佛法可以不提輪迴嗎?

佛法可以不提輪迴嗎? [作者] 菩提尊者 [中譯] 良稹 Dhamma Without Rebirth? by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi	原文版權所有 © 1985 佛教出版社。免費發行。本文允許在任何媒體再版、重排、重印、印發。然而，作者希望任何再版與分發以對公眾免費與無限制的形式進行，譯文與轉載也要求表明作者原衷。中譯版權所有 © 2005 良稹，http://www.theravadacn.org ，流通條件如上。轉載時請包括本站連接，並登載本版權聲明。
In line with the present-day stress on the need for religious teachings to be personally relevant and directly verifiable, in certain Dhamma circles the time-honored Buddhist doctrine of rebirth has come up for severe re-examination. Although only a few contemporary Buddhist thinkers still go so far as to suggest that this doctrine be scrapped as "unscientific," another opinion has been gaining ground to the effect that whether or not rebirth itself be a fact, the doctrine of rebirth has no essential bearings on the practice of Dhamma and thence no claim to an assured place in the Buddhist teachings. The Dhamma, it is said, is concerned solely with the here and now, with helping us to resolve our personal hangups through increased self-awareness and inner honesty. All the rest of Buddhism we can now let go as the religious trappings of an ancient culture utterly inappropriate for the Dhamma of our technological age.	現代人對宗教教導強調有必要與個人相關並直接可證，相應地在某些佛教圈子裡，久經考驗的輪迴教說在經受苛刻的重新審查。盡管只有少數幾位當代佛教思想家仍走得過遠，建議將此教說作爲“非科學”予以廢棄，另有一種觀點已開始流行，意謂不管輪迴本身真實與否，輪迴的教說對佛法修持無根本重要性，因此在佛法教導中無必要地位。有人說，佛法只關乎即刻當下，助我們藉提升自覺與內在誠實，解決個人難題。佛教的其餘一切，只是一個古老文化的宗教性裝飾，作爲我們當今科技時代的佛法已徹底不合宜，如今可以放棄了。
If we suspend our own predilections for the moment and instead go directly to our sources, we come upon the indisputable fact that the Buddha himself taught rebirth and taught it as a basic tenet of his teaching. Viewed in their totality, the Buddha's discourses show us that far from being a mere concession to the outlook prevalent in his time or an Asiatic cultural contrivance, the doctrine of rebirth has tremendous implications for the entire course of Dhamma practice, affecting both the aim with which the practice is taken up and the motivation with which it is followed through to completion.	假如暫時放下個人偏見，直接去我們的來源查看，便會發現一個不可否認的事實：佛陀本人講授了輪迴，並且是把它作爲一個基本要旨來講授的。綜觀佛陀說法的經文，我們可以看見，輪迴教說遠非僅是對他那個時代的流行觀念或者對一種亞洲文化構想的折衷接受，相反，它對於佛法修持的整個過程意義巨大，既影響著起始修持的目的，也影響著把修持堅持到底的動力。
The aim of the Buddhist path is liberation from suffering, and the Buddha makes it abundantly clear that the suffering from which liberation is needed is the suffering of bondage to samsara, the round of repeated birth and death. To be sure, the Dhamma does have an aspect which is directly visible and personally verifiable. By direct inspection of our own experience we can see that sorrow, tension, fear and grief always arise from our greed, aversion and ignorance, and thus can be eliminated with the removal of those defilements. The importance of this directly visible side of Dhamma practice cannot be underestimated, as it serves to confirm our confidence in the liberating efficacy of the Buddhist path. However, to downplay the doctrine of rebirth and explain the entire import of the Dhamma as the amelioration of mental suffering through enhanced self-awareness is to deprive the Dhamma of those wider perspectives from which it derives its full breadth and profundity. By doing so one seriously risks reducing it in the end to little more than a sophisticated ancient system of humanistic psychotherapy.	佛法之路的目的是從苦中解脫，佛陀多次闡明，需要從中解脫之苦，乃是受縛於周而復始的生死輪迴之苦。確切地說，佛法有一個側面是直接可見並親身可證的。直接審視個人經歷，我們可以看出，憂愁、緊張、恐懼與悲痛，總是來源於我們的貪、瞋、癡，因此是可以藉滅除那些雜染而消解的。佛法修持中這一直接可證的側面，其重要性決不能低估，因爲它堅定了我們對佛法之路解脫效力的信心。然而，對輪迴教說不予重視，把佛法全義解釋爲藉提升自我覺察以緩解精神痛苦，便使它失去了那些更寬廣的視點，佛法有賴於後者才得以保持完整的廣度與深度。那樣做的嚴重危險是，最終把佛法縮減至無異於一門複雜而古老的人道主義心理療法。
