真正的快乐是无求
Seeking Nothing Is True Happiness

宣公上人一九九三年年一月九日开示于台湾台北工业技术学院
A talk by Venerable Master Hua at the Taipei Institute of Industrial Technology on January 9, 1993

南无萨怛他　苏伽多耶 　阿啰诃谛　三藐三菩陀写(三遍)
NA MO SA DAN TUO SU QIE DUO YE E LA HE DI SAN MIAO SAN PU TUO XIE (3x)

各位善知识：

All Good and Wise Advisors!

今天叫宣化来对大家说法，可是宣化不但不会说法，连话也不会说。虽然如此，不会说话，因为大家这么诚意，来要我说法；尤其这些个青年同学们，这样地殷勤请法，所以我虽然不会说话，可是也不得不说话。既然说话，说个什么话？为什么我说我不会说话呢？

Today you have asked Hsuan Hua to speak the Dharma for everyone. However, Hsuan Hua not only doesn’t know how to speak the Dharma, he doesn’t even know how to speak. But since everyone is so sincere in asking me to speak the Dharma, especially these young students, I am obliged to speak even though I do not know how to speak. What shall I say? Why do I say that I do not know how to speak?

我今天先对你们大家说明白一点，因为我一说话，就要说真话。在这个世界上，就没有人愿意听真话，都愿意听假话，都愿意听揄扬、赞叹的辞句。这一类揄扬、赞叹的辞句，我根本就不知道从何说起，所以因为这个，我要你们各位先要有心理的准备。不要等我讲了不好听的话了，你们再不愿意听。由一开始，你们就要有心理的准备，预备无论我讲的是法、非法，也都要特别小心，不要上了当。这是我要对你们先说的话。

Let me explain. It is because I only speak the truth, and no one in this world likes to hear the truth. Everyone likes to hear phony talk and words of praise. I don’t even know how to begin speaking hypocritical flattery! Therefore, you should all be psychologically prepared. Don’t wait until I say something unpleasant and then decide you don’t want to listen. Be psychologically prepared, so that no matter if I speak in accord with the Dharma or not, you are especially careful not to take a loss. This is what I want to tell you in advance.

你们各位听我说话，都听得懂吗？(大众说：听得懂！)我这个不会说话的人说的话，你们也都听得懂，啊！这不奇怪吧？那就不要翻台湾语了，也不要翻英语了，节省时间，好不好？(大众说：好！)
Do you all understand what I said? [Assembly: “Yes.”] So you all understand me even though I don’t know how to speak? Isn’t that strange? [Applause] So we will not translate to Taiwanese or English, in order to save time. Is that all right? [“Yes!” Applause]

我所要说的，人啊！乐极会生悲，不要乐极了，不要快乐到极点；快乐到极点，悲极就来了。你们大家相信这个道理，我也这么说；不相信这个道理，我也这么说。因为我要说的话，我不管人信不信，我一定要说我所愿意说的话，就是你们认为我不会说话，我也要这样说。因为我到这来，我不能尽给各位揄扬之辞啊，赞叹之语啊，这一类的言语。因为我知道你们各位，不论老的同愿、中年的同愿，和青年的同愿，听这一类的话听得很多了。我现在给你们换换口味，说一点你们不愿意听的话，所以叫你们不要追求快乐。

What I want to say is, “Too much happiness leads to sorrow.” If you become extremely happy, you will feel sad afterwards. Whether or not you believe this principle, that is what I say. I say what I feel like saying regardless of whether people believe it or not. This is what I will say even if you consider me someone who doesn’t know how to speak. I haven’t come here just to flatter you with words of praise. I know that all of you who share the same vows, whether you are elderly, middle-aged, or young, have heard a lot of that kind of talk. Now I’ll give you something that tastes different and say some things that you don’t like to hear. I will tell you not to pursue happiness.

这快乐，什么叫快乐？真正的快乐，不是世间的快乐，不是人间的快乐，那是一种自己心里边时时有一种快乐，不需要向外驰求，不需要到外边去找去。你到外边找的，都不是究竟的快乐。你想究竟的快乐，你必须要有相当的修养、相当的学识、相当的造诣，自性里头平安，这才是真快乐。你到外边去找快乐，一天到晚追求快乐。追求得到了，这是快乐的一时；得不到，这是烦恼的重重。你贪而无厌，又患得患失，这都不是真正的快乐。真正的快乐，是无求的，「到无求处便无忧」。你无所求，这才是真正的快乐，真正自性的稳定、平安。

What is happiness? True happiness is not worldly happiness. Rather, it is a happiness that is always present in your own mind, which you need not look for outside. If you seek outside, you won’t find the ultimate happiness. If you want the ultimate happiness, you must have considerable cultivation, considerable learning, and considerable attainment. Only then will there be peace and joy in your own nature, which is the real happiness. If you seek for happiness outside, you may attain it, but it will only last for a moment. If you fail to attain it, you will be full of afflictions. If you are insatiably greedy, you worry about getting things, and then you worry about losing them. None of this is true happiness. True happiness comes from not seeking anything. When you reach the state of seeking nothing, you have no worries. Seeking nothing, you have true happiness, and your nature is stable and tranquil.

