所以在這種情況之下，佛教於十八世紀九十年代來到美洲大陸，面對面地相遇了。這次不像以前僅在文字上相遇，或者是傳教士對亞洲宗教的討論而已；在這次聚會，各路宗教人士通過各自的切身經驗，以各自的語言各抒己見，這就產生了很大的影響。事實上如果你翻閱一下我所研究的一些當時的主要雜誌，若以報導和出版量來衡量的話，當時1890年代國人對東方宗教的興趣比現在更高。其中一些文章更具真知灼見，我說這實在得歸功於我祖父母和當時維多利亞時代的人。他們是真真地關注到這一點了。

我聽說當時的波士頓相當於現在加州的柏克萊。有人告訴我說你在波士頓街道上走的話，一路上你會碰到來自世界各地文化的宗教導師、聖賢、僧人和隱士，你可以看到商店裡面賣著各種各樣的東西。威廉‧詹姆士他自己也在吸著氧化氮，以求得到一種能令他進入打坐的那種恍惚意境。這種做法，離一位後來的哈佛大學教授提摩西‧萊瑞已經不很遠了。我並不是說提摩西就是威廉的再生的意思；我沒那樣講。但有一點可以肯定的，就是那時代的波士頓人，對這些現象有著令人難於置信的興趣。維多利亞時代的刊物、雜誌都滿載著人類實驗、探索、被吸引並改信東方宗教——尤其是佛教與印度教。

在這裡我要對這現象加個注腳：在這樣的一場精神危機，這樣的理性與信仰之間的分離——或者說是科學與宗教的分離——對於佛教的興趣可以看成是一種想去彌合這種分離的嘗試。你也許注意到這一題目至今還繞著我們。凡設有東方宗教書籍專架的書局，都出售關於科學與佛教之間的比較與對答的書，尤其是在量子物理學上。直到現在，人還是興趣盎然地想通過東方宗教，特別是佛教，來尋找溝通宗教與科學的橋樑。據我瞭解，吠陀教對此有許多看法。我在這一方面不是專家，但很想多知道一些。

許多人不知道下面這件事，在開完芝加哥世界宗教大會之後，很多人——包括佛教的引進人如美國的威廉‧瓊斯爵士、保羅‧卡勒斯等等，和宗教的「出口人」（來到美國的東方宗教傳教士）聚在一起討論，說：「你也知道，這場球玩得根本就不公平：我們派出新教徒傳教士去亞洲給那些『困在黑夜』之中的人帶去福音，令他們改信基督。現在我們換一種玩球方式，來個達爾文式的；我們把球投給那些東方的傳教士，讓他們來美國佈道，讓優者勝，劣者汰。」

保羅‧卡勒斯（我所研究的對象之一）就住在芝加哥。他富有的岳父拿出錢邀請了幾位東方傳教士過來美國，包括當時的錫蘭（即現在的斯里蘭卡）來的Anagarika Dharmapala、來自印度的代表Ramakrisna Vedanta運動的Swami Vivekananda、和日本僧人Soyen Shaku和他的徒弟鈴木大拙。你們有一些人知道鈴木大拙這個人，因為在本世紀五十年代他以洛克菲勒基金來美國，後來成為（美國）東海岸各大學禪學名教授。蓋瑞‧史耐德、傑克‧科駱和亞倫‧金斯柏都自詡是鈴木的弟子；鈴木對於美國的文化有著很深遠的影響。

十九世紀九十年代與二十世紀初鈴木在美國時。只不過二十多歲，在一個叫拉薩理秘魯的小鎮住了十一年。在那兒他與保羅‧卡勒斯兩人一起將佛書翻譯成英文，寫出來成了一本用廉價紙訂的軟皮封面書。這些宗教『出口人』與『引進人』都有一個共同特點——他們的觀點很摩登、很科學的。有趣的是他們所翻譯的佛書內容讀起來很有韻味，很適合當時的時代精神——即講求科學。他們將佛書的內容尋章摘句重新組合，寫出來的東西很適合當時人講究科學性的口味，這一點很重要。他們為什麼那樣做呢？因為不管什麼事情，美國人都講究要有道理。那我們如何使令聽聞者感到佛教還蠻有道理呢？我們要使事物聽起來有道理就要通過科學；科學仍舊是人們尋求事物合乎道理的途徑。你只要看看電視，你就能聽到「十次調查的九次結果是………」，「研究人員發現………」，一聽到這個人們立刻折服。這差不多已成了條件反射，我們不再挑剔，因為真理的裁判者——科學，已經拿出證據了。人們都講究事情的合理性，最終他們都回到一個共同點來。過去一百五十年來是這樣，現在更是有增無減。