The Buddha himself has clearly indicated that the root problem of human existence is not simply the fact that we are vulnerable to sorrow, grief and fear, but that we tie ourselves through our egoistic clinging to a constantly self-regenerating pattern of birth, aging, sickness and death within which we undergo the more specific forms of mental affliction. He has also shown that the primary danger in the defilements is their causal role in sustaining the round of rebirths. As long as they remain unabandoned in the deep strata of the mind, they drag us through the round of becoming in which we shed a flood of tears "greater than the waters of the ocean." When these points are carefully considered, we then see that the practice of Dhamma does not aim at providing us with a comfortable reconciliation with our present personalities and our situation in the world, but at initiating a far-reaching inner transformation which will issue in our deliverance from the cycle of worldly existence in its entirety.	佛陀本人已清楚闡明，人類生存的根本矛盾非僅是我們善感於憂愁、悲哀與恐懼，而是我們藉著我執、自縛於生老病死的連續再生模式，在其中經受種種形式的精神痛苦。他還說明，雜染最主要的危險在於，它們是維持輪迴繼續之因。只要繼續存在於心智的深度層次不予棄絕，它們會拖著我們繼續那“緣起”的循環，在其中我們的氾濫之淚“多於大海之水”。對這些要點作仔細思考，我們便可看見，佛法修持的目的，並非是爲我們的當前個性與在世處境之間提供一項舒適的調停，而在於啓動一個影響深遠的內在轉化過程，它將會引導我們從世俗的生存循環中徹底解脫。
Admittedly, for most of us the primary motivation for entering upon the path of Dhamma has been a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction with the routine course of our unenlightened lives rather than a keen perception of the dangers in the round of rebirths. However, if we are going to follow the Dhamma through to its end and tap its full potential for conferring peace and higher wisdom, it is necessary for the motivation of our practice to mature beyond that which originally induced us to enter the path. Our underlying motivation must grow toward those essential truths disclosed to us by the Buddha and, encompassing those truths, must use them to nourish its own capacity to lead us toward the realization of the goal.	誠然，對我們大多數人來說，走上佛法之路的主要動機，一直是對自己無明人生的常規軌迹有一股啃齧於心的不滿足感，而非是對輪迴重生的危險有著敏銳的警悟。然而，我們若是想徹底奉行佛法，得益於它的全部潛力所賦予的寧靜與高等智慧，則有必要使我們修持的動機成熟起來，超越引導我們走上此道的初始因素。我們的基本動機必須朝著佛陀揭示的那些根本真理而增長起來，隨著對這些真理的包容，以之滋養潛能，引導我們實現（解脫的）目標。
Our motivation acquires the requisite maturity by the cultivation of right view, the first factor of the Noble Eightfold Path, which as explained by the Buddha includes an understanding of the principles of kamma and rebirth as fundamental to the structure of our existence. Though contemplating the moment is the key to the development of insight meditation, it would be an erroneous extreme to hold that the practice of Dhamma consists wholly in maintaining mindfulness of the present. The Buddhist path stresses the role of wisdom as the instrument of deliverance, and wisdom must comprise not only a penetration of the moment in its vertical depths, but a comprehension of the past and future horizons within which our present existence unfolds. To take full cognizance of the principle of rebirth will give us that panoramic perspective from which we can survey our lives in their broader context and total network of relationships. This will spur us on in our own pursuit of the path and will reveal the profound significance of the goal toward which our practice points, the end of the cycle of rebirths as mind's final liberation from suffering.	我們的動機藉由正見的培養獲得必要的成熟，正見居佛說八正道之首，這其中便包括對業力與輪迴原理對我們生存結構之根本重要性的理解。盡管思維當下是內觀禪修的關鍵，然而認定整個佛法修持只是對當下保持念住，是一個極度的錯誤。佛法之路強調，智慧是解脫的工具，而智慧不僅必須包括對當下在縱向深度上的透視，而且必須包括對過去與未來在橫向軸線上的領悟，我們當前的存在就在其中展開。對輪迴原理的充分認識，將會提供全景視野，我們得以在更廣闊的背景與全副的關係網絡下審視人生。這將促使我們加快在這條道路上的步伐，也將爲我們揭示修持目標的深遠意義，即心智最終從苦中解脫時輪迴的終止。