A. L. de Silva Người dịch: Trí Tánh Đỗ Hữu Tài tin không nổI !

[The period between the seventh and fifth century BCE saw the birth of the greatest of all, 'the Light of Asia' Gautama the Buddha . . . A doctrine of annihilation of greed, hatred and delusion, in which an omnipotent God has no place, might seem one of profound pessimism, yet Buddhism was saved from being negative by the emphasis placed on free-will and humility. The importance of compassion, of charity and alms giving, all combined to generate a religion of warmth and love.]

(To read a little Buddhism is to realize that the Buddhists knew, 2,500 years ago, far more about modern problems of psychology than they have been given credit for. They studied these problems long ago and found the answers also. We are now rediscovering the ancient wisdom of the East.)

(Wherever Buddhism has traveled during its 2500 year history it has entered into a rich and dynamic relationship with its host cultures. For Buddhism this has meant new forms of expression and communication as well as considerable differences in emphasis and approach. To its surrounding societies have come new ideals, new ideas, new ethical standards, fresh social, cultural, artistic life - indeed, rarely anything less than radical transformation.

Now Buddhism is coming to the West, and judging from the seriousness with which many Westerners are taking to its principles and practices, there can be no doubt that history is going to repeat itself. Buddhism is about to become integrated into Western society.)
61. Joseph L. Daleiden, một học giả Ca-Tô, trong cuốn Sự Mê Tín Cuối Cùng (The Final Superstition), xuất bản năm 1994, sau khi phân tích và đánh giá cái gia tài Do Thái - Ki Tô (A Critical and Evaluation of the Judeo-Christian Legacy), đã đề nghị những Tín Ngưỡng Khác Thay Cho Thần Giáo (Alternatives to Theism). Về Phật Giáo tác giả viết, trang 424:
Lời giới thiệu hay nhất về Phật Giáo là, giống như Khổng giáo, hệ thống tín ngưỡng này đã hiện hữu trong 25 thế kỷ mà không hề có một cuộc Thánh Chiến, một Tòa Án Xử Dị Giáo, hay một toan tính đế quốc nào nhằm xâm chiếm và phá hủy nền văn hóa của một dân tộc khác. (vốn là những sản phẩm đặc thù của Ki Tô Giáo. TCN)

(The best recommendation for Buddhism is that, like Confucianism, this belief system has existed for twenty-five centuries without a single Crusade, Inquisition, or imperialist attempt to invade and destroy the culture of another people.)

(All Asiatic religions are indebted to Buddhism for the noblest moral element that is effective even today, which culminates in kindness to all that lives and breathes, the doctrind of the perfectly Awakened One)

[Not a single page of Buddhist history has ever been lurid with the light of inquisitorial fires, or darkened with the smoke of heretic or heathen cities ablaze, or red with blood of the guiltless victims of religious hatred. Buddhism wields only one sword, the sword of wisdom, and recognises only one enemy = ignorance. This is the testimony of history, and is not to be gain-said.]

* Phật Giáo thực sự là làn gió xuân thổi từ đầu này tới đầu kia của căn vườn Á Châu và làm nở ra, không những chỉ những bông sen ở Ấn Độ, mà còn làm nở những hoa hồng ở Ba Tư, hoa đền đài ở Tích Lan, the zebina of Tibet, hoa cúc ở Trung Hoa, hoa anh đào ở Nhật Bản v..v.. Toàn bộ văn hóa Á Châu là văn hóa Phật Giáo. Không có nơi nào ngoài Đông Phương mà tư tưởng Phật Giáo lại có thể thống nhất. Mỗi quốc gia đều có cách riêng để chấp nhận tư tưởng Phật Giáo theo nhu cầu địa phương, nhưng khi khối Đông phương phải đối đầu với Tây phương thì tư tưởng Phật Giáo là lực nối kết những quốc gia này lại với nhau.

Ở đây chúng ta cần nhấn mạnh sự kiện là, nếu lịch sử Phật Giáo có cho thế giới bài học nào, thì đó là trong sự truyền bá đạo Phật từ thung lũng sông Hằng đến những núi đá quý ở miền Nam Tích Lan, cho tới miền cao nguyên Trung Á ở phía Bắc, rồi tới các hải đảo nắng ấm Nhật Bản ở phía Đông, Phật Giáo, văn hóa, văn minh, và giáo dục là những bạn đồng hành không thể tách rời nhau được.

(Buddhism was, in fact a spring wind blowing from one end of the garden of Asia to the other and causing the bloom not only the lotus of India, but the rose of Persia, the temple flower of Ceylon, the zebina of Tibet, the chrysanthemum of China and the cherry blossom of Japan – Asian culture is as a whole, Buddhist culture. It is Buddhist thought and in no other than India, China and Japan, representing the East, could be a united one. Each nationality has its own caracteristic modes of adopting the thought to its environment needs, but when the East as a unity to confront thw West, Buddhist thought supplies the bond.

Here it would suffice to emphasize the fact that if the history of Buddhism in Asia has any lesson for the world today, it is that: in their long trek from the burning marl of the Gangetic to the gem encrusted rocks of Ceylon in the South, the wind-swept uplands of Central Asia in the North, and the sun-confronting islands of Japan in the East, Buddhism, culture, civilization and education were inseparable friends and companions)
64. Giáo sư Max Muller, Học giả người Ðức [A German Scholar].
Ðức Phật là hiện thân của tất cả các đức hạnh mà Ngài thuyết giảng. Trong thành quả của suốt 45 năm dài hoằng pháp, Ngài đã chuyển tất cả những lời nói của Ngài thành hành động; không nơi nào Ngài buông thả cái yếu đuối của con người hay dục vọng thấp hèn. Luân lý, đạo đức căn bản của đức Phật là toàn hảo nhất mà thế giới chưa bao giờ biết đến.

