住持，各位法師，各位來賓，和各位學生，謝謝你們邀請我來參加畢業典禮。
有個當前頗為流傳的故事，說的是一位海軍上將在艦橋上，注意到雷達銀幕上的光標指示，似乎航線上有危險物。他即刻下令：「我艦朝你方行駛！調整你的航線，建議右舷轉15度，以避免相撞。」
對方馬上回應：「建議調轉您‧‧‧的航線。」將軍發出更直截的回訊：「我艦奉命行駛此航線，偏轉你的航線15度。」回答覆依然是﹕「不可能！調整您的航線。」上將終於忍不住了﹕「這是企業號航艦的指揮官，我命令你報上身份，立刻調整航線。」對方馬上答覆﹕「這是水手威勒‧約翰遜。在概念角燈塔值勤。調整航線，或者擱淺，您自個兒決定吧！」
你看，燈塔標誌著障礙物。我們或許以為，憑自己權力或影響力，我們足以超越或繞過阻礙；事實上，天天都有障礙向我們挑戰。有時候，只是由於障礙他人，自己就成為了障礙物。
今晚我們藉此畢業典禮，來恭賀你們作為學生的在學業上的成就。因為你們畢業生自以為完成了，而非某階段之開始。此會被稱之為畢業典禮（註），就聽來很奇怪。我曾聽說，哲學家柏拉圖把一至四年級的學生作如下的歸析﹕「一年級新生什麼也不懂，但是不知道他什麼也不懂；二年級學生什麼也不懂，但是知道他什麼也不懂；三年級學生懂，但是不知道他懂；四年級學生懂，也知道他懂。」
我站在一群剛剛高中四年級畢業的學生面前，他們懂，也知道他們懂。不過有一事令人傷感，就是我得提醒你們，短短三個月後，你們會再度成為一年級新生。
想一想！我們掌握了知識，邁出成為社會中「障礙物」的第一步。如果有人深信知識即是力量，而其所長之專門知識最具力量，這種人是最難相處了。當我們刻意地封閉心胸，待人缺乏誠意時，我們變成了「障礙」。因此在這關鍵時期，當你們許多人正要離開聖城的保護，開始自己在保護牆外的生活之旅時，我力勸你們保持思想開闊，與對人之誠意。千萬不要製造障礙，將自己的最高潛能遮障住，亦即成為世人的障礙。
今晚還有一個故事，關於約瑟夫‧史塔斯和他的築橋夢。他要去築的不是一座普通橋樑，但是面對這次的挑戰，他心理準備相充裕。在他的職業生涯中，他已設計了近四百座橋樑。他從未懷疑過自己的能力，也對自己的專業知識信心十足。一九二一年，他提出二千七百萬元的估價，雖然正式動工是在十一年後，而合約上的總造價金額正好略低於二千四百萬元。十一年的拖延，得歸咎於設置障礙之人。他們說：「這是不可能的啦！在那兒做荒唐夢！當前經濟大蕭條，哪兒去弄這筆錢？國防部絕不會批准，因為橋身會妨礙具有戰略意義的入港航道。」設障之人，多如牛毛；搭橋之人，少如麟角。即使如此，這份計劃的進展仍在持續著。
因為條件險惡，史塔斯非常注意安全措施。他發明了實用的硬安全帽，又堅持要求每位工人都要戴無反光護目鏡。他還在工區搭了安全網，十九人因此而獲救，他們被稱為「至地獄半途者俱樂部」。在頭五年，只有一人死亡；可是一九三七年二月十七日，一座臺架鬆裂，撕穿安全網，十人喪命。一九三七年五月二十七日，幾乎是整整六十年前，自舊金山市至馬林郡前端的金門大橋竣工，銜接起舊金山市區和加州北海岸。
我突然想到搭橋的人必是位特殊人才。他得瞭解風險與成本，並且願意去承擔。在不到一百五十年前，中國與西方之間有著巨大的障礙。對教授西方人中國語言或其豐富文化的禁令，使這一局面雪上加霜。這種障礙是雙方造成的。在加州這個淘金區，中國勞工不被當人看，被看成畜牲或財產，飽受非人待遇。在本世紀中，世事的風雨，政治上的、社會上的，多數不在增進東西方之間的相互瞭解，而在加深彼此間的隔閡。宣化上人創辦了萬佛聖城和你們即將畢業的學校。他是位典型的築橋人，而非築障人。上人以寬廣的視野與博大的心胸，為西方人構築對佛教的理解之橋。這一事業追求，比約瑟夫‧史塔斯的見地要深遠得多。後者僅是在兩郡之間，搭座鋼索吊橋。想像一下，若想在兩種不同的文化之間搭起橋樑，要付出多大的代價。
今晚我希望你們意識到，隨著在二十一世紀的到來，你們將成為下一代領袖之際，你會面對兩個選擇。你必須決定，要做築橋人？還是當個築障人？我可以肯定地說，作個築障人要容易得多，因為稍費腦筋，就可想出無法完成任務的理由。屏隔與我們非常不同的文化、宗教、價值觀，也並不需太費心力。我們很容易把自己舒適天地之外的世界，幻想成充滿了無可救藥的蠻族，正在衝擊著我們極為安全的圍牆。
要作橋樑建築師，其難度要大得多！你得俱備幾方面的條件，還要承擔風險。首先要修心，將其放在最好的師父門下受訓，以掌握從事有意義工作的技巧與知識。你們是畢業了，可如果想當個築橋人，就必須學之終身。必須掌握科技、藝術、人文等學科；注意自我的內在涵養；同時也注意外在的本領，以準備在二十一世紀社會中，俱備生存力和競爭力。先從心念作起，時時關照心態；因為你我所受的教育一定要著重於個性、品德、與行為，實值與評觀並重。
你們在這兒所打下的基礎很特殊，因此每一位都有資格依其獨特背景，在東西方之間，尤其要在因背景差異而易形成隔閡的人群之間搭起相互理解之橋。
一九九五年夏，我有機會參加聯合國五十周年紀念會議，其中一項節目是在柏克萊加州大學，基於以不同宗教傳統之間的互相尊重為原則，制訂全球人倫道德聲明。柏克萊世界宗教研究所－－法界佛教大學的一個重要分院，所從事的事業，就是一個架設橋樑的榜樣，它表明了在人群之間做交流的潛力。而在此做學生的經歷，使你們在此事業中身處關鍵之地位。
你們當中有人會在佛教團體中繼續進修，我奉勸你們追求如前人所行的最高目標。我想到有些學生，在曼都仙諾社區大學選修我的高級學科考試課程，後復深造於史丹福、聖塔克魯斯加大分校、柏克萊加大分校，以及美國、加拿大和世界各地各著名的高等學府。他們就是築橋人。
下去幾年，你們會以這裡的教育教導你們的原則，去理解你正經受的種種經歷，這些經歷也一直在塑造著你的個性，屆時你必需選擇，是作築障人呢？還是作築橋人？恭喜你們的成就，特此致上最好的祝福。
註：commencement(畢業)，亦有開始之意。 |
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Venerable Abbot, Dharma Masters, honored guests and honored students, thank you for inviting me to share this graduation ceremony with you.
