Buddhist philosophy; meditation practice; samadhi; Buddha; Buddhist text; Buddha's teaching; enlightenment; 擇法
摘要
Is Buddhism a philosophy or a religion? My answer to this much-asked question is that Buddhism is both a religious doctrine and a philosophical system. This contention presupposes that both approaches, religious and philosophical，can provide complementary，rather than contradictory，perspectives for a better understanding of Buddhist thought. In this essay，I will point out that one problem of modern Buddhist scholarship is its tendency to view Buddhism exclusively from a rationalistic standpoint. I will explore this view by briefly looking at three central topics in Buddhist studies：the identity of the Buddha, the strategy of reading Buddhist texts, and the problem of determining the Buddha's teachings. Contemporary Buddhist studies has been strongly affected by its origins in the Victorian era, when Western religious scholars sought to rationalize and historicize the study of religion. Modern Asian scholars, trained within the Western scholarly paradigm，share this prejudice in favor of the rational. The result is a skewed understanding of Buddhism，emphasizing its philosophical and theoretical aspects at the expense of seemingly irrational religious elements based on the direct experience of meditation practice.
