佛教信仰及其死亡观念的当代意义

The Modern Significance of the Buddhist Concept of Death

现代医学技术的成就令传统的心肺死亡标准受到挑战,新兴的脑死亡标准的提出也很大程度来自器官移植的需求,其功利色彩浓厚,且面临人道主义的责难。现代医学上死亡标准的不确定性带来在法律、伦理、政治等许多领域的广泛争议。在此,从佛生命观视角出发,可以尝试探讨传统文化的现代价值转换问题,古老的佛教生命观在这一问题上有独特解读。佛教所划分的四个生命阶段之中的"死有"为明确的生死界限,佛教从"寿、暖、识"解读死亡标准,形成了一套自洽的体系。可以说,佛教的生命观与死亡标准与器官移植并行不悖,为化解当今死亡标准与器官移植之间的巨大矛盾提供了一个独特的视角。

The traditional standard of cardiac death has been challenged with the advancement of modern medical technology. The newly proposed standard of brain death,which mainly caters for the demand of organ transplantation,wears a color of utilitarianism and is vulnerable to condemning from humanism. The uncertainty of the medical standard of death has brought about a lot of disputes in the fields of law,ethics,politics,etc. Buddhism holds a special concept of death,regarding'the being of death',which constitutes one of the four life stages,as a clear boundary between life and death. Buddhism also uses 'life,warmth,consciousness'as clinical indexes to judge death. The standard of death provided by Buddhism can effectively resolve the contemporary contradictions between the standard of death and organ transplantation.