24-5 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0031
Tel: 03-5456-8082 Fax: 03-5456-8388
Mail: info@japancivilization.org
http://www.japancivilization.org/

Newsletter Vol. 8 Summer 2017

On 26th May, the eighth symposium held by the Japanese Civilization Institute took place at Japan University of Economics campus in
Shibuya, Tokyo on the theme of “Zen and Mindfulness.” The panelists were Mr. Issho Fujita, director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center, who is deeply acquainted with both zen and mindfulness and who has taught zen for 17 years in the United States, Ms.
Kimiko Bokura-Shafe, founder of the MiLI (Mindful Leadership
Institute), and is introducing an employee orientation program developed by Google’s head office based on neuroscience and mindfulness to Japanese companies, and writer and director of Japanese Civilization Institution Naoki Inose ,who moderated the panel. Mr. Fujita and Ms. Bokura set time aside for meditation during the first andsecond half of the event. Please enjoy learning about the differences
between zen and mindfulness.
(Reprinted from “Shukan Dokushojin,” August 4th, 2017, No. 3201)

Greetings

Ms. Kimiko Tsuzuki—Chairperson of Japanese Civilization InstituteWe have continued to hold our series of symposiums, and have now reached our eighth round. When we announced thetheme of this eighth event, “Zen and Mindfulness,” on the internet,we received such a huge response from people who were
eager to attend that we had to limit attendance today. We were delighted to receive such a wonderful response, but alsosaddened that we could not accommodate everyone who wanted to join us.
The Tsuzuki Education Group celebrated its 60th anniversary last year. The theme we chose to mark our anniversary was“Wakon Eisai” (Japanese Spirit, Talented Scholars). Today, we hope to hear an incisive discussion between such talented
scholars, Professor Issho Fujita and Professor Kimiko Bokura-Shafe, who are both spreading the Japanese spirit and soul inwhich we take such pride around the world in the English language. I hope all of you in the audience will not just passively receive information from this event today, but will also actively take part and think about the theme with us together.
Please enjoy today’s panel to the very end.

“Transmitting Japanese Civilization—The Drama of the Pioneers.”
I would personally like to position this symposium as part of the story of “Transmitting
Japanese Civilization—The Drama of thePioneers.” With the Meiji Restoration, Japan entered an era of “Wakon Yosai” (Japanese Spirit combined with Western learning), receiving influences from outside cultures, and particularly from the cultures ofthe West. However, the Japanese of that day
did not just submissively receive culture
from abroad. There were also Japanese who
worked strenuously to transmit the fine aspects of Japanese culture to the outside
world. I call these people the “Pioneers who
Transmitted Japanese Civilization,” and I
have assembled a list of some of them to

About the groupJapanese Civilization InstituteEstablished in August 2015

share with you today. There was, for example, Manshi Kiyozawa. In 1893, a World
Exposition was held in Chicago to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas.
At around that same time, Kiyozawa’s bookabout Japanese religion was translated into
English, and attracted attention at the Parliament of the World’s Religions held in
Chicago that same year. By the way, Daisetsu Suzuki, who we will hear about later, also
attended this conference.
Other famous names of people who haveworked to introduce Japan to the world include Kanzo Uchimura, Inazo Nitobe andTenshin Okakura. An exceptional caseToshio Goto, President

might be Yonejiro Noguchi, the father ofarchitect Isamu Noguchi, who strove to introduce Japanese fine arts abroad, beginning with Japanese poetry, verse and haiku.
The individuals mentioned above all transmitted their information in English, andultimately spread the word about the positive aspects of Japan to the outside world.
They then returned to Japan themselves. I
would like to share with you the fact that
pioneers like these individuals existed morethan 100 years ago, and that even today, thefinest aspects of Japanese civilization are still
the focus of attention from many diverse
perspectives in countries across the globe.

Address: 24-5 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0031
Tel :03-5456-8082 Fax:03-5456-8388
Website: http://www.japancivilization.org/

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A Report on Our 8th Symposium

Zen and mindfulness
Issho Fujita（Soto zen priest）

vs.

Kimiko Bokura-Shafe（entreprenuer and mindfulness instructor）
MC

Naoki Inoseof Japanese（ director
Civilization Institute ）The two Suzuki’s
and the prehistoryof mindfulness
Inose: Daisetsu Suzuki’s book “Zenand Japanese Culture” was publishedoutside Japan in Showa 10 (1935). It
has been read continuously eversince.
Daisetsu Suzuki is well known as
the Buddhist scholar who spread zen
culture to the outside world before
and after WWII. Yet actually, there
were “Two Suzuki’s” in the U.S. at thetime, another one being a priest
named Shunryu Suzuki who established the San Francisco Zen Center.
In the 1970s, members of the Beatles
were inspired by Eastern philosophy,
while the hippy movement emergedon the U.S. West Coast. These kindsof movements were said to have been
influenced in part by Shunryu Suzuki.
As the furthest evolution in thistrend, today we see words like “zen”
and “mindfulness” spreading quickly
to innovative companies like Google
and Facebook in Silicon Valley.
These companies are now incorpo-