這些美國宗教「引進人」想要使佛教聽起來合乎常理，所以他們給佛教樹立的形象，不帶有像基督教那樣的飽受達爾文以其「高級批判」手段來撻伐的迷信神秘宗教的色彩。不僅這些宗教「引進人」，就連那些「出口人」也是這麼說：「我們該如何使得美國人樂於接受佛教呢？」所以Dharmapala和鈴木大拙、以及Vivekananda都非常清楚地看到美國人崇信科學。他們很清楚，以他們的知識從佛教與印度教的傳統角度看，科學與宗教的隔閡是沒有什麼問題的；佛教與印度教都能輕而易舉地將科學融人其中，所以他們就著重於此。這一來東方宗教對美國人變得通俗易懂且很具吸引力。

這堂課的下半段我想就此問題做一下討論。這也牽涉到其他的學科，如基督教；大部份美國人在那個時候是基督教徒或猶太基督教徒，所以如何使佛教合乎他們的道理呢？得將佛教詞彙轉換成基督教詞彙。例如，將基督比成佛或是菩薩；佛陀有一班信徒，基督也有；佛顯神通，基督也顯神蹟；基督可以蹈水如地，佛打坐時也一樣能，兩者都差不多，如是不斷地比較下去。

保羅‧卡勒斯自己也出了一本書，他的處女作書名〈佛之福音〉；之後〈佛教聖經〉又面世。我們都知道亞洲並沒有什麼「佛教徒的福音」，也無「佛教聖經」之類的書；有的只是佛教經典之龐大書集。這些書從未有人將其濃縮成一冊單本，那時他們這樣做是為了使佛教更適合美國國情。這只是其中的一種形式，所以我將重點放在科學方面。他們所見的佛教與科學相似處在哪呢？無處不在。其中一個是進化論的可接受性——萬物皆在進化之中，這是達爾文的駭人學說。這一理論與佛教「業」的概念很相似；萬事萬物受因果律支配，不斷地生滅，周流復轉。

待續

It was in this climate, this atmosphere, that Buddhism came to America in the 1890's. Face-to-face encounters took place, unlike the previous literary encounters, or the missionaries' discussions of Asian religions. Suddenly, people were speaking out from their own traditions, with their own words, through their own experiences, creating a major impact. In fact, if you look at some of the major journals from this time period that I was researching, there was more interest—just in terms of publications—in the Eastern religions in the 1890's than there is today. Some of the writing is actually a little more brilliant, I must say—credit to my grandparents and the Victorians. They seriously looked into this issue.

I have heard that Boston in those days was the equivalent of Berkeley today. I've been told you could walk down the streets of Boston and run into gurus and sages and monks and mystics from all climates of the world; shops that were selling all kinds of paraphernalia; and, William James himself sniffing nitrous oxide to achieve altered states of consciousness that would lead him into meditative trances—not too far away from Timothy Leary, a later-to-come Harvard Professor. I am not suggesting that William James was reborn as Tim Leary; I am not making that claim. But certainly at that time in Boston, you had an incredible interest in these phenomena. And the journals and magazines from this Victorian Age show that many people were experimenting, searching in quest, and being drawn to and converting to Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism.

Here I would like to put these phenomena into context: given the spiritual crisis that was manifest, given the split between reason and faith—or science and religion—this inter­est in Buddhism to a large extent can be seen to be driven by an attempt to reconcile the split. And you may notice that this theme is still with us today. Any bookstore that has an Eastern religions section will carry books discussing the comparisons and correspondences that are being drawn between science and Buddhism, especially in the field of quantum physics. There is still an incredible interest in discover­ing a way to bridge the gap between religion and science through Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism. To my understanding, Vedanta has a great deal to say about this; this is an area that I am not expert in but would like to know more about.

