萌发中的新觉识

多数古老宗教和灵性传统都持有共同的洞见：我们“正常”的心灵状态已被某种根本性的缺陷所污染。这是对人类状态的本质性洞察，也许我们会称作坏消息，不过从这一洞中又衍生出第二个洞见，算个好消息：人类觉识的根本性转化是可能的。在印度教教诲中（有时也见于佛教），这种转化叫作觉悟；在基督的教诲中，叫作拯救；在佛教中，叫作灭苦。解脱、觉醒是另外用来描述这一转化的术语。

人类最伟大的成就不是艺术、科学或技术的成果，而是认清人类自己的心障与疯狂。在遥远的过去，已经有少数人产生了这样的认识。2600年前，有一位叫乔达摩·悉达多的印度人，也许是第一个绝对清晰地悟见人类心障的人。后来，人们赋予他“佛陀”的名号，佛陀的意思是觉者。大约在同时，人类早期的另一位觉悟导师出现在中国，他的名字叫老子，他留下了一部言教记录，这是人类有文字以来最深刻的精神著作之一，名叫《道德经》。

当然，认识到自心的疯狂，就是清明理性的萌发，就是疗愈和超越的肇始。一个全新的觉识空间，已经在这座星球上显现。那些稀有的觉悟者向同代人宣讲，他们说到罪、苦、幻，他们说：“看看你如何生活吧，看看你在干什么吧，苦都是你自己造的。”然后，他们指出，人类从常态的集体梦魇中觉醒是可能的，并展示了觉醒之路。

The Arising New Consciousness

Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight — that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect. However, out of this insight into the nature of the human condition — we may call it the bad news — arises a second insight: the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation.

The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness. In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later, the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.” At about the same time, another of humanity’s early awakened teachers emerged in China. His name was Lao Tzu. He left a record of his teaching in the form of one of the most profound spiritual books ever written, the Tao Te Ching.

To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence. A new dimension of consciousness had begun to emerge on the planet, a first tentative flowering. Those rare individuals then spoke to their contemporaries. They spoke of sin, of suffering, of delusion. They said, “Look how you live. See what you are doing, the suffering you create.” They then pointed to the possibility of awakening from the collective nightmare of “normal” human existence. They showed the way.