作者單位：江南大學宗教社會學研究所教授 Author: Professor, Institute of Sociology of Religion, Jiangnan University, China
關鍵詞
宗教的超越性=religious transcendence; 「人菩薩行」=the thought of Master Yin-shun; 利他主義=altruism; 「不斷超越」論=the constantly go beyond theory; 人 間佛教=the human way of the Buddhist Bodhisattva
Religious qualities is its transcendence, the world’s major religions are common in its transcendence. But in addition to Eastern religion weight inner transcendence and Western religion weight external transcendence, the differences between them have been less studied. This article points out the demonstration, firstly, the Unitarianism has ultimate transcendence (people cannot go beyond God) opposed to Buddhist cosmology with the “timeless” feature, which does not have a certain end in the Buddhist pursuit. Furthermore, the Buddhist Bodhisattva’s mind which is to be a Buddha after delivering all living creatures from torment is unlimited. Secondly, the Western European Neo-Platonism also proposes a theory of “constantly go beyond”, it seems no ultimate, but it’s still argument in Platonic theory of Ideals (apriorism) basis; while the “Constantly go beyond” of Buddhism makes the characteristics of the relative empiricism obvious. Thirdly, Humanistic Buddhism advocates from Historical and immediacy limited life experience starting, constantly better ourselves and even without me, as Master Taixu said, “Therefore, ‘Life Buddhism’ should temporarily make ‘heaven’ and ‘ghost’ regardless, seek its completion from ‘life’, that life developed ultra, ultra-life, eliminate everything superstitious just like ‘heaven religion’ or ‘ghost religion’, and base on the the modern life of the masses and scientific consciousness for the group to construct the Mahayana Buddhism which is of this positive trend over the supreme sense of the completion gradually.” Master Yinshun emphasized “the human way of the Buddhist Bodhisattva” is its perfect. Finally, the hanging “Pure Land” photo of Buddhists is not only one of the engines to promote the Buddhist bodhisattva practice, but also shows the transcendence to secular society. To charity, for example, if there is no “pure land” hanging photos, there is no “one Bodhisattva” as a guidance of contemporary Buddhist philanthropy and as the power source of the meaning of life as an individual pursuit, many contemporary Tzu-Chi extraordinary would not be understood, Tzu-Chi charity behavior and its foundation will indistinguishable from the many.
