People say they are tired of capitalism. They say the system is swallowing them. I feel it too, some days. But every time I say it, something snags. Am I really exhausted by capitalism itself?

Capitalism covers most of the world now. America runs on it, China runs on it. It is so large that when a nameless tiredness comes over us, we reach for it as the biggest word within reach. That is not wrong. But if we sharpen the focus a little, I think the thing we are really pointing at has another name.

That name is optimization.

A broom in the hand

Not long ago, at a gathering, I had people sweep a floor. As they swept, I asked a few of them what was running through their heads. Many were hearing the same voice.

Am I doing this right. Faster. Get it done.

There is not a trace of capitalism in that voice. No market, no price, no one taking a profit. It is only a floor being swept, and not a single coin has moved. Still the voice comes. Better, faster, cleaner.

That is the voice of optimization. And here is what matters: take away the market, and the voice stays. Take away capitalism, and the tiredness survives. But take away this voice, and the tiredness is gone. So the core of what we point at when we say “capitalism” may lie closer to optimization.

That is only the doorway. What I want to think about is further in.

Optimization runs inside a “let’s say”

The word optimization, by itself, is empty. You always optimize toward something. Toward “clean,” when sweeping. Toward “results,” at work. That “clean,” that “results,” becomes the target.

But look closely, and the target turns out to be something merely set in place. Let’s say clean means this. Let’s say results mean this number. Someone, somewhere, agreed to it. At the start, it was a provisional frame.

We are surrounded by these “let’s say”s. Let’s say a country’s wealth can be measured by GDP. Let’s say a company’s worth can be read off its market capitalization. Let’s say a person’s ability can be measured by a test score. Each began as a convenient yardstick set down for the time being. Wealth itself, worth itself, ability itself could never fit whole inside those numbers. And yet, once the yardstick is fixed, people begin to optimize along it. Raise the GDP. Raise the market cap. Raise the score.

And there is something worth noticing about every such yardstick. What optimization calls “the optimum for the whole” is never the actual whole. It places some frame as “the whole” and improves the inside of it. Even what we call global optimization, seen from the whole of the world, is always partial. There is no single, all-encompassing field that gathers every frame into itself. There is always an outside.

So optimization always works inside a provisional agreement, a “let’s say.” None of this is a problem yet. To place a provisional frame called “clean” over sweeping is the most natural thing.

The problem is that the provisional, at some point, stops being provisional.

When “let’s say” hardens into “it is”

“Let’s say clean means this” turns, somewhere along the way, into “clean is this.” The agreement we set down for the time being takes on the face of an unmovable fact. We forget there was ever another way, outside.

Why does this happen? Not for one reason.

One is sunk cost. Once you have bought in, subscribed, paid in your time and money and pride, leaving gets hard. After all I’ve put in, not now. The irony is that the more shrewdly a person calculates gains and losses, the more they stay, so as not to waste the past investment. The logic of optimization itself forbids the exit. And the frames of our world tend to take the form not of a single purchase but of a subscription, a little paid in every month, designed so that quitting always feels like a loss taken today.

Another is agreement with others. As long as I alone think “let’s say it’s clean,” the provisional feel still lingers. But once everyone around me starts moving by the same frame, the frame is no longer an assumption in my head. Right? Right? We’re agreed, aren’t we? Each becomes the ground of the others’ conviction, and the certainty climbs. No one holds any ground outside, and inside the closed ring the conviction only hardens. This is very close to the structure of a cult.

And there is a harder fact still. The more wholly a person believes the frame is real, the better they can optimize. Someone who half-thinks “well, this is only provisional” cannot give everything. To get the highest result, you have to believe the frame is real. So forgetting is not laziness. It is the correct outcome of high-performance optimization. The better it goes, the more success recasts the frame as real: it worked, so the frame was right, so it is real. It is not a lie. The frame really does function. And the fact that it functions overwrites, legitimately, the memory that it was only provisional.

The real shape of “capitalism is swallowing me” is probably here. Not optimization itself. It is the tiredness of a provisional frame hardened into “it is,” the outside gone from view, and no way to step down. And the frame of capitalism, even when I alone manage to remember “this is only provisional,” is reset every morning by the market, by prices, by the behavior of others. The system maintains my forgetting on my behalf. So no matter how often I remember, the outside vanishes again. That I cannot stop is not weakness of mind.

And still, the provisional cannot be wiped from this world

Here a cheap conclusion beckons. Let’s escape the frame, let’s see through the provisional as provisional, let’s wake up.

But we cannot. Short of becoming a buddha, we have no choice but to live inside some “we’re agreed, aren’t we.” To live in the world is to take up some provisional frame and live by it. A standpoint truly outside every frame, belonging to nothing, is not available to a human being. There is no view from the nonexistent whole. This world carries, more or less, a trace of cult. That cannot be erased.

So the question is no longer how to escape. It becomes how to live, while living inside a frame.

And let me be clear about one thing. To cut out a problem and present a solution: that gesture itself is a move of optimization. Set a frame, improve the inside. So I do not want to settle this and close it here. Not closing it is itself bound up with what this writing is trying to say. Still, I can leave a hunch about direction.