2

rating ideas derived from zen in theirorientation programs for new employees.
Mr. Issho Fujita provided guidancein zen in the U.S. for 17-and-a-halfyears. Today, he conducts research inzen here in Japan. Meanwhile, Ms.
Kimiko Bokura-Shafe is working to
introduce Google’s employee orientation program back here in Japan. Because mindfulness is spreading inforeign countries, zen—which has
been an integral part of Japanese tradition to the modern day—is now
coming in for re-examination even in
Japan itself.
We hope that the audience gathered here today can let themselves
relax and listen to our discussion. So
to begin, we would like to ask Ms.
Kimiko Bokura-Shafe to show us just
how relaxing the method used at
Google can be.
Bokura: Okay. How is everybody’s
mental state today?
Maybe you all rushed to get tothis venue on time, have soothed
yourselves down a bit, and are feelingclearer now? Or perhaps you haven’t

quite settled down yet? So now, let’s
take a moment to think.
If you tilt a snow globe, you see
white snow scattering inside. The bestthing to do to make that snow settle isto put the globe down. Your soul isjust the same. You need to put down
your feelings, your responsibilities,
and your emotions so they can settle.
Now I would like to show you someeasy steps to enter “mindfulness.”
You need to do just three things.
Firstly, “put your consciousness inthe moment. Gather your attention
to “this moment.”
At the same time, “relax.”Then, still in this state, put yourconsciousness into your next breath.”
Just try these three things.
Before you begin, however, relax
your posture. You can close your eyesor leave them open. Pay attention to
the moment, relax, and focus yourattention on the next breath you’regoing to breathe. Continue to place
your attention on your breath formaybe three breaths.
Please continue. Your might findthat your mind is thinking of otherthings besides your breath, like,best position for our head, it leads us
to raise and straighten our pelvis. But
if I tell people that first, before everything else, our bodies will unconsciously shrink as they try to straighten up, so instead I want you to justloosen up first and find your mostrelaxed position.

Kimiko Bokura-Shafe“What am I going to do with thethings I left behind at work,” or“What shall I eat afterwards?” If you
notice that you’re thinking aboutsomething else, “Begin again.” Just
go back to the beginning and concentrate on your next coming breath.
Good! Now take a deep breath,
try to maintain that state, and concentrate on the following discussion.
Inose: When you say, “a relaxing
posture,” what do you mean?
Bokura: Your backbone is naturally
curved. It’s not standing straight up
against gravity. Find the posture thatis most relaxing for you. Often yourshoulders are hunched forward rather than pointed sideways during
your everyday life. The most relaxing
posture where you can breathe mosteasily is when you lift your shoulders
and drop them down from behind.
Your head is on you neck, but try
and find the most relaxing position
for your head against gravity as well.
Inose: We slouch a lot in our daily
life, like when we’re using computers
and mobile phones. I’ve heard thatthe average head weighs approximately seven kilograms, so that’s likebalancing a bowling ball on yourneck. Having our heads placed insuch an awkward position, it’s nowonder we get shoulder aches.
Bokura-Shafe: When we find theInose: Mr. Fujita. In your book “Zenno kyoshitsu” (Lessons on Zen), youwrite that a good posture is when
you think of aligning your ears andshoulders and your nose and navel.
Fujita: That is the result of “finding”
the right pose. When we’re told inwords how to pose correctly, we tend
to create models. Instead of asking
our bodies to try and come up withthe correct pose from the inside, wecreate an ideal mold on the outside
and try to adapt ourselves to it. The
ideal shape and goal comes first, andwe try to come as close to that as wecan. It’s the kind of head-centeredapproach that we all tend to follow
in our everyday lives. In zen, we takeparticular caution to avoid thesekinds of artificial approaches.
In other words, there is no suchthing as an ideal posture that applies
equally to every single person. Indeed, a good posture for you today
might not even be a good posture foryou tomorrow. There’s a relaxing
pose for every person.
Note that when I say “relaxing” I
don’t mean a lazy posture. I mean apose that awakens the consciousness
and prepares us for the conditions
that emerge accordingly. We learn
how to create a new, proper pose on
a day-to-day basis, not learn to makea single proper pose for all occasions.
In zen we value this distinction.
To settle the soul and trying tosettle the soul are two different
things, as different as straightening
the back and actually growing taller.
It’s similar to that. There’s only aslight difference, but the landscapethat the person in question is able tosee changes completely. I think zen’s

Issho Fujita
most important characteristic lies inthis tiny difference.
Inose: Why do you think mindfulness is so popular in Silicon Valley
today?
Fujita: The word “mindfulness” hasbeen around for some time now. I
moved to the U.S. in 1987, andcame across the word mindfulness
for the first time in the book “Being
Peace,” written by the Vietnamesemonk Thich Nhat Hanh.
Inose: Ms. Bokura, you published“Mindfulness for Businesspersons,” but
how do you actually see the situation
today? I hear that Google’s facility isquite luxurious, with cafeterias inwhich you can eat as much as you
like, creative offices, even playgrounds leisure lands and game centers. We get a lot of information likethat at the surface level, but I thinkthat in reality Google must be extremely harsh. Only 1 in 50 students
can pass the exams to enter Harvard
University, but only 1 in 1,000 succeed in entering Google. Even if you
do succeed in getting in, you’re surrounded by brilliant people and you
have to work long hours everyday
competing ruthlessly with them. Silicon Valley is probably one of themost stressful environments to workin the world today.
Bokura: Exactly right. For example,3

