Now at the same time as the Buddha1 was seeking to relieve man's suffering in India,就在釋迦牟尼在印度尋找使人類擺脫苦難的時候,as you remember, that was around 500 BC, there was in China another great man who was also trying to make people happy through his teachings.
你知道,這是在公元前500年左右,在中國有另外一位偉人,他正試圖用自己的學說使人幸福。
And yet he was as different from the Buddha as he could possibly be.
可是他跟釋迦牟尼卻有著天差地別。
He wasn't a wealthy nobleman's son but came from a family that had fallen on hard times.
他不是貴族的兒子,他來自一個在亂世家道中落的家庭。
He didn't become a hermit2, but an adviser3 and teacher.
他沒有成為循世修行者,而是當了一名勸諫者和教師。
Rather than helping4 individuals not to want things, and therefore not to suffer,他也不怎么在乎讓單個的人不再有什么愿望不再受什么痛苦,what mattered most to Confucius was that everybody should live peacefully together – parents with their children and rulers with their subjects.
他主要看重的是讓人們平平安安、和和氣氣地共同生活在一起——父母和他們的孩子,統(tǒng)治者們和他們的臣民。
That was his goal: to teach the right way of living together.
這就是他的目標:教導人們共同生活的正確方式。
And he succeeded.
他成功了。
Thanks to his teachings all the peoples of China lived together for thousands of years, more contentedly5 and more peacefully than many other peoples of the world.
在他的學說的影響下,中華民族比世界上別的民族更和睦和平地共同生活了幾千年。