Suffering, Craving, and the West 苦、愛與西方哲學

🔊On the conclusion Schopenhauer is closest. He alone among Western philosophers made suffering the starting point of his thought and traced it to wanting as such. Buddhists in Europe were for a long time read through him, which is one source of the belief that Buddhism is pessimistic. On the argument Epicurus and the Stoics are closer than he is, because they share the Buddha’s assumption that desire can be worked on. On the purpose all three Greek and Roman schools agree with the Buddha that philosophy exists to relieve suffering. This is the widest agreement between ancient Western philosophy and the Dharma, and the next lesson takes it up.

在結論上，最接近的是叔本華。西方哲學家當中，只有他把苦當作自己思想的出發點，並且把它追溯到「想要」本身。在歐洲，佛教徒有很長一段時間是透過他而被閱讀的；這是「佛教是悲觀的」這個信念的來源之一。在論證上，伊比鳩魯與斯多噶派比他更接近；因為他們與佛陀共有一個假定：欲望是可以下工夫的。在目的上，希臘羅馬的這三個學派都與佛陀一致：哲學的存在，是為了減輕苦。這是古代西方哲學與佛法之間最廣的一致；下一課會專門談它。

🔊The likeness ends in a different place for each. With Schopenhauer it ends at the third noble truth. He has the diagnosis without the prognosis, and his denial of the will looks, from the Buddhist side, like the craving for nonexistence that the second truth lists as part of the disease. With Epicurus it ends at the self. He reduces desires and leaves the one who desires in place. With the Stoics it ends at reason. They trust the faculty that the Buddha thought was itself moved by thirst. The Buddha’s account is the only one of the four in which the cure is complete and the person who is cured is not what he took himself to be.

相似之處，對每一位停在不同的地方。對叔本華，停在第三聖諦。他有診斷，卻沒有預後；而他那個「否定意志」，從佛教這邊看過去，很像第二聖諦列為病的一部分的「無有愛」。對伊比鳩魯，停在自我。他減少了欲望，卻把那個在欲求的人留在原處。對斯多噶派，停在理性。他們信任的那個官能，佛陀認為本身就是被渴所推動的。四者當中，只有在佛陀的說明裡，治療是徹底的；而被治好的那個人，並不是他原先以為的自己。

🔊The first further step is a distinction the Western schools did not draw in the same place. The Buddha did not teach that desire should be extinguished. He taught that thirst should be. The tradition has a separate word, chanda, for the wish to do something, and it speaks of a wholesome form of it: the wish to practice, to understand, to help. Without that wish no one would set out on the path. The mark of thirst is that it clings and cannot bear to be refused. The mark of wholesome wishing is that it can act fully and accept the result. A parent who works for a child’s good and a person who cannot stop checking a telephone both want something. The teaching addresses the second and relies on the first. Schopenhauer, who put all wanting under one name, had no room for the difference, and so for him the only alternative to suffering was the stilling of life itself.

多走的第一步，是一個西方各學派沒有在同一個地方劃出來的區分。佛陀並沒有教人把欲望熄滅。他教的是把「渴」熄滅。這個傳統另有一個詞，chanda（欲），指的是「想做某件事」的意願；而它談到這種意願有善的形式：想修行、想理解、想幫助人。沒有那份意願，就沒有人會走上這條道路。渴的標記，是它抓著不放，受不了被拒絕。善的意願的標記，是它能夠全力去做，並且接受結果。一位為孩子的好處而努力的父母，與一個停不下來一直查看手機的人，都在「想要」某樣東西。這個教法針對的是後者；倚靠的是前者。叔本華把一切的「想要」都放在同一個名字底下，沒有為這個差別留出位置；所以對他來說，苦之外唯一的另一條路，就是讓生命本身靜止下來。

🔊The second step concerns depth. Epicurus and the Stoics addressed the desires and opinions that a person can find by reflection. The Buddha’s list of cravings begins there, with sensual pleasure, and goes on to the craving to be, and the craving not to be. These are not desires for any object. They are the mind’s insistence on being someone and its recoil from being that one. On his account they lie under the others and feed them, and no sorting of desires into necessary and unnecessary reaches them. They are reached by the kind of observation described in the lessons on not-self and impermanence, in which the one who thirsts is looked for and not found. For this reason the first two noble truths cannot be separated from the rest of the teaching. The cure for thirst turns out to be a discovery about who was thirsty.

第二步關係到深度。伊比鳩魯與斯多噶派處理的，是一個人靠反省就找得到的欲望與看法。佛陀列出的渴愛，從那裡開始，也就是欲愛；然後繼續到「想要存在」的渴，以及「想要不存在」的渴。這兩種並不是對任何對象的欲望。它們是心堅持要「作為某個人」，以及心對「作為那個人」的退縮。照他的說明，它們在其他的渴底下，並且餵養著其他的渴；而把欲望分成必要與不必要的任何分類法，都搆不到它們。要搆到它們，得靠講無我與講無常的那兩課所描述的那種觀察：去找那個在渴的人，而找不到。因為這個緣故，前兩個聖諦無法與教法的其餘部分分開。對渴的治療，到頭來是一項關於「是誰在渴」的發現。