和基督教相比，佛教更為精深，因為它把消滅意志作為宗教的全部內(nèi)涵，并宣揚涅槃是人類發(fā)展的歸宿。

Schopenhauer

VI. The Wisdom of Life

4. RELIGION

Buddhism is profounder than Christianity, because it makes the destruction of the will the entirety of religion, and preaches Nirvana as the goal of all personal development. The Hindus were deeper than the thinkers of Europe, because their interpretation of the world was internal and intuitive, not external and intellectual; the intellect divides everything, intuition unites everything; the Hindus saw that the "I" is a delusion; that the individual is merely phenomenal, and that the only reality is the Infinite One—"That art thou." "Whoever is able to say this to himself, with regard to every being with whom he comes in contact,"—whoever is clear-eyed and clear-souled enough to see that we are all members of one organism, all of us little currents in an ocean of will,—he "is certain of all virtue and blessedness, and is on the direct road to salvation." Schopenhauer does not think that Christianity will ever displace Buddhism in the East: "it is just the same as if we fired a bullet against a cliff." Rather, Indian philosophy streams into Europe, and will profoundly alter our knowledge and our thought. "The influence of the Sanskrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek letters in the fifteenth century."

The ultimate wisdom, then, is Nirvana: to reduce one's self to a minimum of desire and will. The world-will is stronger than ours; let us yield at once. "The less the will is excited, the less we suffer." The great masterpieces of painting have always represented countenances in which "we see the expression of the completest knowledge, which is not directed to particular things, but has...become the quieter of all will." "That peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of the spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity,...as Raphael and Correggio have represented it, is an entire and certain gospel; only knowledge remains, the will has vanished."

▍語言點

preach Nirvana: 宣揚涅槃

delusion: n. 錯覺；幻想

every being: 世間萬物

displace: vt. 取代

profoundly alter: 深刻地改變

Sanskrit literature: 梵語文學(xué)

countenance: n. 面容

inviolable: adj. 不能被侵?jǐn)_的

gospel: n. 福音