a company like Google deals in massive amounts of information, so you
get requests such as, “I want you to
double the speed of information processing in three months.” A team ofabout 10 people works furiously onthat and somehow achieve it, because
you have top engineers gatheredfrom all around the world. But even
if you accomplish your project andare still getting your breath back, in a
few months time you’re given another mission: “double the speed again
in three months.” You reach out andachieve your goal again, but then you
get yet another assignment that requires reaching even further.
Of course we’re all receiving hugebenefits from technological development, but the people who are at theforefront of actually creating these
innovations are working under very
severe conditions.
Fujita: What happens if you can’t
achieve your goal?
Bokura: Then someone else comesin and takes your place.
I think there’s also a self-motivation to create something—something new—that these workers possess that comes before the externalpressures placed upon them. Yet evenso, because people really are wearing
themselves out in that kind of environment, some workers fall ill fromstress, or their family life collapses, orthey get addicted to drugs or alcohol.
Yet if you can only relax your soulthrough mindfulness, your suffering
diminishes, and you also see an indirect increase in work performance. I
think that’s why mindfulness has
spread among people in the Valley
the way it has.
Inose: By the way, Mr. Fujita. What
did Shunryu Suzuki actually do in
the U.S.?
Fujita: Before I go into that, I would
first like to go back a little further inhistory.

4

During the Meiji Restoration, Japan invested a lot of money in inviting
numerous scholars to come to Japan
from abroad. Among them was (Ernest) Fenollosa, who was amazed bywhat he found upon reaching Japan.
He had thought he was coming to aregion in the Far East that was far behind in terms of civilization, but hefound that wasn’t the case at all. He
realized the splendid quality of Japanese Buddhist art and education, andbrought back numerous examples of
Buddhist art to the Boston Art Museum. In this way zen culture was quickly accepted outside of Japan.
Then Daisetsu Suzuki attended
The Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago with Soyen Shaku,
his master who was then the chief
abbot of Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura. From there, he remained in the
U.S. and started proselytizing Buddhism in English. When he was 27,
he wrote “Outlines of Mahayana
Buddhism” and in the 1950s he
spread interest in zen philosophy tointellectuals through his books. For
the most part, Daisetsu Suzuki tried
to express the concept of “satori” (theBuddhist term for awakening, comprehension and understanding) in
English.
Western intellectuals realized instantly that the content of Daisetsu’s
books transcended conventional
Western dualism. Artists, philosophers and theorists were the first to beinspired by his words, and from there,
it started to spread to the public.

Inose: Originally, English itself issomewhat dualistic in nature, withthe words “I” and “You” as a primeexample. We Japanese usually speak
without mentioning the “I.” Daisetsu introduced the West--a place
where everyone communicated indualism--to a world in which the “I”
and the “You” blended together.
Fujita: That’s correct. In Buddhism,
we separate the “self” and the “other”
and the “soul” and the “heart.” It’s
called “bunbetsu” (discretion). In our
everyday live we separate good andbad, superiority and inferiority, beautiful and ugly from our own viewpoint.
We even convince ourselves that we’re
doing it objectively. In Buddhism, wecall this “komou bunbetsu” (false discrimination). We think that there’s adistinction being drawn that’s forced
upon. There is no such way of thinking
in the West, because in those cultures
making distinctions is a natural thing
to do. Daisetsu explained a world thattranscends komou bunbetsu using episodes from the lives of various zen masters. People who had already realizedthat the dualistic way of thinking was
the basis of various problems welcomed
this philosophy as a new method that
could possibly be a breakthrough foraddressing these issues.
In the 1960s, the U.S. became theworld’s most powerful country and,with that, various new problems
emerged. Young people at the time
began to question simply accepting

the American values that their parents had created before them. They
were fascinated by Daisetsu’s teachings of a state of “satori” (revelation)that transcended komou bunbetsu.
Then, in the early 1960s, a Soto-shu
zen priest named Shunryu Suzuki—
already in his fifties—arrived in the
U.S. to take up the position of headpriest at Sokoji Temple, a zen temple
for Americans of Japanese descent in
San Francisco. Unlike the temple’s
previous head priests, Shunryu had adesire to spread zen, not just to theJapanese-American community but
also to all the American people. This
coincided with a concentration ofliberal youth who had an active desire to learn to practice zen in San
Francisco during the sixties so there
was a fortuitous encounter there.
The people who practiced zen at thetime have become the leaders of themindfulness movement today. I
think we can call this the “prehistory” of mindfulness.

Kojikyumei—
search our innerselvesBokura: That’s very true. There aremany leaders of the mindfulness
movement today who were pupils of
zen teacher Shunryu. The method
combining mindfulness and neuroscience that emerged at Google is
known as SIY (Search Inside Yourself ). Mark Lesser, a Soto-shu priest
who served as CEO of the project,
was a disciple of Shunryu Suzuki.
Also, Norman Fischer—a priest at
the San Francisco Zen Center—talked to graduates about mindfulness ina Baccalaureate address given at
Stanford University. In the U.S., zen
and mindfulness are never separated.
Fujita: Yes, I knew both of thesepriests. In Japan, a Rinzai School
priest is training right now to masterthe SIY program.

