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我想簡單談談我是怎麼會講到這一個話題的。我覺得自己是一個人文主義者，而不是一個科學家。這恐怕是因為我對科學失望所至。實際上，我在青少年時是十分熱衷於科學的。在我的學生時代，「斯龐尼克號」發射升空，學校的課程在一夜之間就改變了––由原來以人文學科為主的課程轉變到以理工學科為主，就為了與發射「斯龐尼克號」的蘇俄競爭。
這種熱烈的情緒擴張開來，我也變得很興奮，一頭就栽到科學裡，越栽越深；越深我越本能地感覺到對我來說還是不夠深，沒觸到究竟現象上，還在皮毛上轉。雖然我拿到了理工科的獎學金，我還是放棄了。高三下學期末，在我選擇畢業後的去處和從事的行業時，我讀到了一本關於心理學的書，接著又讀了一本關於佛教的書；把兩本書放在一起，我得到一個結論：「對了！心理學就是我要學習的。」我意識到「心」，根據心理學與佛教大概就是人類行為的原動力，根潛於人的一切行為之後。我們的態度、意見、情感，一切一切都在心的範疇之內，乃至於我們的預測和臆想，都是左右我們生命的全部。所以我想：「哈！我要去研究這個心。」當然，字典上對心理學一詞的注解，也說是研究心的學問的。
所以我一上大學，馬上就唸心理系，一心想通過心理系鑽透這些永恆的眞理。但在心理系裡，所搞的盡是折磨那些猴子和老鼠，使我非常驚嚇。尤其以在我讀的那所大學為甚––麥迪遜的威斯康辛州立大學，那是在六十年代。
那所大學有位研究學者叫哈瑞‧哈羅。他拿雷奢猴作剝奪性實驗，實際上他的實驗眞叫人毛骨悚然。他將小猴從母猴身邊拿走，另以一隻玩具猴來來替代母猴。這隻玩具猴身上扎滿細針，所以當幼猴擁抱玩具母猴的時候身上便會被細針刺傷。在讓這些小猴遭受這種考驗後，為安慰這些小猴時，他又將它們放在一個圓滾滾的筒內，讓小猴完全抓不到東西：這是他的第一個實驗。
他的第二個實驗，是觀察猴子的繁殖行為。這牽涉到猴子的第二、第三代的小小幼猴。任何一個人，即使智商只有50的人都知道這些猴子會有障礙，不知道該如何餵養幼猴了。當這個實驗完畢的時候，這些猴子就被送到當地動物園，麥迪遜當地居民會到動物園去看這些飽受折磨、精神不健全的猴子。那些當地孩子與大自然的最初接觸，就是這趟動物園之行，觀察這些從哈羅先生實驗室出來的猴子；他們心靈一定會注人郝伯遜的人生觀––生命是短暫而殘酷的。
好了！我在心理系沒待多久，咬著牙熬過這一門課。還有另外一個研究學者名叫卡爾‧羅傑，他是我的指導老師。他是一個人文心理學家，對於我感興趣的問題他也很感興趣。不幸的是，當我到那兒時，所有的研究資金都流到哈羅先生那兒；羅傑老師已經離系而走了。所以當我問他們我是否可以跟著羅傑老師學習的時候，他們說：「不行，他已經走了。」然後轉身面對我，從牙縫裡說出：「這有點像是船捨棄正在溺水下沉的老鼠。」我一直不太明白這句話，直到一學期之後我才悟出道理來。
結果我不再修科學，而轉到那所大學最有趣的歷史系去了，從此我就在那系裡。
我所從事的研究是東方西方的相會——從廣面說。我知道東西方之間有一層困難在，但我今晚不談這個；我只是說那是我的興趣所在。我的正式專業所學是人類學、歷史學、宗教學、哲學，這是我作這個演講的資料來源和依據。我的博士論文是在一個特定範圍內檢驗東西方的相會，並觸及這樣一個問題：「當佛教傳到歐美的時候會是怎麼一個樣子？」我的觀點是當佛教從印度傳到中國，傳到西藏，傳到日本等地時，都改變了當地的文化；而當地的文化也同時在改變著佛教：這是一個相互改變和轉變的過程。所以我提出這樣一個問題：「當佛教傳到美國時，會是怎麼樣呢？」是佛教改變美國？或美國改變佛教？我就從這兒開始的。
待續
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Just to say a little bit about how I came to this topic, I think I am basically a humanist; I am not a scientist. And that is probably more by default than anything else. The reason I say this is that, actually early in my youth, I was quite enthusiastic about science. I was in school when Sputnik was launched. I witnessed my educational program change almost overnight, from a humanistic-based curriculum to one that was driven by science and research in order to compete with the Russians who had launched Sputnik.
