For years I've been feeling frustrated, because as a religious historian, I've become acutely aware of the centrality of compassion in all the major world faiths. Every single one of them has evolved their own version of what's been called the Golden Rule. Sometimes it comes in a positive version -- "Always treat all others as you'd like to be treated yourself." And equally important is the negative version -- "Don't do to others what you would not like them to do to you." Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.
多年来,我一直感到沮丧 因为作为宗教历史学家, 我已经意识到 世界上主要的宗教信仰都宣扬 仁爱之心。 每个宗教都演变出 自己独特的版本, 这些统称为恕道(黄金定律)。 有时从正面说,那就是- “推己及人。” 同样重要的, 从反方面说就是-- “已所不欲,勿施于人。” 审视你的内心。 探寻究竟是什么让你痛苦。 然后在任何情况下,都拒绝 将这种痛苦施加于别人。
And people have emphasized the importance of compassion, not just because it sounds good, but because it works. People have found that when they have implemented the Golden Rule as Confucius said, "all day and every day," not just a question of doing your good deed for the day and then returning to a life of greed and egotism, but to do it all day and every day, you dethrone yourself from the center of your world, put another there, and you transcend yourself. And it brings you into the presence of what's been called God, Nirvana, Rama, Tao. Something that goes beyond what we know in our ego-bound existence.
人们之所以重视仁爱, 不仅仅是因为它听起来很棒, 更是因为它行得通。 人们发现当他们 遵守恕道时 正如孔子所说的“终生行之,” 这已不是只做一天好事 然后又回到贪婪、 自私的生活的问题了。 当你每天都坚守恕道的时候, 你就可以摆脱以自我为中心的世界, 超然于物外。 从而可以到达 称之为神、涅盤、喇嘛、道的境界。 一些超越 我们所知的自我约束的东西。
But you know you'd never know it a lot of the time, that this was so central to the religious life. Because with a few wonderful exceptions, very often when religious people come together, religious leaders come together, they're arguing about abstruse doctrines or uttering a council of hatred or inveighing against homosexuality or something of that sort. Often people don't really want to be compassionate. I sometimes see when I'm speaking to a congregation of religious people a sort of mutinous expression crossing their faces because people often want to be right instead. And that of course defeats the object of the exercise.
但是,你知道大多数时候你对此一无所知, 这就是宗教生活的核心。 因为世上的一些特例, 经常的,当宗教人士集聚在一起的时候, 宗教领袖聚在一起的时候,他们会争辩深奥的理论 或者发表充满仇恨的言论 又或谴责同性恋等此类问题。 通常人们不具有仁爱之心。 有时, 当我跟众多宗教人士交谈时, 我注意到他们的脸上经常会闪现一丝轻蔑之色, 因为人们往往都自持正确。 这当然违背了修行的目的。
Now why was I so grateful to TED? Because they took me very gently from my book-lined study and brought me into the 21st century, enabling me to speak to a much, much wider audience than I could have ever conceived. Because I feel an urgency about this. If we don't manage to implement the Golden Rule globally, so that we treat all peoples, wherever and whoever they may be, as though they were as important as ourselves, I doubt that we'll have a viable world to hand on to the next generation.
我为什么对TED那么感激呢? 因为TED温柔地将我 从满是书本的书房 带到了二十一世纪, 让我能够可以向更多,更广的观众演说 这比我能设想到的多得多。 因为我对此感到迫切。 假若我们不设法 在全球实施恕道, 这样我们就能对待所有的人,无论他们在哪里,他们是谁, 都如同对待我们自己一样重要, 我怀疑我们 能否将这个世界传承给下一代。
The task of our time, one of the great tasks of our time, is to build a global society, as I said, where people can live together in peace. And the religions that should be making a major contribution are instead seen as part of the problem. And of course it's not just religious people who believe in the Golden Rule. This is the source of all morality, this imaginative act of empathy, putting yourself in the place of another.
我们当前的任务, 最为艰巨的任务之一, 就是建立一个全球性的社会,就像我所说的, 在这个社会里,人们可以和谐相处。 而宗教,本应做出主要贡献的, 却被视为问题的一部分。 当然,不只是宗教人士才相信恕道。 道德观念皆源于此。 这种富有想象力的共鸣, 将可使你与他人进行角色互换。
And so we have a choice, it seems to me. We can either go on bringing out or emphasizing the dogmatic and intolerant aspects of our faith, or we can go back to the rabbis. Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, who, when asked by a pagan to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching while he stood on one leg, said, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah and everything else is only commentary."
在我看来,我们现在有了个选择。 我们既可以奉行,或强调 我们信仰中教条和偏执的方面, 抑或可以回到 拉比的时代,拉比希勒尔,出生在比耶酥还早的时代, 当他被一位异教徒要求 单脚站立着归纳整个犹太教义的时候, 他说:“勿对旁人做出连自己都憎恶之事。 这就是托拉(律法)的全部,余下的都是注释。”
And the rabbis and the early fathers of the church who said that any interpretation of scripture that bred hatred and disdain was illegitimate. And we need to revive that spirit. And it's not just going to happen because a spirit of love wafts us down. We have to make this happen, and we can do it with the modern communications that TED has introduced. Already I've been tremendously heartened at the response of all our partners.
拉比和早期的神父们皆言 任何一种将经文 解释为产生仇恨和轻蔑的释义都是非正统的。 我们需要找回那种精神。 它不会因我们有了仁爱之心 而就此出现。 我们得让它出现, 我们能做到的 通过TED引用的 现代交流技术。 我已经从我的伙伴那收到各种各样的回应, 这让我很振奋。
In Singapore, we have a group going to use the Charter to heal divisions recently that have sprung up in Singaporean society, and some members of the parliament want to implement it politically. In Malaysia, there is going to be an art exhibition in which leading artists are going to be taking people, young people, and showing them that compassion also lies at the root of all art. Throughout Europe, the Muslim communities are holding events and discussions, are discussing the centrality of compassion in Islam and in all faiths.