Inose: Exactly what kind of programis SIY?
Fujita: I’m sure that all of you here
today are aware of Google’s searchengine. In zen there is the term “kojikyumei,” which means, when we
translate it into English, “to search
inside yourself.”
Bokura: In other words, it means tosearch for our inner selves.
Inose: And how does Google’s staff
do this on a regular basis?
Bokura: I’m not sure how often they
practice it, but Google offices in every country make it a routine to holda 2-day SIY program, with a seven-week follow up.. People who wantto take part volunteer and get assigned to the program. Enrollment isdone online, and the list fills up immediately. There’s a line of applicants
waiting for cancellations so they can
get in. I hear that about 10% of
Google staff have or are now taking
the program.
Inose: I realize that it might be difficult to explain here, but how do you
actually make a program out ofbreath control and “zazen” (seatedzen meditation)?
Bokura: Firstly, there’s the approachof EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient), in which you apply emotional
intelligence in leadership.
Inose: IQ is known as Intelligence
Quotient. In which case, EQ is Emotional Quotient? You’re saying emotional ups and downs are obvious asquotients?
Bokura: That’s right. The ultimate
goal is to control one’s emotions andbuild sympathy in your interpersonal relations, but in order to do thatyou first need to recognize the self.
That’s why that name “Search Inside
Yourself ” becomes so important. We

Naoki Inose

apply the method of trying to findout what is happening to the self at
the present moment.
Research performed up until now
clarifies that there is a demonstrable
link between EQ and improvement
in job performance. So we practice
mindfulness to heighten EQ, andwhen EQ is heightened you’re able tomanage the self. As a result, yourperformance at work, and your leadership skills, both improve.
Inose: How do you distinguish thisfrom mental health therapy?
Fujita: Therapy is provided to people
who are aware that they’re psychologically ill or have mental issues. These
people go to therapists who assist
them to manage those issues themselves. In contrast, mindfulness programs are meant to heighten your interpersonal skills and human qualities
so that you’re better able to get overthe emotional ups and downs you experience on the job. It’s more like acquiring human interactional skills
through practice than it is therapy.
Inose: You mean it’s like exercise?
Fujita: Exactly. In the field it’s evencalled a “mental workout.”
Bokura: I referred to the term “EQ”
for emotional intelligence, but if wephrase it differently, we could say,“human qualities,” just as Issho said.

5ple, when we are face to face withdeath, what use can any methodthought out by humans be to us?

Feel anotherdimension ofexistence throughzazen meditation

There is a need to improve humanqualities here in Japan, too, right?
But zen can seem too hard for beginners to explore. On the other hand,
the mindfulness method feels more
open to beginners to try.
Inose: So you fractionized what you
couldn’t reach before, and succeededin standardizing it this way, correct?
Issho has experienced this, and has
written about it as well. Yet they saythat when people apply to study at azen temple, they’re left waiting at theentrance for a few hours before they
get an answer. Honestly, I don’tknow what that’s got to do with human quality! (Laughs)
Fujita: Perhaps they learn persistence! (Laughs).
Seriously though, that practice isclose to just being rote performance
nowadadays. Yet originally, thepriest’s did this so the applicant
could and would reflect on the reasons why he or she had come to thetemple in the first place. It was a way
for the zen teachers to express thatthey were not interested in people
who came to study zen just for fun.
Inose: I would imagine it’s also a
way to express that the Buddha’s
teachings about satori and the understanding that the universe and theself are all one is not something thatcan simply be taught, but requires
study and discipline..
In the first few pages of Daisetsu

6

Suzuki’s book “Zen and Japanese Culture,” there is a story going back to
the 12th Century. The son of a burglar asks his father to teach him how
to break into a house, so his father
takes him to someone’s house to rob
it. The father places his son in a large
chest, closes it and shouts “Thief!”
and runs away. The son—who islocked in—leaps out as soon as theowner opens the chest, drops a stone
down a well so people will think hehas jumped into it, and makes a narrow escape. When he reaches home,
his father says to him, “Now you
know how to do it.”
The message here is probably thatyou have to learn how to do things
for yourself, but it’s such an absurd
tale. Yet if s story like this is included
in a zen book, it most likely means
that, like burglary, zen is not something to be taught. It’s something
you have to master yourself.
Fujita: That this tale has been passed
down across generations is proof thatit’s significant in zen to acquire themethod yourself. We humans have atendency to rely on tangible things,
and to take short cuts whenever wecan. But there are some things thatyou cannot acquire if you depend too
much on others. Using more modern, more “rational” ways of thinking, you may let things slip. In Buddhism, one of the most importantvalues is “shorou byoshi” (the four inevitable aspects of human life—birth,
aging, illness, and death). For exam-

Inose: You have written your own
book titled “Modern Lectures on Zazen: The Way to Shikantaza.” What
exactly does “shikantaza” mean?
Fujita: “Shikan” means “simply,” and“taza” means “sitting.” In otherwords, simply sitting down. If zazen isnothing more than “sitting down,”
then you don’t need to worry aboutother things. No goals, no returns.
Simply sitting. I describe shinkantaza
as “taking a break from human behavior.”
Inose: A break from human behavior?
Fujita: Humans walk on two legs. It’s
one of our distinguishing characteristics. We have hands with which we
use tools, have mouths with which totalk and minds with which to think.
But when we do zazen, we cross ourlegs and put our hands together. We
neither move nor talk. We don’t
think about the thoughts that float
up in our mind , but instead we letthem go until they disappear.
In other words, when we do zazen, for a short period we put every
human characteristic on hold. We’restill homo sapiens, but we’re not acting like humans, so I call it “a breakfrom human behavior.” Our lives ashumans recommence the moment
we stand up again, but zazen enables
up to reexamine our lives once we’vetaken a break from human behavior.
In the human world, we have ourups and downs. We’re always busy
and we usually don’t get things ourway. Let’s take a break from all thatand create a deliberate pause. There’s
the zen phrase, “useless use,” but it’s
this “useless” gap that enables us to
get through an everyday life that has
become so demanding. Meanwhile,
the mindfulness method guides us to
manage ourselves as human beings.
If you can improve your humanqualities through mindfulness, thenthat is good because you need to improve you skills to get along smoothly at work and at home. But there areareas that you cannot reach with human qualities alone, which is where
zen comes in. So in zen there is amethod to get along well in humansociety, and there is the experience of
touching other dimensions and existence like shorou byoshi. Like a double-feature movie program, I hope
we can include both.
Inose: In zen, they say you’re a part of
the universe and that satori is when
you realize that you’re unified with theuniverse. It’s rather complex, isn’t it?
Fujita: It’s complex if you think it is(laughter). But actually, you justhave to sit down..
There was a monk who jokingly
phrased it as, “to remove the difference.” Yet you actually could say put
it that way if you think of sitting zazen as removing the difference between the self and the world. In other words, it’s the act of putting a stop
to “reasoning”—something I mentioned earlier. However, because weuse words and exist in time, we’re
not able to completely stop reasoning. The act of releasing that, to not
move our hands and legs with reasoning, is what we’re doing in zazen.
Inose: Is that the same as achieving astate of “mu” (nothingness)?
Fujita: Mu is a state of having nobond or parting. It’s not the same as
being empty and having nothing inside. It’s closer to “zen” (all, everything). In other words, limitlessness.

