Contemporary Buddhists are adapting loving-kindness and compassion praxis. Using three vignettes, the author explores how the distinct practices of loving-kindness and compassion are being appropriated and altered both in Buddhist religious traditions, and in secular environments.
This discussion examines the adaptation process from two perspectives. First, this article explores how three teachers, North American, Taiwanese, and Tibetan-North American respectively, adapt loving-kindness and compassion practices, and what purposes these adaptations serve in their contexts. Second, the author highlights some textual sources the teachers use when adapting or secularizing loving-kindness and compassion practices. Primary focus is on the Mettā Sutta and the Visuddhimagga, perhaps the most influential Theravāda compendium in contemporary Buddhism. The phrases and categories of loving-kindness praxis in the Visuddhimagga now appear nearly verbatim in teachings of secular compassion practice. This cross-fertilization occurs directly between Buddhist traditions as well.
In the American example of Sojun Mel Weitsman, a foundational influence on modern Sōtō Zen Buddhism as developed at the Berkeley and San Francisco Zen centers, Weitsman presents his adaptation of the Mettā Sutta in response to his community's request for greater address given to love and compassion. In Taiwan, Ven. Bhikṣuṇī Zinai of the eclectically influenced Luminary International Buddhist Society incorporates adaptation of both the Visuddhimagga and Mettā Sutta in a secular Compassionate Prenatal Education program, which addresses the needs of expectant mothers using loving-kindness practice. Third, Tibetan Buddhist scholar Geshe Thupten Jinpa and coauthors incorporate phrasing and methodology of loving-kindness identical to that written in the Visuddhimagga, in addition to Tibetan Buddhist texts, as part of their secular program of Compassion Cultivation Training. Each of these adaptations reflect a concern with quality of life and well-being in their adaptation of canonical material. In short, this paper provides a small amount of primary research documenting the cross-fertilization and adaptation of praxis and textual sources within contemporary, globalizing, Buddhism and the secular practices of loving-kindness and compassion derived from it.
當代佛教徒正在調整慈悲修行。作者透過三個例子來探討目前慈悲修習在佛教教內與世俗脈絡中如何被使用以及調適。
本文的討論從以下兩個面向來檢視此改變的過程。第一、本文探討美國、台灣與北美藏人三位指導老師如何調適慈悲修習，以及此調適的目的。第二、本文特別指出這些指導老師調適或者世俗化慈悲修習的佛教文獻根據，主要著重在《慈經》 與《清淨道論》 （本論或許是當代佛教最有影響力的上座部佛教禪修論著）。《清淨道
論》中對於慈悲修習的用語與分類幾乎是一字不差地被用在目前在世俗的慈悲禪修。這種互補也同樣出現在不同的佛教傳統中。
其次，美國的 Sojun Mel Weitsman 老師對柏克萊與舊金山發展的現代日本曹洞宗有重要的影響。他對《慈經》的使用，也做一些調適來符合他的社群對於慈與悲的需要。而在台灣，「香光尼僧團」的自鼐法師結合《清淨道論》與《慈經》，並加以調適後運用在世俗的親子教育上，這個做法可以滿足母親期待慈悲修習的需要。第三，藏傳佛教的 Thupten Jinpa 格西與他的共同作者，在藏傳佛教文獻之外，同時結合《清淨道論》的慈心修習的用語與方法來作為他們的世俗慈悲修習的訓練課程的一部分。
這三個例子對於慈悲修習與佛教文獻的調適與運用反映出他們對生命的品質與福祉的重視。
總的來說，本文提供初步的第一手研究，記錄當代全球化佛教中，佛教傳統與世俗的互補、對於禪修方法與禪修文獻的調適，以及從中發展出來的世俗的慈悲修習。
關鍵詞：
慈、無量、悲、調適