Impermanence and the West 無常與西方哲學

🔊Heraclitus of Ephesus was a contemporary of the Buddha, and his surviving sayings state the doctrine in nearly the same image. “You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.” And of the one who steps: “We step and do not step into the same rivers; we are and are not.” He saw, as the Buddha did, that the person changes along with the water. He also held that change has an order. Fire turns to sea and sea to earth in fixed measures, and the measure, which he called the logos, is the same for all and does not change. A river keeps its identity through the flowing. So Heraclitus has a constant after all, the law of change itself. The Buddha said something similar of dependent origination, that it holds whether or not anyone discovers it. The two part on what the insight is for. Heraclitus wanted his hearers to understand the world. He offers no path and promises no release.

以弗所的赫拉克利特與佛陀是同時代的人；他流傳下來的話，用幾乎一樣的意象陳述了這個學說。「你不能兩次踏進同樣的河流；因為新的水不斷地流到你身上。」而關於踏進去的那個人：「我們踏進、又沒有踏進同樣的河流；我們存在，又不存在。」他跟佛陀一樣看見了：人是跟著水一起變的。他也主張：變是有秩序的。火化為海，海化為土，都有固定的分量；而那個分量，他稱為「邏各斯」，對一切都相同，而且不變。一條河，正是在流動當中保持了它的同一。所以，赫拉克利特終究有一個常：就是變的法則本身。佛陀對緣起也說過類似的話：不管有沒有人發現它，它都成立。兩人分開的地方，在於這個洞見是為了什麼。赫拉克利特要他的聽眾理解世界。他沒有提供一條道路，也沒有許諾解脫。

🔊The emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself in the evenings while commanding an army on the Danube, and a large part of them is a meditation on impermanence. “Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too.” He gives himself instructions: “Observe constantly that all things take place by change.” “Loss is nothing else than change.” “The universe is transformation: life is opinion.” This is the nearest thing in the West to the Buddhist practice. The thought is repeated daily in order to weaken attachment to fame, comfort, and life. It differs in what it leans on. Marcus believed that the changes are governed by a rational and benevolent nature, so that whatever happens is for the good of the whole, and that his own reason is a fragment of that nature which he can keep upright. His calm comes from trusting the river.

馬可・奧理略皇帝在多瑙河畔統率軍隊的時候，每天晚上寫給自己一些筆記；其中很大一部分，是對無常的沉思。「時間像一條由發生的事件構成的河，一道湍急的水流；一樣東西才被看見，就被帶走了；另一樣來到它的位置，而這一樣也會被帶走。」他給自己下指示：「要經常觀察：一切事情都是由變化而發生的。」「失去，不過就是變化。」「宇宙就是轉變；人生就是看法。」這是西方最接近佛教修習的東西。這個念頭每天重複，是為了減弱對名聲、安逸與生命的執著。不同的地方，在於它所倚靠的東西。馬可相信：這些變化是由一個理性而仁慈的「自然」主宰的；所以不管發生什麼，都是為了整體的好。他也相信：他自己的理性是那個自然的一個碎片，是他能夠保持端正的。他的平靜，來自對那條河的信任。

🔊Whitehead thought that Western philosophy since Plato had taken the wrong side. It had treated permanence as the mark of what is real and change as a lesser condition. He proposed the reverse. The world consists of events that arise, reach completion, and perish, and what we call an enduring thing is a pattern repeated across a series of them. “Perpetual perishing,” a phrase he took from Locke, was for him the basic character of time. This matches the Buddhist analysis closely, as the previous lesson noted. Whitehead felt the loss in it and looked for a remedy. In his system each event, having perished, is taken up and preserved in the experience of God, so that nothing is finally lost. The Buddha offered no such preservation. On his account the wish that things be kept is the trouble, and the remedy is to see through the wish.

懷海德認為，柏拉圖以來的西方哲學站錯了邊。它把「恆常」當作真實的標記，把「變」當作次一等的狀態。他提出了相反的看法。世界是由生起、達到完成、然後消逝的事件構成的；而我們所謂的一樣持久的東西，是在一連串事件裡重複出現的一個模式。「不斷的消逝」（這是他取自洛克的說法），對他來說是時間的基本性格。正如上一課提到的，這與佛教的分析對得很緊。懷海德感受到了其中的失落，並且去找補救。在他的體系裡，每一個事件消逝之後，都被攝入、保存在上帝的經驗之中；所以到頭來沒有任何東西真的失去。佛陀沒有提供這樣的保存。照他的說明，「希望事物被留住」這個願望本身就是麻煩所在；而補救的辦法，是看穿這個願望。