Inose: There are zen phrases like “isshokuta” (the one and the many” and“tasokuitsu” (the many and the one).
In Daisetsu Suzuki’s book, it says
the great haiku poet Basho Matsuo’s
famous haiku, “Furuike ya, kawazu
tobikomu mizu no oto” (Old pond.
frog jumps: Plop! )*1 is like a zen
koan riddle. But most people see it as
a portrayal of an actual sight.
Fujita: In the case of this haiku , I
think that the boundary between the
inner world and the outer world isremoved. Basho was probably powerfully moved when he came up withthis particular haiku, but that occurred not on the outside, but on
the inside—within Basho himself. It
was this stirring within that formed
the haiku. There’s a hidden message
that lies beneath the information
provided on the surface.
Inose: It’s been said that there is vast
area of the unconscious mind existing beneath the conscious mind. The
words we use in everyday conversations are words we’ve scraped off justa little closer to the surface, correct?
Daisetsu Suzuki, who lived in thesame era as Carl Jung, includes words
like “collective consciousness” in his
books. Does this mean that if we
speak using not only the conscious
world but also the unconscious
world, it would be more “zen-like”?
Fujita: I think so. zen stories are justsomeone else’s story, told just the way
it is. It’s merely information, which
the zen master provided when his apprentice asked him a question. But
when you start understanding thestory, the deep flavor of it starts toooze out like when you’re eating“surume” (dried cuttlefish), and what
used to be someone else’s story starts
to become your own story.
Sometimes it can reach the inner
deep psyche that forms the self—
which is usually closed off to us—
like the collective unconsciousness. A
zen story is a device designed for that

purpose. Stories that can make thatpossible have been examined andtransmitted down across generations.
In the Rinzai school of Zen, we callthese “koan” (catechetic questions for
meditation).
Koan ask people constantly how
they can best come to terms with thesituation that they’re facing at thatparticular moment. For instance,
maybe there are a few people here
who are sleepy and are in the midstof choosing whether to stay awake orfall asleep (laughter).
A koan is exactly how you respondto every moment in life, in whateversituation you’re in. In the case ofkoan, you are asked questions—which you can’t answer logically withyour head—so you can thoroughly
feel that you are being questioned
this way in every moment of yourlife. These are the kinds of methods
that were invented in zen.

Horizontal
mindfulness—vertical zen
Inose: So there are various stories thatact as devices for people to comprehend zen, which seems so difficult totackle at first glance. Now, it seems
that “mindfulness” has standardizedthat completely, to the point thatanyone can easily understand it.
Bokura: But you must remember thatthe people who practice that standardized form are still individuals. There isof course a framework for mindfulness, but it’s only a 2-day programwith a seven-week follow-up period.
So these people who have experienced
that first opening have got to explore
it further on their own,, which I thinkis close to practicing zen.
Inose: Earlier, Ms. Bokura demonstrated relaxing breathing methods.
Could you please show us how you
do it, too, Mr. Issho?

7Fujita: Then, first let’s all stretch.
When I say that, I see that almost
every one of you here takes the samepose. Are you really sure that that’s
the stretch that your body is longing
for? In stretch classes, we’re taught toraise our hands in the air, but zen
approaches gives us time to searchfor our own ways to stretch.
In fact, we all know how instinctively how to stretch. My cat is anexpert at stretching. Even an embryo
stretches and yawns inside the mother’s womb, most likely because it’s
cramped inside and it needs to moveto relax itself.
However, we’ve been suppressed
into thinking that it’s rude to stretch
and yawn in public, so we have forgotten how to freely move about andstretch naturally ourselves without
thinking about it in our heads.
So, now that I’ve inspired you,let’s try stretching again.
You see how, when we really
stretch, our state of mind changes
dramatically?
Next, let’s feel ourselves sitting
down on our chairs. The thing that’s
important when you assume a pose is“groundedness”—the sense thatyou’re supported firmly by theground, the floor and the chair. If
you’re nervous, your muscles will beraising your body unnaturally, so you
need to release that nervousness. Let
the weight shift downwards. You
don’t try to “do” groundedness. Instead you try to stop “doing” it, andthen you are able to do it as a resultof letting go.
Feel the support from below.
At the same time, feel the verticalline of uprightness.
Approaching it from both ways is
the key.
Try and ask your own body. In
what kind of line does your body
drop down onto your ischial bone? Is
it leaning forwards, or backwards? If
you sense a signal from your bodythat it’s leaning too far back, thenrelax. There is a point in which you
will not have to strain yourself.