Holding many places to depend on

One direction is to hold many places to depend on.

The researcher Shinichiro Kumagaya has said that independence is increasing the places you can depend on. Stake everything on one frame, and that frame puts on the face of “the world.” The outside vanishes. When there is only one “we’re agreed” ring, that ring becomes a cult.

But place yourself across several frames, and each frame quietly regains the feel of being one frame among many. A person who can move from one “we’re agreed” to another knows, in the body and not in the head, that no single one is the world. Not by the effort of remembering, but by the experience of moving. This works precisely because it does not demand the labor of holding in mind, constantly, “this is a frame.” You do not have to remember. The ability to move guarantees the outside even while you forget.

There is a trap, though. “Hold many places to depend on” is instantly absorbed back into the language of optimization. Diversify your portfolio. Hedge your risk. The moment holding many dependencies becomes a clever survival strategy to be optimized, it is one more frame. So this dies if it is spoken as a strategy. Because you have not staked everything anywhere, you can be light everywhere, and in earnest everywhere. It is a quality in how you place yourself, not an object to be managed.

Shu, ha, ri, and a circle that will not close

When I think about these things, I always think of shu-ha-ri, the old account of how one learns a way. Three stages: keep the form, break the form, leave the form.

Shu is the stage of believing the form to be real and giving everything inside it. This is not a sickness. Unless you once believe wholly and immerse yourself, the form never enters you. A person half-thinking “this is only provisional” never even acquires the form. The immersion and the forgetting of shu are indispensable. Once, you have to buy in, subscribe, believe completely.

Ha is the stage of beginning to notice that the form is not the whole of the world. The cost paid in comes into view. Beyond the “we’re agreed” ring, there is the breath of something else.

Ri is often misread as casting off the form to become free. It is not that. Ri is becoming able to move in and out of the form freely. You can immerse in the form, you can step away from it, you can move to another. The “many places to depend on” from before, seen from inside, is this ri. From outside it looks like spreading across several frames; from inside it is the freedom of entering and leaving, never binding yourself to any one.

And shu-ha-ri is not a staircase you climb and finish. One who reaches ri enters a new shu again. It does not close. It does not end.

Let me try to put this into figures.

Shu is a circle drawn in a firm, closed line. And inside that circle, a self is pictured as a point. The circle is the frame that encloses the self. The self is a resident inside it, with no exit out. The line is closed not because it is admirable. The opposite: to the self that is a point, a closed line is a wall with no way out.

Ha is a dotted circle. The self, finding the long-familiar frame an obstacle, tries to break it. It wants to get as far from that frame as it can. To negate the frame, thin the line as much as possible, and if it could, erase it. So the line becomes dotted.

Ri is a circle drawn with a brush. It starts from one strong, jet-black stroke, and as it goes the brush is eased, until at the end the ink runs dry and goes white, and the circle does not close. Here something decisive happens. In ri, the self is no longer a point inside the circle. The self has become the very act of drawing the circle. The enclosed resident has become the motion that gives rise to the enclosure.

Move the brush, and something becomes clear. When you actually try to draw this circle, in the very moment the brush is eased, it is lifting up off the paper. The motion of the hand is not a flat circle. It draws a spiral. The circle of shu, the circle of ha, were figures on flat paper. Only ri leaves the plane and breaks into solid space. A third dimension is embedded in the two-dimensional sheet. And if we find, here, the axis of time in the single continuous motion of the brush, even a fourth dimension rises up.

The seeing self, and where it goes dry

Zeami, the master of Noh, spoke of a seeing that leaves the self: the actor watching his own dance from where the audience sits. Not the self seen from one’s own eyes, but a seeing from a place that has left the self. See yourself, he said, from the whole of the hall, your back included.

You can read this as a second self watching the first from outside. But read that way, something goes wrong. A second self grading the first from above. That is the most refined form of optimization. Watching yourself from overhead, am I detaching well enough. Leaving the self becomes the summit of optimization. The departed seeing turns into one more frame, and inside it optimization starts again. Set the seeing subject one step higher, and it is just another self-eye.

That dried, open circle has no seeing subject in it. This is what I found by making the figure. There is only the brush, the ink, the dryness. No one watches from outside. The instant the force is released, the brush lifts on its own. The writing hand, while writing, leaves the flat plane by itself and breaks into the solid.

Think back: in shu and in ha, the self was double. The self looking at the circle from outside, and the self shut inside it as a point. The self seeing the figure, and the self inside the figure. Ri is the moment both of these selves vanish. The one who sees from outside and the point inside, both gone, and only the motion of drawing remains. What disappears in this departed seeing is both of these selves.

This is the place where the world built of words and comparison falls quiet. No lending or borrowing, no weighing of better and worse. Optimization was exactly the working of that world of words and comparison. What appears here is what appears when that working stops.

The brush, near the end, lifts off the paper on its own. You do not decide to lift it. The pressure simply leaves your hand, and the line goes dry, and the circle stays open. There is no one standing outside the circle to close it.

The seeing self disappears.