There’s a story going around these days about a Navy admiral who was on the bridge of his ship when he noticed a blip on the radar screen indicating a possible navigational hazard. He ordered the following message sent: “Underway your direction; suggest altering your course 15 degrees starboard to avoid a collision.” Promptly came the reply. “Suggest altering YOUR course.” The admiral sent a more direct message back: “On official mission; alter your course by 15 degrees.” Again came the reply: “Not possible. Alter your course.” Finally in exasperation the admiral sent: “This is the commanding admiral of the USS Enterprise. I order that you identify yourself and alter your course immediately.” Within an instant came the quick response: “This is Seaman Willard Johnson, on duty at the Point Conception Light House. Alter your course or run aground. Your call.”
You see, the lighthouse marked a barrier. We might imagine ourselves to be powerful or influential enough to get beyond it or around it, but in fact there are barriers that create significant challenges to us every day. People can make themselves into barriers sometimes, just by getting in everybody’s way.
This evening we are honoring your achievements as students in an event that we call a commencement, which seems odd to us since as seniors you have been imagining that you are at the end, not the beginning, of something. I’m told that the philosopher Plato once gave us categories to classify freshman, sophomores, juniors, and seniors the following way: “A freshman knows not, but knows not that he knows not; a sophomore knows not, but knows that he knows not; a junior knows but knows not that he knows; but a senior knows and knows that he knows.” So here I stand before a group of students who have just completed being seniors—they know that they know. And it becomes my sad duty to remind you that in three short months you will all become freshmen again.
It is in imagining that we have mastered knowledge that we take our first steps toward becoming “barriers” in this world. There is no person more difficult to be around than one who believes that knowledge is power, and that their own particular brand of knowledge is the most powerful of all. We become “barriers” when we choose deliberately to close our minds, and to close our hearts to others. So at this crucial time of transition, as many of you prepare to leave the shelter of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas and begin your life journey outside these protective walls, I urge you to keep both your mind and your heart open, lest you form a barrier within yourself to the highest nature of which you are capable, and thus become a barrier to others in this world.
