第三期法鼓院刊出刊了

 　　第三期法鼓院刊出刊了，這次印隆的投稿有登出來，感謝編輯與老師的慈悲！

　　印隆一共投稿中英文各一篇，謹跟大家分享。

悲智雙運，和敬共融：參與2008數位佛學國際研究會議心得

　　期待已久的2008數位佛學國際研究會議於二月十六日正式開始，兩天的精彩議程，除了能了解全球佛學與資訊的發展情形外，也看到了台灣在這一領域的領先角色。美國加州大學柏克萊分校的Lewis Lancaster教授，以「走在數位人文科學的尖端」為開幕典禮的主題，說明了佛學與資訊結合的目標與貢獻。這雖是一個創新的領域，但不論身為佛學研究學者或佛法宏傳宗教師，都必須正視數位時代的到來。

　　聖嚴師父曾說：「科技發展不應背離人性本質」，此次CBETA也推出最新的2008版，在CBETA不斷更新的版本中，可以看到以人性為主的設計規劃，這也是CBETA受到好評的原因。而維習安教授所提出如「學者的工作檯」、「佛典的標記與取用系統」等論點，即是希望將「人性」加諸於科技之上，這也是此次會議的精神--「走在數位人文科學的尖端」。

 

一音演說隨類得解，數位時代譯場重現　　

　　透過數位佛典的發展，體驗到數位時代的優勢—迅速、方便、無遠弗屆。例如TLB的多語言檢索，可一次看到梵漢藏英的四種語言佛典。整合不同資源讓現代研究者的書桌能化繁為簡，直接呈現精華與所需是為趨勢。而各種語言的整合運用，將是此一領域的研究者所共同致力的目標。

　　眾生因為有不同的根器、背景等因素，而產生了不同的理解能力。透過多語言的整合，讓我們體驗到了佛教跨越分別的平等意涵。數位時代讓玄奘大師的譯場重現，我們正站在時代的交會點，四面八方的英雄再度群集，為佛典弘傳各自貢獻自己的一份力量而共同成就。

 

和敬共融多元共存，厚德載物常隨佛學

　　除了數位佛典外，佛教文獻數位資源的合作與整合也是被重點議題。WIKI的成功案例，讓大家發現各自造金字塔不如共同成就佛塔，也重新省思佛典文獻的意義。目前漢、英、日、韓、巴、梵、藏等都已在進行佛典的數位典藏計劃，而與會學者也期待接下來能進行資源整合的工作。會議的另一個重要目標：建構「數位佛學資料庫及相關計畫之整合性網路」（IBA），就是期能成立一個有具體合作計畫的團隊，助益於各界的佛學研究。

　　欲運用數位時代的技術以造福眾生，在開創新工具上，開發者必須要有遠見，才能洞察使用者的真正需求。資訊科技雖然日新月異，但唯有把握佛法的中心思想，方能真正利益眾生，法輪常轉，永續不息。

 

山聲水色無非法身，數位盡是般若長舌

　　會議另安排了佛學數位資源與數位典藏的展示，透過台北藝術大學/藝術與科技中心協展的「藝術與科技」，讓大眾體驗到數位說法的奧妙。所有的展項只是用投影出來的互動效果，但感覺逼「真」不已，其實世間一切就是由內心欲望所呈現的投影，觀法界性為心所造。

　　數位時代的到來，也產生了新的藝術呈現方式，雖然是緣起緣滅的鏡花水月，但也豐富了我們的人文情懷。體驗佛法除了文字般若外，數位藝術的新運用方式，也能盡現廣長舌相。

 

悲智雙運平等無礙，一味法雨普潤群生

　　謝清俊教授以 「Hope for the Lotus」為會議作了完美的結束演說，而如何達到On the interoperability of digital Buddhist texts，也是大家的共識。佛陀證悟後，因為看到蓮花的不同呈現姿態，為令眾生開示悟入佛之知見故出現於世。而佛學與資訊的結合，也應是三根普被、一雨普潤，讓所有眾生都能運用最適當的方式，明心見性。

　　佛學與資訊的對談，就是悲智雙運的結合。數位時代的到來，不只是科技的影響，更可以看出時代的使命—平等無礙。運用資訊技術，實踐佛教的拔苦予樂精神，是真正的慈悲與智慧，也是佛陀出世的本懷，普令眾生同入佛智大海。

 

　　英文部份，特別要感謝一位格友及法鼓的美籍老師指導，才有這篇文章的出現。法鼓的美籍老師真是太厲害了，中英文俱佳，用字精鍊，真的要好好學習呢！

My thoughts on Attending the EBTI/CBETA Conference 2008

 

    The long-awaited EBTI/CBETA Conference 2008 began at Dharma Drum Buddhist College, Jinshan, Taiwan on Feb. 16th. During the conference, those of us in attendance gained a deeper understanding of the development of Buddhist Information Technology around the globe, and also witnessed how Taiwan has taken one of the leading roles in this field. Dr. Lewis Lancaster from the University of California, Berkeley, spoke in the keynote address, The State of the Art in Digital Humanities, about the goals and benefits of combining Buddhism with Information Technology. Although this is a relatively new area of study, both scholars of Buddhist Studies and religious practitioners met together with deep interest to discuss this new digital era.

    The conference also saw the launch of CBETA Version 2008. As Ven. Master Sheng Yen once said, “The development of technology should not betray humanity.” True to his words, the new design of CBETA is intended to benefit humanity, which is the reason why it has been well-received. Dr. Christian Wittern from Kyoto University introduced his ideas for a "scholar's workbench," and a new "System for Markup And Retrieval of Texts (SMART)" with the same hope of placing humanity as the beneficiary of technology. In fact, the humanistic spirit of Buddhism infused every discussion of technology at this remarkable conference.

    The advantages of the digital era are shown through the development of digital Buddhist texts—fast, convenient and far-reaching. Take the multilingual search function of TLB for example: users get results of their searches of digital Buddhist texts in four different languages: Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan and English. By integrating different sources, a modern researcher of Buddhist Studies is able quickly to make connections between disparate archives of data in a way that has never been possible before. In addition, integrating and exploiting all the Buddhist canonical languages through one searchable engine is the common goal for many researchers in this field. Through the integration of different languages, we come to realize the essence of equality in Buddhism.

    In addition to the introduction of new technologies for marking and searching digital Buddhist texts, integrating Buddhist digital archives was one of the main issues of the conference. The success of WIKI leads us to wonder if, rather than building our own separate pyramids, it might not be more meaningful to combine our efforts in constructing one pagoda together. Currently, there are digital Buddhist archives in Chinese, English, Japanese, Tibetan, Korean, Pali and Sanskrit. Scholars hope that the next step will be to integrate these repositories of Buddhist data. The conference goal to create an "Integrated Buddhist Archives" (IBA), aims at establishing a team with concrete cooperative projects to assist in this next step.

    Dr. Ching-chun Hsieh brought the conference to an apt conclusion with his address,  Hope for the Lotus. As Dr. Hsieh suggested, combining Buddhism and Information Technology will benefit not only the scholars who will be the primary users of these digital archives, but also the students and readers of their work will be able to judge for themselves the profundity and personal value of the Buddha’s teachings. The dialog between Buddhism and Information science is a coming together of compassion and wisdom. The advent of a Buddhist digital era allows practitioners of Buddhism access to a wide range of information about their faith. Since it is Buddhist, it will have one ultimate purpose: to help all sentient beings attain happiness.