淨土經典對社區發展的啓示

The Revelation of Pure Land Sutra on Community Development

王立文(Lin-Wen Wan)

《佛學與科學》 15卷1期 (2014/03) Pp. 6-12

摘要

佛教有許多宗門，其中一宗稱作淨土宗。此宗比較不需要高深的學問，因此信取較其他宗為多。佛教的某些宗（如華嚴宗、天台宗）飽學之士甚多，另外禪宗更不立文字，強調頓悟且明心見性，又須極具慧根，不是一般人能登堂入室的。淨土宗，平易穩健，只要有堅定的信仰，信阿彌陀佛，誠意信心足夠，不是十惡不赦之人皆受歡迎。淨土的概念在本文我把它轉化成「理想社區」，本人發現淨土經典（如無量壽經及阿彌陀經）對社區發展頗有一些啓示。淨土的反面是穢土，直接的意思就是不適人居住的土地或環境。一個不良社區（類似穢土），不只是軟、硬體不足，居住其內恐怕對身心皆不良。一個好的社區，要有足夠的軟、硬體（可參考淨土的條件），居住其內才能促進身心健康發展，從某個角度講，在人世間先要能建立出「理想的社區」存在，淨土的境界就不會一直停留在不可亟及的夢想或理想中或者死亡之後才能達到。本文中有用到現代名著「萬法簡史」整合學的理念及「大開悟」之不守空寂的新的開悟觀念，將佛教淨土經典的現代意義充分展現許社區發展的脈絡中。

關鍵字

淨土經 ； 社區發展

並列摘要

Among the Buddhist sects, the Pure Land Sect is the one attracting much more followers than other sects due to its accessibility. Some Buddhist sects, such as Huayan Sect and Tiantai Sect, tend toward the erudite persons, while Zen Sect, featured by independence of words, aims at in sight and enlightenment, apt to those who have deep-rooted wisdom. By comparison, the Pure Land Sect is so amiable and stable that it welcome ordinary people only if they have full faith in Amitabha Buddha. In this paper, I have transformed the concept of pure land into the ideal of community as I found that the Pure Land Sutra (like Amitayus Buddha Sutra and Amitabha Sutra) do have some revelations on the development of community. The reverse side of pure land is dirt land that is a place not fit for human habitat ion. An inferior community (similar to dirt land) destitute of software and hardware is detrimental to the body and mind of its habitants. Only with adequate software and hardware which may refer to the conditions of pure land, a community is good enough for habitants to have a healthy development of their body and mind. Form some point, an ＂ideal community＂ has to be realized on earth, so the pure land will never be an inaccessible dream or a vanity idea, or only reachable after death. Combining the integration study of ＂A Brief History of Everything＂ and the new enlightening idea of ＂Evolutionary Enlightenment＂, the paper has fully demonstrated the modern meaning of Pure Land Sutra in the context of community development.

並列關鍵字

Pure Land Sutra ； community development