhi” and “India”(’s traditional philosophy)”

新兴经济体与文化霸权

Newly Prevailing Economic Entities and Cultural Hegemony

自萨伊德的后殖民主义理论出现之后，从酒井直树开始，学者们依然在二元对立的基础来阐述西方的普世价值。而叔本华的意志哲学为我们开创了新的视野与理论依据，该理论批判了唯心主义者因从主体出发，从而陷入了“我执”。唯物主义者从客体出发，从而陷入了“法执”的迷误。佛教是要舍去“法执”和“我执”，唯有如此，才能够进入无主宰、无自性，最自由及最和谐的“菩提”境界。所以说，和谐的极致，就是菩提的智慧。

From after Edward W. Said’s (1935-2003) post-colonial theory emerged, starting with Naoki Sakai, scholars accordingly put forth the global value of the West on the basis established in the second millenium, and Schopenhauer’s philosophy of Will opened a new field of view and theoretical basis for us. That theory criticized the idealists because they started with subjectivity, and because of this fell into the “grasping of a self.” The materialists started from objectivity, and from this, fell into the confusion and error of “grasping of dharmas.” Buddhism wants us to renounce “grasping of dharmas” and “grasping of a self,” for it is only like this that one can enter into the most liberated and most harmonious “Bodhi” state that is without domination and without self-nature.

唯有如此，新兴经济体的出现才能摆脱文化霸权的魔咒，摆脱二律背反，才能够避免像日本明治维新之后发展起来的自我东方论述，由经济强国走入军国主义的旧路。才能够避免在西方的理性主义背后亦步亦趋，自知之明地把我们的传统文化再次地点燃。

It is only like this that the appearance of the newly prevailing economic entities can shake off the demonic curse of cultural hegemony, shake off the double standard (lit. “two rules back to back”), and escape the self-absorbed East Asian discussion that was produced after Japan’s Meiji Restoration (1868), progressing from the economic strengthening of the nation into the old road of nationalist militarism. Only then can we avoid blindly following behind the back of Western rationalism, and reignite our traditional culture by understanding our own (native) wisdom.

((This is the best current cultural analysis of trends in East Asia that I have read, and what the author warns of is real. Extremist Japan has led East Asia in all political and economic developments, and the dynamics of the rise of militarism in Japan between the Meiji Restoration and WWII is currently being repeated on the Chinese mainland. -xp))

笔者在此祝贺“亚洲佛教研究中心”在新加坡的成立，希望它能够在这一个文明交汇处，提供一个相互尊重、求同存异的平台；为钻研人类共通的智慧，续慧命、求真理，为世界各大文明的伟大融和以及为建构起真正的和谐世界而作出应有的贡献。令新加坡的国际与学术地位进一步地提升。

The author, in being congratulated about the establishment of the “Asian Buddhist Research Center” in Singapore, hopes that with respect to this matter of the confluence of civilizations*, it will be able to offer a level playing field of mutual respect which seeks similarity in existent differences, seeking true principle for the sake of the wisdom of those who bore into research studies (钻研人类), for the sake of continued wisdom-destiny, for the sake of melding together the greatness of every great civilization, and for the sake of building up a true and correct harmonious world, and accordingly (in all of these ways) to make an appropriate contribution. This now is a step forward in promoting Singapore’s international and academic status.

* confluence of civilizations. This is just what I have habitually referred to as the “East-West cultural interface.” ((Bravo, Lin Mingya! When I read this, I feel great joy and hope for the future welfare and co-existence of our birth cultures. -xp))

作者是新加坡佛教总会高级文化研究员兼讲师

The author is a high-echelon researcher at the Singapore Buddhist Assoiation, and also a lecturer.

Chinese source originally posted to this blog in a comment by Lin Mei Feng — December 21, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
The exact same source can be seen at this cn buddhism page

(referencing and prose polishing continuing – 15 Jan)