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我們的覺悟之心，
就是菩提心。
我們的覺悟之心，
死亡臨近時的無上衛士。
我們的覺悟之心，
驅除貧窮黑暗的無盡寶藏。
我們的覺悟之心，
世間一切病苦的萬靈丹。
我們的覺悟之心，
有為道上，一切眾生徘徊
倦睏時遮蔭的大樹。
我們的覺悟之心，
普為津樑，
從無樂可言的生死達到解脫的境界。
我們的覺悟之心，
如同漸昇的夜月，
給妄念帶來的熱惱以清涼。
我們的覺悟之心，
驅散世間無明霧靄的巨日。
我們的覺悟之心，
是無上的靈丹。
我們的覺悟之心，
就是菩提心。
上人、尊敬的僧團、諸位同修：
講法的人總應該知道自己要講甚麼，可我雖然學佛多年，所知的卻越來越少。我今天講「仁愛」這個題目。可對humane--「仁愛」這個辭，我不知自己是否知道其真正的意思。因為對任何事，我不願意想當然地自以為是；為保險起見，就查了一下Unabridged
Random House Dictionary
字典。其解釋的第一條是，「對人與動物富於柔軟、慈悲、同情心，尤其是在其痛苦的時刻。」「仁愛」的同義辭為：憐憫、友善、心地柔軟、柔和、慈悲、輕柔、同情、仁慈、寬厚、慷慨；
唯一的反義辭為：殘忍。
「慈悲」首先映入眼簾，因為它是佛教的術語。而「憐憫、輕柔、友善、仁慈、慷慨」在我看來更像基督教的用辭。在字典上看看human「人」字也非常有趣，它比humane「仁愛」只少一個字母「e」。在同義詞下，你發現human「人」原來的拼法就是humane「仁愛」這兩個詞顯然有著不解之緣。「仁愛者」的解釋為，「對待人、無助的動物，均以仁慈做行為動機。」
我好質疑。「仁愛」、「慈悲」是否可以不出自人類？ 比如，
在相反的面，英文中有時說，「他是個獸性的人。」人人都知道還是說這個人有些野獸的性格，或許表現在某一時刻，或許是他一生的行為特徵。當前，我們通過基因工程甚至能夠在植物蔬菜中注入動物基因，而我們可能食用這些植物，或許無可避免地多少要染上一些獸性了。
回到「仁愛」、「慈悲」來講，這種人是指「以仁慈為行為動機的人。」「慈悲」的一個同義詞是「仁愛」；
這再一次將「慈悲」局限於人類所有。
現在再回到我的問題，我們是否都在某種層次感覺到，「這個」就是慈悲本身？我說的「這個」是指我們現在相聚於佛殿。
待續
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Our awakened hearts -
This is bodhichitta.
Our awakened hearts -
The supreme remedy
When death comes stalking.
Our awakened hearts -
The inexhaustible treasure
Which dispels the darkness of poverty.
Our awakened hearts -
The ultimate elixir for
All the world’s disease.
Our awakened hearts -
Great trees that shelter All beings,
wandering and tired
On the paths of conditioned existence.
Our awakened hearts -
Universal bridges to freedom
From unhappy states of birth.
Our awakened hearts -
Like rising moons in the night that
Cool the fever of disturbing conceptions.
Our awakened hearts -
Great suns dispersing the fog
And misty ignorance of this world.
This is bodhichitta
The supreme elixir.
Our awakened hearts -
This is bodhichitta.
Venerable Master, Esteemed Sangha, Fellow
Cultivators:
My topic tonight is Humaneness. Despite
the fact that I practice and cultivate (and many years pass
by), I seem to know less and less. When I saw the word
humaneness written out, I wondered whether I really knew
what it meant. I thought I might know, but since I try (as a
general principle) to not take anything for granted, I
decided to look it up in the Unabridged Random House
Dictionary anyway, just to be sure. There, the first
definition under 'humane' says, reassuringly, "characterized
by tenderness, compassion and sympathy for men and animals,
especially for the suffering and distressed." The synonyms
listed are: merciful, kind, kindly, kindhearted, tender,
compassionate, gentle, sympathetic, benevolent, benignant,
charitable. There is only one antonym listed: brutal.
Compassionate is (of course) the synonym
that jumped out at me since it is such a Buddhist word,
whereas words such as merciful, gentle, benevolent, and
charitable sound more Christian. At least to me they do. It
is very interesting, though. If you let your eye wander up
the page in the dictionary to the word 'human' which is, of
course, 'humane' with no letter 'e' in it, you discover
under the listing for 'human' synonyms that 'humane' -
h-u-m-a-n-e - was the original spelling of the word 'human.'
So these two words are obviously inextricably intertwined. A
humane or compassionate person is, specifically, it says
(under the word 'human'), "a person actuated by benevolence
in his treatment of his fellows, or of helpless animals."
I always seem to have questions. Is it
possible for compassion or benevolent action or humaneness
to emanate from a nonhuman source, for example? I wonder
that. After all, in reverse, we might say something in
English such as, "He's a beastly person..." and everyone
would know that that person has animal-like characteristics
... in that particular moment, maybe, or in the general
conduct of that person's life. And now we even, literally,
through genetic engineering, have animal genes in vegetable
and plant life, which we then literally take into our human
bodies and consume, perhaps making us all somehow "beastly,"
and having little or no choice about it.
But back to the word humaneness or
compassion ... It says, "a person actuated by benevolence."
And a synonym for compassion is humaneness, which, again
ties compassion exclusively to the human -to the human
realm.
But now back to my questions-don't we all
feel it, or know it on some level? Isn't it just possible
that THIS is compassion itself? I mean THIS, our being here
together in the Buddha Hall, right now.
~ To be continued
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