This enthusiasm carried over; I got excited, too, and got into science and the deeper I got into it, the more I had an intuitive feeling it wasn't deep enough for me. It wasn't dealing with ultimate phenomena, but only with the surface of things. And even though I had a scholarship to continue in science, I chose not to do so. Sometime around the end of my high school years when I was choosing between places to go, I read a book on psychology and then read a book on Buddhism. I put the two together and came to the conclusion, "Ahah! This is what I've been looking for: the study of the mind." I had a realization that the mind is probably— according to psychology and Buddhism—the primary motivating factor in our behavior. It is what roots and underlies all we do. Our attitudes, our opinions, and our emotion are all within the realm of mind, as are our unexamined presuppositions, our preconceptions. This is what governs our lives. So I thought, "Ahah! I'm going to study the mind." And, of course, looking into the dictionary, I saw that psychology is the study of the mind.
And so when I went to the University, I immediately went to the Psychology Department, eager to penetrate the eternal verities through the Psychology Department. Much to my dismay, the Psychology Department was totally caught up with torturing monkeys and rats, particularly so at this institution—University of Wisconsin in Madison, in the 1960s.
There was a fellow there by the name of Harry Harlow. He did deprivation experiments on Rhesus monkeys; actually his experiments were quite horrible. He would take the monkeys away from their mothers and give them surrogate dolls; the dolls had pins sticking out of them, so that whenever the baby monkeys hugged the dolls, they would get zapped with the pins, and of course undergo an adversive experience.
Then for comfort he put them into completely cylindrical containers, so that they had nothing to hang onto. That was his first experiment.
His second experiment was to observe these monkeys' reproductive behavior, and how they would relate to their second and third generation offspring, their own little baby monkeys. Anyone with an I.Q. of 50 would know that they would be totally dysfunctional and not know how to raise children. And when the experiments were over, the monkeys were sent to the local zoo. The local Madison residents would go there and see these poor, totally psychotic monkeys in the zoo. Children whose first encounter with nature was through their trips to the zoo and observing the monkeys that came out of Harlow's lab, must have developed a Hobbesian view that life was truly nasty, brutish and short.
Well, I didn't stay in the Psychology Department. I took one course, held my breath, and got through it. There was another fellow there by the name of Carl Rodgers, with whom I studied. He was a humanistic psychologist interested in the kinds of questions I was interested in. Unfortunately, when I got there, all the money was going to Harlow, and Rodgers had left, so when I asked if I could study with Carl Rodgers, I was told, "No; he has left." Then the man turned to me and under his breath he said, "It's a little bit like the ship abandoning the sinking rats." I didn't quite understand it until a semester later; then I began to see his meaning. So as a result, I didn't go into science. I moved into the most interesting department on that campus, which was the History Department. And I pretty much stayed in that field.
The work that I am doing is basically the encounter of East and West, in very broad terms. I know there's difficulty with what's East and what's West, and I don't want to go into that tonight. I only want to say that's my interest. My formal training is anthropology, history, religion, and philosophy. That is the orientation of this presentation. My dissertation was the examination of the East and West encounter in a very specific way, and asking the question: "What is Buddhism going to look like as it comes into Europe and America?" I was posing that Buddhism migrated from India, to China, to Tibet, to Japan and so forth—every place it goes it changes the culture and it is also changed by the culture it encounters. There is a reciprocal change and transformation that takes place. And so the question I posed was, "What's going to happen when Buddhism comes to the U.S.? How will it change the U.S., and how will the U.S. change Buddhism? That is where I began.
To be continued
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