[Buddha was the embodiment of all virtues he preached. During his successful and eventful ministry of 45 years he translated all his words into action; and in no place did he give vent to any human frailty, or any base passion. The Buddhas moral code is the most perfect which the world has ever known.]

[If you desire to see the most noble of mankind, look at the king in beggar’s clothing; it is he whose sanctity is great among men. ]

[When we read Buddha’s discourses, we are impressed by his spirit of reason. His ethical path has for its first step right views, a rational outlook. He endeavours to brush aside all cobwebs that interfere with mankind’s vision of itself and its destiny.]

[Serenity of spirit and love for all sentient creation are enjoined by the Buddha. He does not speak of sin, but only of ignorance and foolishness which could be cured by enlightenment and sympathy.]

[There was never an occasion when the Buddha flamed forth in anger, never an incident when an unkind word escaped his lips.]

[The most striking thing about the Buddha is almost a unique combination of a cool scientific head and profound sympathy of a warm and loving heart. The world today turns more and more towards the Buddha, for he alone represents the consience of humanity.

The Buddha was a pioneer as a lover of men, and a philosophic genius rolled into a single vigorous and radiant personality. He had things to say that no man or woman, after 2500 years of bustling and hustling and chattering round the fountain of knowledge, can afford to ignore. Greater perhaps than his wisdom was the example he set.]

Phật giáo là một tôn giáo vĩ đại duy nhất của thế giới, một cách ý thức và chân thực tôn giáo này dựa trên căn bản một hệ thống phân tích hợp lý những khó khăn của đời sống và cách thức giải quyết khó khăn ấy.

[Buddhism is the only great religion of the world that is consciously and frankly based on a systematic rational analysis of the problems of life and of the way to its solution.]

[The Buddha is like a physician. Just as a doctor must know the diagnosis of the different kinds of illness, their causes, the antidotes and remedies, and must be able to apply them, so also the Buddha has taught the Four Holy Truths which indicate the range of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the way which lead to its cessation.]

[The Buddha is not a property of Buddhists only. He is the property of whole mankind. His teaching is common to everybody. Every religion, which came into existence after the Buddha, has borrowed many good ideas from the Buddha.]

[Buddha is one who sees his children playing in the consuming fire of worldliness and employs different expedients to bring them out of this burning house and lead them to the safe asylum of Nirvana.]

[It is a glory of Buddhism that it makes intellactual enlightenment an essential condition of salvation. In Buddhism morality and interlectual enlightenment are inseparable from one another. While morality forms the basis of the higher life, knowledge and wisdom complete it. Without a perfect understanding of the law of casuality and transformation (Pratityasamutpada), no one else can even be said to be truly moral if he does not possess the necessary insight and knowledge. In this respect Buddhism differs from all other religions. All montheistic religions start with certain assumption, and when these assumptions are contradicted by the growth of knowledge it increases sorrow. But Buddhism starts with no assumptions. It stands on the firm rock of facts, and can therefore never shun the dry light of knowledge.]

[Of Buddha alone can it be affirmed it is free from all fanaticism. It’s aim being to produce in every man a thorough internal transforming by self conquest, how can it have a recourse to might or money or even persuasion for effecting conversion? The Buddha has only shown the way to salvation, and it is left to each individual to decide for himself if he would follow it.]

[I feel more and more that Sakyamuni is the nearest in character and effect to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and The Life.]

[Here is a teaching we can follow with confidence. Where in the world of religions, cults and creeds, can we find a master of such brilliance? In a pageant of stars he was a giant of the greatest magnitude. Little wonder that scientists, philosophers, and men of literature have proclaimed Him “the Greatest man ever born”. The radiance of this great teacher goes through a world of suffering and darkness, like a beacon light to guide and illuminate mankind.]

[Gentleness, serenity, compasion, through liberation from selfish-craving - are the fundamental teachings of the great Oriental religion of Buddhism.]

[Buddha Dharma is like a bridge well built of flexible steel, it gives a little to wind and water, it adapts itself to changing circumstances, but at the same time it has secured foundations and offers a safe way to the Deathless, to Nirvana.]

[Most meophytes of some other religions are controlled by their Guru and are forbidden to read the scriptures, doctrines, magazines, booklets and tracts of other religions. This very rarely happens within Buddhism.]

[Surely the mysteriously East, that fertile mother of religions, has given us in Buddhism a true revelation, since it makes known to us the moral beauty and purity that lies in the deep of human nature needing no other divinity than that which abides in the human heart to awake them into living glory.]

[The mission of the Buddha was quite unique in it’s character, and therefore it stands quite apart from the many other religions of the world. His mission was to bring the birds of idealism flying in the air nearer to the earth, because the food for their bodies belonged to the earth.]

[The doctrines of Buddha Dhamma stand today, as unaffected by the march of time and the expansion of knowledge as when they were first enunciated. No matter to what lengths increase scientific knowledge can extend man’s mental horizon, within the frame work of the Dhamma there is room for the acceptance and assimilation of the further discovery. It does not rely for it’s appeal upon limited concepts of primitive minds not for it’s power upon the negation of thought.]

[It is Buddhism as we find it actually recorded, not hypothetical primitive system, which still forms a challenge to other religions.]

[Twenty- five centuries ago India witnessed an intellectual and religious revolution which culminated in the overthrow of monotheism, priestly selfishness, and the establishment of a synthetic religion, a system of light and thought which was appropriately called Dhamma, a Philosophical Religion.]