Many people don't know this, but right after the Chicago Parliament of World Religions took place, a number of people—both the importers of Buddhism (by that I mean Americans such as Sir William Jones, Paul Carus, Ernest Fenolloza, William Sturgis Bigelow, Marie Carnivaro, and Lafcadio Hearn, who was a famous writer at the turn of the century), as well as the exporters (the missionaries of Eastern religions who came here), got together to discuss the situation: "You know, we don't have a level playing field here. We have got all these Protestant missionaries going over to Asia to convert the people 'sitting in darkness'. How about making it a Darwinian, level playing field and throw into the mix Eastern missionaries; we will bring them to America. And may the best religion win!"

Paul Carus (one of the people I was doing research on) was situated in the Chicago area. He had a rich father-in-law who put up money, and they invited over a number of Eastern missionaries, including Anagarika Dharmapala, from what was then Ceylon, now Sri Lanka; Swami Vivekananda, who came over from India representing the Ramakrishna Vedanta movement; and Soyen Shaku, who was a Japanese Buddhist monk, and his disciple D.T. Suzuki. Some of you know D.T. Suzuki because he came over in the 1950's on a Rockefeller grant and became a famous lecturer on Zen at East Coast colleges. Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, and Allen Ginsberg were the sort of self-appointed disciples of D.T. Suzuki, but he had a very profound influence on American culture.
During his stay in the U.S. in the 1890's and early 1900's he was only in his 20's; he stayed in a small town called LaSalle Peru, Illinois, for about eleven years with Paul Carus translating Buddhist texts into English and putting out inex­pensive paperback editions. These exporters who came, as well as the importers who brought the Easterners, all shared the same modern, scientific outlook. What's interesting is that they translated Buddhism into a medium and a message that would be very compatible and resonant with the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the Age, which was scientific. They selectively chose passages of text and selectively organized the Buddhist teach­ings in such a way as to appeal to the modern sensibilities, which was scientifically oriented. This is very important. Why did they do that? Well, the Americans really wanted whatever it was to make sense. And how do we make sense of Buddhism? Our way of making sense then was through science, and science is still our way of making sense of things.

Just look at any television ad; someone will say, "...nine out of ten studies show..."; "...researchers have found..." We bow to it; it's almost a reflex. We don't critically look at it then because the arbiter of truth—science—has presented evidence. We ask that all things make sense; that they ultimately come back to the same common denominator. This has been true now for over 150 years, and remains increasingly so.

Thus, the American importers wanted to make sense out of it, and so they tried to present Buddhism as something other than a superstitious, mythological religion like Christianity had been and Darwin was destroying through what was called "higher criticism." Not only the importers of Buddhism, but the exporters too said, "How are we going to make it acceptable to Americans?" And so Dharmapala and D.T. Suzuki and Vivekananda saw very clearly that Americans believed in science, and they knew from their own knowledge of Buddhism that there was no problem of a gap between religion and science in terms of the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Buddhism and Hinduism could embrace science very easily. So they focused on that, and Buddhism became immensely understandable and appealing to Americans.

What I want to discuss in the second part of this lecture is the problem with that. Other subjects were used as well, for example, Christianity. Americans at that time were primarily Christian or Judeo-Christian, so how do you get Buddhism to make sense to them? You render Buddhist terms into Christian terminology. For example, you compare Christ to the Buddha or to Bodhisattvas. The Buddha had a group of followers; so did Jesus. He worked miracles; so did Jesus. Jesus walked on water; well, the Buddha did that while meditating—about the same thing. It goes on and on—text after text after text of comparisons.

Paul Carus himself put out a book—his first book—called, The Gospel of Buddha. Later we have The Buddhist Bible. Now in Asia there is no Buddhist Gospel, and there is no Bud­dhist Bible. There are Sutras, an immense body of texts. But those texts have never been condensed into a single volume. That was done in order to make Buddhism more compatible to Americans. This is one of the formats. So I am going to focus on the science aspect. Where were the similarities they saw between Buddhism and science? They were everywhere. One was the notion of the acceptability of evolution—everything was evolutionary once Darwin made his hit. Well, things matched very nicely with the notion of karma. A cyclical unfolding of events governed by the law of cause and effect.

To be continued