8

Inose: You’re saying that we should
feel and search ourselves for our own
best pose?
Fujita: Find the place that you canhold forever. Kimiko mentioned it
earlier as well, but our arms have atendency to lean forward. So slowly
raise your scapulars, your shoulder
blades, turn them intentionally outwards, and then let them relax
downward. Let your body and gravity decide where they fall.
This is a funny way of putting it,
but just practice being “natural.”Right now, your arms are hanging
down, right? The weight of you arms
expands the chest.
When I say that, you might thendeliberately try to expand your chest.
But expanding your chest naturally
and expanding it deliberately are twovery different things. We love reactions. The ego likes that triumphantfeeling of “Yes! I’m doing it!” But
you’ve gone too far if you find thatyou’re satisfying your ego. Try andaim for “non-reaction.” The ego isunsatisfied with making no effort, so
you may find yourself feeling thatyou want to sleep or immerse yourself in thoughts, but try and avoidthat.
Now slowly bend your arms fromthe elbow. In zazen we bring ourhands together in front of stomach.
Place your left hand over your righthand, place four of your fingers on
top of each other, and place yourthumbs so they lightly touch eachother. This, too, should not be done“deliberately.” If you relax, you
should naturally find yourself forming this shape.
We often turn the palms of ourhands outwards in our everyday life,
but that kind of hand is for handling
tools and changing the world. It’s mypersonal interpretation that thepalms of our hands that we turn upwards in zazen are a sign that we are
accepting the world as it is.
Now, place this hand where it canrelax. In zazen we have our legs
crossed, so place it above your legs.
We’re sitting on chairs right now, so
today place it at a point roughly below your stomach. The clavicalcomes right above the ischial bone,
and the ischial bone, clavical and ears
form a line. The navel should beright below your nose. This is thebalanced position. If the head—
which as Mr. Inose said before
weighs about seven kilograms—is
not tucked inside that line, yourneck and back muscles will stiffen as
they support the head. That state will
not be able to last for long. There isa line you can find for yourself inwhich the weight of your head disappears altogether.
Also, close your mouth lightly,
and loosen your lower jaw. Your lower jaw should drop in a relaxing
manner. But don’t open your mouth
wide. Don’t breathe with yourmouth. Let your upper and lower
lips lightly touch.
When we are enduring stress, we
bite our lips. That creates tension,
which stimulates the brain. Thatmakes us start to think again, so instead try to release excessive tension
and avoid letting too much stimulation reach your brain.
This explanation doesn’t cover every detail, but it’s a way of explainingit.
Now next, close your eyes lightly,
and try and feel inside your body.
Feel, but do your best to avoid“monitoring” your body, because if
you do that, then you and what isbeing monitored will be separated.
Try to see the whole indirectly. The
goal is to quite seriously assume apose of not doing anything at all.
Sometimes when you’re told not doanything, you could become lazy, butthat won’t do, either.
Inose: At first glance, being lazy
seems pretty relaxing.
Fujita: Actually, it’s harder tobreathe when you do that. If one

part of the body is relaxing, then theother parts of the body have to coverfor it with a more demanding pose.
In the zen meditation pose, thewhole body is cooperating in supporting the body efficiently. Muscles
on the outside can relax. Imagine
your skeleton as you sit down. Thinkof how you can avoid making an undue effort. It’s the opposite of what
we often imagine when we hear theword “discipline.”
Inose: So while it looks as if you’re
undergoing difficult training, it’s actually the opposite. You’re doing it torelax.
Fujita: That’s correct. The great zen
Buddhist monk Dogen said, “Zazen
wa anraku no homon nari” (Zazen is
the way to comfort). Buddhism isformed when you’ve transcended asceticism.
I’m sure that right now all of us
here are able to hear, even if we aren’t
thinking of hearing. We don’t need tomake an effort to hear; we just leave it
to our ears to capture sound. I don’t
think we can use our senses to smell
and taste all that much at this moment, but leave them open so you cansmell and taste anytime. In Buddhism,
we think of these as the sensory organs.
Now we feel the thoughts thatarise and disappear in our minds.
Most of the time we fall asleep or failto see what is going on within ourselves when we relax thoroughly, but
because this is a training session,please stay quietly awake and experience deeply what is happening.
Then, slowly open your eyelids as if
rolling up a bamboo blind. Take inthe amount of light that matches
your mental state. Open yourself up
and try to evenly absorb all the different information brought to you by
your six sensory organs. Just as a mirror reflects whatever passes before it.
Don’t twist it, enlarge it, or make itsmall. Just let it be as it is.
If you doze off or become im-mersed in your thoughts, then yourposture will have collapsed. So startagain by straightening your pose. Start
again, and yet again, until you areable to maintain the pose for sometime. Names, gender and age don’t
exist here. Just a life that’s trying to
live.
Inose: What are the six sensual organs?
Fujita: Eyes, ears, nose, tongue, bodyand mind. These are the six sensualorgans that are written in the Hannya
Shingyo (The Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra). The “body” is the physical sense, while the “mind” is thesoul. In Buddhism it’s these six. A
printing machine combines four tofive colors to print in a whole range ofdifferent colors, correct? If someone
who is unaware of this sees the printout, they will probably think there are
all kinds of colored ink in the machine, but that’s not true. According
to the Buddha, all our various experiences are printed with these six cartridges. That you be aware of what’s
going on is the basis of mindfulness.
Bokura: Mindfulness is the act of realizing what’s happening at the present moment using your five sensualorgans plus your mind, and to live
each moment with self-awareness.
Inose: Other than the various koan
stories themselves, I think that thehidden messages of zen are included
in art and culture, like the blank spacein a Buddhist painting or a “karesansui” garden (a traditional dry landscape garden, often using raked white
pebbles). Yet are we actually able to“see” the results of mindfulness?
Bokura: There are research resultsthat show how the brain is different
before and after practicing mindfulness for a few weeks. Neuroscientificdifferences have been reported frombefore and after mindfulness training.