There’s another story I’d like to tell you this evening. It is about a man named Joseph B. Strauss and his dream of building a bridge. It was not an ordinary bridge that Strauss was commissioned to build, but he was prepared for the challenge, having designed nearly 400 previous bridges in his professional career. He never doubted his ability; he never questioned his knowledge. In 1921, he presented his estimates of the cost at $27 million dollars, and although it was 11 years later that the actual construction began, the contracts for construction totaled just under $24 million dollars. What delayed the project for those eleven years was the work of barrier builders: It can’t be done! It’s a foolish dream. There’s a depression going on, and there will never be the money. The War Department will never approve because the bridge will interfere with the strategic shipping lanes into port. There are always people who would rather be barrier builders than bridge builders. But the project continued. The conditions were extremely adverse, so Strauss became a fanatic on safety. He practically invented the hard hat, and insisted that each worker wear glare-free goggles. He erected a safety net under the span of construction that saved the lives of 19 men who became known as the “Halfway to Hell Club.” For the first five years, there was only one fatality, but on February 17, 1937 ten men lost their lives when a scaffolding broke loose and tore through the safety net. On May 27, 1937, almost exactly 60 years ago, the Golden Gate Bridge was completed from San Francisco to the Marin County headlands, linking the North Coast to the City.
Now, I happen to think it takes a very special kind of person to build a bridge. It takes one who understands the risks and the costs, and is willing to bear them. Less than 150 years ago, there were enormous barriers between China and the West, enforced by prohibitions against teaching either the Chinese language or its rich literature to Occidental people. The barriers were on both sides. In the California Gold Fields, Chinese laborers were viewed as less than human, and were treated as animals or property, but never as human beings. Political and social events throughout this century have served more to keep barriers in place between East and West than to improve understanding between us. The Venerable Master Hua, founder of this City and the schools from which you are graduating, was an exemplary builder of bridges, not barriers. Master Hua was a bridge builder with an open mind and an open heart whose commitment to build understanding of the Buddhist tradition among Western people was more powerful than the vision of Joseph B. Strauss, who only wanted to link two counties together with a magnificent single span suspension cable bridge. Imagine what it will take to complete the bridge between two cultures!
Tonight I want you to see that there are two options ahead as we approach the twenty-first century and you take your place in the leadership of your generation. You must choose to become a builder of bridges or a builder of barriers. I assure you that the barriers are easier, because it takes such a small portion of the mind to imagine reasons why something is impossible to achieve. It takes such a small portion of the heart to reject those whose culture, religion, or values seem so foreign to us; it is so easy to imagine the rest of the world outside of our comfort zone to be populated by hopeless barbarians assailing our very secure walls.
How much more difficult it is to become a builder of bridges. It will make several demands on you, and it is a risky business. First, it will demand that you cultivate the mind by placing it under the discipline of the finest teachers you can find to hone your skills and knowledge into the basis of useful work. Your education has only commenced, and it will continue throughout your lifetime if you are to become a builder of bridges. It will require you to become proficient in science and technology, the arts and humanities; it will attend to the inner person as well as the public person ready to make a living and compete as an economic free agent of the 21st century. So begin with the mind, but always attend to the heart as well, for your education must focus on character as much as on conduct; on the things of value as much as on the things of worth.
Because of the unique foundation you have attained here, each of you is uniquely qualified to build a bridge of understanding, primarily between East and West, but more simply among all people whose differences might easily become barriers.
I had the opportunity in the summer of 1995 to attend the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, one event of which was a conference at UC Berkeley on the work being done to formulate a Global Ethics statement, based on mutual respect among the diverse religious traditions of the world. The work of the Institute for World Religions in Berkeley, as one significant dimension of the Dharma Realm Buddhist University, is a wonderful example of the potential for bridge building within the community of which you have become so vital a part by being here as students.
Some of you will continue your work within the Buddhist community, and I urge you to pursue your highest goal as those have who have gone before you. I think of several of my own students who have taken advanced placement courses with me at Mendocino College and have continued their education to the graduate level at Stanford, UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley, and other distinguished universities throughout the US, Canada, and the world. These are bridge builders.
Over the next several years, as your character continues to be formed by your experiences and the discipline you bring to interpret those experiences based upon the foundation you have received here, you must choose to become a builder of barriers or a builder of bridges. It is my deepest hope and expectation that you each may become a builder of bridges. Congratulations on your accomplishments, and best wishes to you on this occasion. |