你到外边去找，找到什么地方也找不到真正的快乐。我们人间所追求的吃喝玩乐这些享受：坐最值钱的汽车，或者买飞机，或者买轮船，到处去游一游船，这是快乐？这简直地都是浪费你的精力、浪费你的智慧。你真正的智慧不是在外边这些个东西。真正的享受，是你自在快乐，这是我们人人都有的，你不要向外去找去。你尽向外驰求，啊！你争我夺，你虞我诈；你欺骗我，我欺骗你，结果就会得到自己这个不真实的快乐，这真是可怜愍者，佛所谓的这一类的人是可怜愍者。不要舍本逐末，不要倒行逆施。我所说的这个话，都是人不愿意听的。

You can search outside all you want, but you won’t find true happiness anywhere. The enjoyment we pursue in this world—eating, drinking, making merry, driving an expensive car, owning a plane, or buying a ship and taking a cruise—is this happiness? This is just wasting your energy and wasting your wisdom. True wisdom cannot be found in these external things. True joy comes from being carefree and happy. We all have this within us, and we need not search outside for it. But people always seek outside themselves, and end up cheating, flattering, and fighting one another in order to obtain an artificial happiness. The Buddha said such people are to be pitied. They are lamentable. So do not forsake what is fundamental to pursue the superficial. Do not act in an up-side down way. What I’ve just said is something no one likes to hear.

我所说的这个快乐是什么呢？你不争是快乐，不贪是快乐，无所求这是快乐，你不自私这是快乐，你不自利更是快乐，你不打妄语，这才是真正快乐。你打妄语，你于心就会有愧，觉得这是骗人了。你就算不觉得，在你良心上，也觉得有了污点了，对不起良心了。你若是一个没有良心的人，那就又当别论啦！所以现在人心不古、道德沦亡、世风日下，在这种情形之下，我们要赶快醒悟。怎么样醒悟呢？我们做学生的，要好好读书，朝于斯，夕于斯，这个「昔仲尼，师项橐」，要能「如负薪，如挂角」，「囊萤映雪」，这样子，才够上一个读书的人。不是那么整天就想自在，想安乐，想不读书，追求快乐去；这不是快乐！

What do I call happiness? Not fighting is happiness. Not being greedy is happiness. Seeking nothing is happiness. Not being selfish is happiness. Not wanting to benefit yourself is happiness even more. Not telling lies—that’s true happiness. If you lie, you will feel remorse in your heart because you know you have deceived someone, and there will be a stain on your conscience. If you are a person with no conscience, that’s another story. People’s minds are not the way they were in ancient times; morality has perished; and the world deteriorates day by day. In this situation, we must quickly awaken. How can we awaken? If we are students, we should apply ourselves diligently, studying in the morning and in the evening. In the past, Zhong Ni (Confucius) took Xiang Tuo as his teacher. We must pursue our studies as earnestly as the woodcutter who put his book on a log he was hauling, the oxherd who hung his book from the horn of the ox he was riding, the student who studied at night by the light of fireflies collected in a pouch, or the boy who read by the moonlight reflected off the snow. Only then can we be considered true students. We should not just seek ease and comfort all day long and enjoy ourselves instead of studying. That is not happiness.

现在我告诉你们一句你们或者还不知道的话，不但美国，西方的教育完全破产了。可是他们还在掩耳盗铃，说还可以维持现状。怎么说西方教育破产了呢？它因为都去人伦，无父子了，也没有老，也没有小。西方的教育，儿子叫爸爸不称爸爸，叫什么？叫名字，直呼其名，简直地，这个长幼尊卑已经错乱了。

Now I want to tell you something that you may not be aware of yet. In the United States, and in the West generally, education is totally bankrupt. However, like the person who plugs his ears and steals a bell thinking that other people will not hear the bell, they claim that their educational system can still manage. Why do I say that Western education is bankrupt? Because Western educators have discarded the ethics of human relationships. Parents and children do not know their place, and the old and the young do not know their roles. In the West, children do not address their father as “Father.” Instead, they call their fathers by name. The order between elders and the young, and between superiors and subordinates, has been messed up.