Fujita: Unlike in the past, we are now
able to know in real time what goeson when we meditate, like how the
blood flow in our brain increases, or
if our body temperature rises. We’reliving in an era when we can follow
up with objective neuroscientific data
those things that meditation practitioners used to report based on theirown personal experience.
Bokura: There are major research
centers examining this at Harvard
University and the University of
Wisconsin. Of course the brain iscomplex, so we cannot clarify everything. For example, there’s a smallorgan called the amygdala in thebrainstem that rules our emotions.
The amygdala tends to stop reacting
so aggressively and getting irritatedwhen we practice meditation.
Also, the insular cortex at the far
end of the ear is the organ that enables us to realize what is going onwith our bodies. There are research
results that show that, through meditation, this organ becomes thicker
and may possibly develop improved
skills for intuition and abilities forbetter sensing our bodies.
And one more thing. We have theimpression that we are relaxing when
we’re watch TV and fiddling with
our mobile phones. In fact, however,it’s now known that these activities
activate the brain’s default mode network (DMN) and you’re actuallywearing your brain out when you’re
doing that.
Fujita: So you’re saying we’re exhausting our brains without realizingit?
Bokura: That’s correct. But when we
meditate with mindfulness, the irritating, flickering state caused by thedefault mode network eases. When
we’re in the DMN state, we’re often
thinking about the same thing. Mostof the time, we’re thinking “I’m...,”or “I’m going to..,” building circles
of our own stories. But when we

9keep repeating our own stories about
what is happening, we tend to amplify the impression they make on us
and ultimately create something very
different from reality. We tend to
separate our own image of ourselfves
that we create in our heads from thereal self, which is quite adaptable insociety. Mindfulness is effective inameliorating that effect.
Fujita: The real world doesn’t spinwith you at its center. But when
you’re in the DMN state you lose theability to distinguish between the real world and the imaginary world
you create in your head. Therefore,
you become unable to see the realworld and become aggressive and depressed, which can sometimes leadto deeper depression or aberrant behavior like stalking.
Inose: Then these developments inneuroscience have confirmed the zen
philosophy that unites people withthe universe, which Buddha preachedlong before the emergence of Christianity.

10

Fujita: Based on their own personal
experience, people believed in geocentric theories that the universe revolved around the Earth, but logically examined, the heliocentric theories
turned out in fact to be true. This iswhat is known as being “counter intuitive,” in which our prejudices derived from our experience—experiences that often seem to oppose ourintuition—are overturned. Having
said that, however, we can’t just suddenly change our vision overnight.
So, in order to help address that contradiction, we in Buddhism try to remember that we are not separate
from the world, and that we and theworld are one.
Inose: Ultimately, we humans alllive with the overarching precondition that someday we are going todie. The indiscreet world of satori is
probably close to dying or blending
into nature.
Fujita: You may be right. The act ofdying is simply returning once moreto that place where you once
thought you were closed off. It’s nolonger frightening if you think of it
that way.
Inose: I guess it would be a momentof satori if you could see it that way.
Fujita: Various waves come and go
at sea—big waves, small waves,choppy waves. I think we can compare that to ourselves. We think ofourselves as the crests of these waves.
Simply put, to practice Buddhism isto reexamine where we come from,just like realizing that the sea is madeup of waves. zen’s path is from thecrest of that wave to deep down into
the sea. The new mindfulness methods may also have other goals. To
maintain the shape of the wave, forexample, or to make it larger ormore beautiful.
Mindfulness makes us look horizontally, so we can search our identities in order to get along intelligently
in the real word. There is that kindof difference when you compare
mindfulness to zen.
Yet I don’t think we should try to
get rid of the waves and go back to asea that’s still and flat. We should beaware that our roots lie in the deep,
vast ocean, and aim to exist as one
individual—as one wave. Don’t forget that our personal identities only
exist when we’re bound to that sea.
Horizontal mindfulness and verticalzen do not contradict one another..
Instead, I hope that these two dimensions of mindfulness can co-exist
and spread widely among people everywhere.

(Reprinted from “Shukan Dokushojin,” August 4th, 2017, No. 3201)*1 the translation of the famous British philosopher Alan Watts.

