佛學與佛教 Buddhist the Study vs. Buddhist the Religion

Venerable Master Taixu has written a good discourse on Buddhist the study[Note 1] vs Buddhist the religion, and I fully agree with it. The religious aspect of the Buddhism is that it requires us to believe that Buddha was real, and he was enlightened, and he spoke truthfully on what he saw as the Truth. The study aspect is for us to take the Buddhist Texts, and through our own efforts, to figure out the Truth for ourselves. Furthermore, through our understanding of the Truth, we learn how to apply what we know to our lives.


太虛大師有一些關於佛學與佛教的文章，
讀了之後，我十分認同。
在宗教方面，佛教需要我們相信：佛是真實的、
佛是覺者，佛真實的給我們他所看到的真相。
佛學需要我們自己努力，用佛經去發掘真相。
此外，還要透過真相的了解，知道如何運用在生活中。


Many practices of Buddhism today rely heavily on the religious aspects. They discuss the Buddhist Texts as if they are the Truth, cannot be questioned. They are full of compassion, intending on saving people of the world. They offer Buddha as a savior, willing to help all those in need.


今天，佛教的許多做法是屬於宗教方面的。
對他們來說，佛經是真理，不能被懷疑。
他們充滿了慈悲心，願意拯救世上所有人，
因為佛是一個救世主，願意幫助所有需要的人。


We, on the other hand, are different. We do not treat the Buddhist Texts as the Truth. We want to investigate, inspect and validate the contents. We treat Buddhist Texts like a map, it showed us the sights and scenes, and what we can expect; but they can often be interjected with personalities and ideas of writers of Buddhist Texts.


我們不同。我們不把佛經當做真相。
佛經的內容是需要被探討、檢驗和驗證的。
佛經像地圖，
它告訴我們心中期望的景點和風景到底要怎麼走？
但它往往有後代撰寫經文（或翻譯）者的個性和想法摻在裡面。


To us, Buddha is someone who has walked the path before us and showed us that there is a way. We do not expect Buddha to come to us to lend a helping hand. We realize, ultimately, that the path must be walked alone. While we are still compassionate, we do not believe in feeding the hunger. We believe in teaching the hunger how to feed themselves. We are more interested in helping people who want to help themselves.


對我們來說，佛陀是個走過人生路的人，
他告訴大家自己是怎麼走的？
我們不期待佛陀伸手來幫忙，我們相信這一條路是要自己走的。雖然我們也有慈悲心，但並不會直接給你東西吃，
我們只會教人如何餵自己。
我們對願意幫助自己的人比較有同情心。


We think that there are many people like us, searching for Truth but cannot see a path that they are comfortable with. We think this is a good path, so we want to give people who might be suitable a starting point and some of our own experiences for them to use as a reference.


相信很多人都跟我們一樣，在尋找真相，
但卻找不到一條他們覺得舒服的路。
我們覺得這一條路不錯，所以想幫適合走這一條路的人找個出發點，跟一些經驗給他們參考。


This is just one alternative path to the Truth. You should choose one that fits you the best.


這只是所有路中的其中之一，您應該要選擇適合您的路。


[Note 1] I hesitate to use Buddhism the Philosophy to translate 佛學, so I'll just call it "the study." Also, these discourses from Master Taixu are not available in English that I can find.