在新加坡,有一个小组 正要采用仁爱宪章来消除 新加坡社会新近出现的分歧, 一部分新加坡议会成员则想 从政治上实施仁爱。 马来西亚将会举办一场艺术展览, 届时,顶尖的画家们将会带领 人们,年青的一代, 展示给他们仁爱也根植 于所有的艺术中。 整个欧洲和穆斯林组织 都在举办各种各样的聚会和集会, 讨论伊斯兰教和其他信仰中的 仁爱之心。
But it can't stop there. It can't stop with the launch. Religious teaching, this is where we've gone so wrong, concentrating solely on believing abstruse doctrines. Religious teaching must always lead to action. And I intend to work on this till my dying day. And I want to continue with our partners to do two things -- educate and stimulate compassionate thinking. Education because we've so dropped out of compassion. People often think it simply means feeling sorry for somebody. But of course you don't understand compassion if you're just going to think about it. You also have to do it.
但我们不能仅止步于此。不能就这样浅尝辙止。 宗教教育才是我们犯错的地方。 它只关注那些晦涩的教条学说。 宗教教育总是一定要指向实际的行动。 我愿意至死不渝地为此而努力。 我还想和我的伙伴再 做两样事情-- 培养和激发富有仁爱性的思考。 要教育。因为我们如此地 远离了仁爱。 人们往往只是简单地认为它就是 同情别人。 当然你不能领会仁爱的含义, 如果你仅仅是想想罢了。 你必须要身体力行。
I want them to get the media involved because the media are crucial in helping to dissolve some of the stereotypical views we have of other people, which are dividing us from one another. The same applies to educators. I'd like youth to get a sense of the dynamism, the dynamic and challenge of a compassionate lifestyle. And also see that it demands acute intelligence, not just a gooey feeling.
我想让媒体也参与进来, 因为媒体具有关键的作用 在消除我们看待其他人时所持有的 一些陈旧的观点, 正是这些观点让我们彼此分开。 这对于教育者也具有同样的作用。 我想让年轻人们知道 富有仁爱的生活方式是 充满活力和挑战的。 同时也让他们看到这也需要敏锐的智慧, 而不仅仅是一种感伤的情怀。
I'd like to call upon scholars to explore the compassionate theme in their own and in other people's traditions. And perhaps above all, to encourage a sensitivity about uncompassionate speaking, so that because people have this Charter, whatever their beliefs or lack of them, they feel empowered to challenge uncompassionate speech, disdainful remarks from their religious leaders, their political leaders, from the captains of industry. Because we can change the world, we have the ability.
我想呼吁学者们 以他们自己和其他人的传统观点来 探讨仁爱这一主题。 也许最重要的是, 去鼓励(人们)对 肆言詈辱的敏感性。 这样一来,因为人们有了这个章法, 无论他们信奉什么,或者他们没有信仰, 他们都会觉的如有神助 可以挑战这种无情的言论, 蔑视这些来自宗教领袖、 政治领袖和业界领袖的 肆言。 因为我们能够改变这个世界, 我们有这个能力。
I would never have thought of putting the Charter online. I was still stuck in the old world of a whole bunch of boffins sitting together in a room and issuing yet another arcane statement. And TED introduced me to a whole new way of thinking and presenting ideas. Because that is what is so wonderful about TED. In this room, all this expertise, if we joined it all together, we could change the world. And of course the problems sometimes seem insuperable.
我从未设想过将宪章上传至网络。 我仍旧困于旧世界中, 与一大堆研究人员集聚一室 发表另一种鲜为人知的言论。 不过TED介绍给我一种全新的, 让我思考和表达我的想法的方式。 因为那就是TED的奇妙之处。 这个房间内,各行各业的专家们 如果我们能够凝聚在一起, 我们就可以改变这个世界。 当然,有些时候问题看起来是不可逾越的。
But I'd just like to quote, finish at the end with a reference to a British author, an Oxford author whom I don't quote very often, C.S. Lewis. But he wrote one thing that stuck in my mind ever since I read it when I was a schoolgirl. It's in his book "The Four Loves." He said that he distinguished between erotic love, when two people gaze, spellbound, into each other's eyes. And then he compared that to friendship, when two people stand side by side, as it were, shoulder to shoulder, with their eyes fixed on a common goal.
但我想引用一句话以作为结束 一位英国作家的话,一位来自牛津的作家, 我不常引用他的话, 他就是C·S·刘易斯。 但他有一句话却深深地印在我的脑海中, 当我还是一名小女孩时我所读到的一句话。 这句话来自他的著作《四种爱》。 他说,他区分了爱欲。 当两个人相互对视,着迷地看着对方的眼睛。 然后他将此与友情进行对比。 当两人肩并肩地站在一起时, 且双方都朝着一个目标努力时,
We don't have to fall in love with each other, but we can become friends. And I am convinced. I felt it very strongly during our little deliberations at Vevey, that when people of all different persuasions come together, working side by side for a common goal, differences melt away. And we learn amity. And we learn to live together and to get to know one another. Thank you very much. (Applause)
我们不需要爱上对方, 但可以成为好朋友。 我深信不疑。 我强烈地认为 在韦沃的小型审议中, 当怀有不同信仰的人们 来到一起,工作在一起 为了一个共同的目标, 差异就消融了。 我们学会了和睦相处。 我们学会了同他人一起生活并了解对方。 非常谢谢。 (鼓掌)