The panelists
Issho Fujita
Soto-shu priest, international missionary and head director of the Soto Zen Buddhism International Center.
Issho Fujita was born in Ehime Prefecture, Japan in 1954. After completing his studies at Nada
High School in Kobe, he went on to study educational psychology at Tokyo University. From there
he began graduate work in developmental psychology and during that time became seriously
involved with zazen. At the age of 28 he withdrew from his doctoral course and entered Antaiji, a
Zen training monastery. He became a priest the following year. At 33 he left for America and forthe next 17 and a half years provided guidance in zazen at Pioneer Valley Zendo in Western Massachusetts. He returned to Japan in 2005, and is currently based at the Chizanso Retreat in Hayama, Kanagawa Prefecture, where he conducts research and offers instruction in zazen. He
wrote “Modern Lectures on Zazen: The Path to Shikantaza” and is the co-author of “Buddhism
3.0: An Update,” “Update on Buddhism,” “Lessons on Zen,” and “A Discourse With Antaiji Zen
Priests.” He has also translated numerous works into Japanese, including Thich Nhat Hanh’s“Zen Keys,” “Opening the Heart of the Cosmos: Insights on the Lotus Sutra” and “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind 2.”

Kimiko Bokura-Shafe
Founder and chairman of the MiLI (Mindful Leadership Institute). After graduating International
Christian University (ICU) and acquiring her MBA from Boston University, she worked in brandmanagement at major global companies, and achieved high market shares for the products she
represented in such as perfume, soap and skincare. She moved to the U.S. in 2000, started up
her own company, and has since moved on to lecturing and coaching on better communicationand leadership skills around the country. In 2013, she established the Mindful Leadership Institute (MiLI). She is the first Japanese to be selected as a lecturer for Google’s employee orientation program “Search Inside Yourself (SIY)” at Google’s main campus. She is currently working
to use her global connections and information to introduce what she has learned to Japan. She
is the co-author of “NLP Innovation,” “Innovations in NLP” and “Walking Until Your 100 Years
Old.” Her book, “Silicon Valley-esque Methods to Balance your Heart and Mind” will be comingout soon.

Naoki Inose
Author. Born in 1946. In 1986, he received the Souichi Ooya Nonfiction Award for his book “Mikado no Shozo (Portrait of the Emperor).” In 1996, he received the Bungeishunju Readers’ Awardfor his book “Nipponkoku no Kenkyu (A Report on Japan).” Since then, he has actively worked toabolish and privatize government-affiliated corporations. In June 2002, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appointed him to the Promotion Committee for the Privatization of the Four Highway-Related Public Corporations. He included the story of his battle to achieve this in his books,“Doro no Kenryoku (Authority of the Road)” from Bunshunbunko and “Doro no Ketchaku (Settlement of the Road),” also from Bunshunbunko. In October, 2006, Inose was appointed Research
Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and from June, 2012, served as Vice Governor ofTokyo. He served as Tokyo Governor from December 2012 to December 2013.
Translation: Ayako Karino
11

Japanese Civilization Institute 2017 9th Symposium
In the United States, President Trump is leading his nation with the slogan “America First,” while in Europe the United Kingdom
is in the process of leaving the EU. It seems the world order is collapsing, with the basic framework of the nation-state crumbling in
the face of globalization and rising nationalism. Here in Asia, the threat of North Korea’s ICBM development incites growing
anxiety, while Prime Minister’s Abe’s strong and committed political base—long regarded as impregnable—is starting to sway.
Prime Minister Abe is making an all-out effort to revise Japan’s Constitution before the end of his political career, but is this reallypossible? With the great upset scored by the new Tokyo Metropolis Residents First party in the recent Tokyo Assembly elections,
can the Liberal Democratic Party reinvent itself to allay the peoples’ distrust of its motives?
Japan Civilization Institutes ninth symposium welcomes Soichiro Tahara, who served as a panelist for our very first symposium
entitled “The characteristics of Japanese civilization 70 years after World War Two,” together with Lully Miura, an energetic scholarof international politics, and Naoki Inose. the director of Japanese Civilization Institute. Japanese Civilization Institute is now
entering its third year, and we are grateful for your support.
▶ Panel discussion:

Realism and the Nation-state
What should Japan believe in, when a new world order in transition?
Lully Miura

Scholar of international politics. Lecturer ofTokyo University’s Policy Alternatives
Research Institute (PARI)

Soichiro Tahara
Journalist

Date: 2
 1st August, 2017, 7 p.m.-9 p.m. (doors scheduled toopen at 6:30 p.m.)
Venue: J apan University of Economics, Tokyo Shibuya
Campus Hall (the hall seats approximately 100 people)
Address: 25-17, Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 151-0031

Traditional Crafts
Online Site

MC：

Naoki Inose

Author, Director of Japanese
Civilization Institute

Admission: 2
 ,000 yen (please pay at the door on the day)How to attend: a pply through the site below:
http://www.japancivilization.org/
Contact: J apanese Civilization Institute03-5456-8082

Worldwide：https://shops.japancivilization.org
Japanese：http://japancivil.shop9.makeshop.jp

Messages from Director
Japanese Civilization Institute has been introducing and selling traditional crafts of Japan.
Although it is said that there is approximately 1,200 types of traditional crafts in Japan, its
production is declining. As part of our activities, we hope to discover valuable traditional crafts
spread across the nation, enjoy Japanese craftsmanship and its beauty inherited over the
centuries, and develop it with you.

Tsumami Kanzashi(Crepe)Folding Screen(half size)

Folding Screen(full size)

KYO-YAKI
Earthenware

Japanese Bamboo
Basket Tokyotrad

Odoshi Samurai Armor

Contact：Japanese Civilization Institute 24-5 Sakuragaoka-cho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0031 Phone : 03-5456-8082 Mail : info@japancivilization.org