还有它的家庭都破碎了，家庭怎么破碎呢？美国人百分之九十九都结婚以后，就再离婚，这家庭就破碎了。破碎了，生了小孩子，小孩子随着爸爸养，爸爸就整天说：「你妈妈以前怎么坏怎么坏，她若不坏，我不会和她离婚。」就这样子。这小孩子说：「喔！妈妈这么坏，我对女人真讨厌到极点了。」你看！小孩子就讨厌女人。那么有的跟着妈妈养的，这妈妈就灌输他，说：「你爸爸怎样坏怎样坏，所以我和他离婚了。」这样一来，这个小孩子又讨厌爸爸，一见到男性就讨厌了，说：「男人都这样地坏。」

Broken families are widespread; ninety-nine percent of the marriages in America end in divorce. If the children live with their father, all day long they hear him rant about how terrible their mother was. “If she hadn’t been so bad, I wouldn’t have divorced her,” the father tells them. The children think, “Oh, how awful my mother is! How I hate women!” So you see, those children end up hating women. If the children live with their mother, she keeps telling them how awful their father was. “That’s why I divorced him,” she says. The children end up hating their father. They get annoyed whenever they see a man, because they think every man must be that terrible.

你算算！因为夫妇间离婚了，把小孩子养得对男女互相有仇恨的这种思想，结果长大了就怎样呢？变成问题儿童了。讨厌爸爸的，见到男人就把他杀了，一枪就把他打死；讨厌女人的，就想要把女人给打死，见到女人都是和眼中钉一样。你算算，它这个社会怎么会好？这是从根本上已经坏了。不过这种情形啊，美国人本身还不知道，他们不晓得这是一个最大的问题，他们还觉得他们国家有那么多财产，物产丰富，什么都不缺，这是一个好国家；他们不知道已经里边都烂了，就像那个树木，心都烂了，根都没有了，把根都给刨了。所以这是离婚的问题，男女都是结婚了之后，一定要再离婚，觉得再找一个新鲜的，这个旧的够了，再找新鲜的。其实找新鲜的，还不如那个旧的。啊！越搞越糟，越搞越糟，这问题儿童就出现了，家庭也破碎了，这是中国的五伦八德完全失去作用了。所以我们中国人，你们不要以为西方的文化怎么好怎么好，它从根本上已就破产了。

Think it over. As a result of their parents’ divorce, the children learn to hate men or women and grow up to become troubled teenagers. If they hate their father, they will want to murder any man they see, finishing him off with one shot. If they hate women, they will want to shoot women. They see women as thorns in the flesh. Under these circumstances, how can the society function well? It is rotten at the core. Nevertheless, Americans have not yet realized the seriousness of this problem. They still think, “Our country is so rich in natural resources and material goods, and doesn’t lack anything. This is a good country.” They do not realize that it is already rotten inside, just like a tree whose trunk is rotten and whose roots are gone. This problem is caused by divorce. After a man and a woman get married, they are almost certain to get divorced, because they will get tired of each other and want to find new partners. The new partners turn out to be worse than the original ones, and the more they do this, the more of a mess it becomes. As a result, there are troubled children and broken families. This is because the five kinds of human relationships and the eight virtues are no longer functioning. Chinese people should not think that Western culture is so great, for it has become bankrupt at the very roots.

还有它这个男女结婚了，就不离婚嘛，男的也要另外找一个情人，女的也要另外找一个情人，因为互相不满意，就互相报复。所以搞得家庭也是七零八落的，家不成一个家，家庭破碎了，那么这不离婚的是这样子。还有一些懂得道理的，还没有这个现象，不过是少数，多数的人是在那儿尽离婚。

Furthermore, even if a couple stays married and does not get divorced, the man will find a lover and the woman will also get a lover, out of revenge. They become dissatisfied with each other and mutually want to take revenge. They disturb the family until it breaks up and is no longer a real family. That’s what happens if they don’t get divorced. There are still some people who understand principle and do not get divorced or find lovers, but they are in the minority. The vast majority of the people are constantly getting divorced.

我觉得我们中国人现在也趋向这种的行动了，所以我愿意把这个根本的厉害先对大家讲一讲。我们大家要快一点把这个迷梦唤醒了它，你们不要再作西方的梦。我当初以为西方––这个美国有什么了不起，我到那个地方我才知道––讲真话给你们听，现在也有美国人在这儿，我不怕他们反对我––我觉得他们是很愚痴的。对这个你们大家有什么意见？你们是不是听过美国这种风气？

It seems to me that Chinese people are also picking up this trend. That’s why I want to speak about the importance of the fundamentals of being a human being. We should quickly awaken from our confused dream. Don’t dream about the West anymore. I used to think the West—the United States of America—was really great. But when I got there, I found out—I’ll tell you the truth, and I’m not afraid if the Americans here oppose me—I think they are very stupid. What do you think? Did you hear about this trend in the United States before?