But watch what just happened. I wrote the seeing self disappears, and to write it, I had to give it a subject. English will not let a verb stand alone. Something must do the disappearing. So the very sentence that announces the vanishing of the self has quietly placed that self back on its feet, as the grammatical subject, alive enough to perform its own disappearance. You read the words “the self disappears,” and in that instant your language handed the self back to you.

So I will stop trying to say it. I will let the line go dry instead.

The circle that will not close

So this writing, too, I do not want to close with an answer. Not that I do not want to. I cannot. To cut out a problem and hand over an optimized solution would be the one gesture to avoid.

When we say we are tired of capitalism, we are mostly pointing at the right thing. Only, the core of it is optimization, and more than that, it is a provisional frame hardened into “it is,” the outside gone from view. Yet to stand fully outside the frame is something no one can do. What we can do, perhaps, is to move back and forth among many places to depend on, knowing in the body that no frame is the world. And in the deepest part of that coming and going, to have the seeing self go dry, on its own, and vanish.

Here is something I have not yet resolved. The seeing self vanishes and becomes, for a moment, utterly alone. And yet this becoming alone may be the same motion as being opened to many places to depend on. When you stop staking everything on one frame, you become most singular and, at the same time, most widely open. The seeing self vanishing, becoming alone, being opened to the world: these may not be separate roads, but the several faces of one spiral, drawn by that dried, unclosed circle.

This is still a question, and I do not yet know the answer. Is this departed seeing the seeing self standing one step higher, or the seeing self vanishing inside the act? I have only that dried, unclosed circle as a handhold. The line goes white, and stays open, and I leave it there.

In one line: When people say capitalism is swallowing them, the truer name for what exhausts them is optimization — and beneath that, the way a provisional “let’s say” hardens into “it is,” until a single frame is mistaken for the whole world.

Themes: optimization, capitalism, the provisional frame, let’s-say and it-is, sunk cost, the structure of a cult, many places to depend on, shu-ha-ri, the unclosed circle, the spiral, the seeing self, Zeami, negative capability, jinen

Related: Long-Now Meditation. The Right Size of Ego.

The morning before I spoke, I had tea with some urban designers in Copenhagen. I was there for Future Days, a gathering that brings together designers, futurists, and people working at the edges of culture and change. This was its third year. We talked about cities, and care, and how everything we are trained to do comes with a deadline, a budget, a box to tick. One of them said, “We are trained to say done.” Then she asked, “What happens to work that is never done?”

I carried her question onto the stage the next morning. I want to carry it here too.

Two words we misread

We use the word currency to mean money we keep. But the word comes from current. To run. To flow. Money was called currency because it moves. Currency that stops moving is just paper.

We made the same mistake with another word. Karma. In English it has become a kind of account. Good karma, bad karma. Points you earn, points you lose, something you store. But karma is not a thing you hold. It is a flow.

It is a current with three moments, all happening now. It arrives from before you, in your habits, your patterns, the voice in your head. You did not invent that voice. It came to you. It runs through you, in the way your hand moves before your mind has time to think. And it leaves grooves. Every action you take makes the next one a little more likely.

So you are shaping the current while it shapes you. Karma is never finished. It cannot be finished. It is not a task. It is a flow.

Why we sweep

In a Japanese monastery, monks in training spend more hours sweeping than sitting in meditation. Every night the leaves fall in the garden. The tree is not wrong. The wind is not wrong. The wind simply blows. And every morning the ground is covered again. So we sweep. And tomorrow the leaves return, and we sweep again.

The sweeping is never done. It is endless on purpose.

So why sweep at all? Because you cannot delete a current. But every stroke of the broom is already bending where it runs next. Not by thinking. Thinking is too slow. The body is faster. To sweep is to touch your karma with your own hands.

That morning, several hundred of us swept together. We sat in silence for twenty seconds first, to feel grounded in the room. Then we stood, found people we had not met, and took up brooms and cloths. We cleaned the floor, the windows, the terrace, the edge of the water. There was only one rule. When the broom comes to you, sweep. When you feel it is enough, pass it on. You do not need to finish. The next pair of hands will continue.

Some people did not sweep. They watched. That is also the practice. The river does not see itself. The one on the bank does.

The voice that wants to finish

While we were sweeping, many of us heard a voice. Am I doing this right? Am I covering enough ground? I have a name for that voice. The Optimizer.

The Optimizer believes every game can be finished. Score the points, fix the problem, close the file. And for a long time, this was a good strategy, because the world held still long enough to be completed. But that world is gone. The rules rewrite themselves while the ball is still in the air. The game changes faster than anyone can finish it.

Still the Optimizer arrives. It came to us through school, through work, through every system that praised us for finishing. It is an old current, and it keeps arriving. But it is not only arriving. It is being made, right now. Each time the voice says do it better and the body tightens, the groove gets a little deeper.

And maybe, somewhere in that morning, there was a single stroke where the voice went quiet and the hand simply moved. That stroke left a groove too. A new one. Very shallow, but real.

That is the whole of it. You are not the passenger of this current. You are not its owner either. You are the place where it bends.

The current leaves your hands

Here is what I did not expect.

When I finished speaking, I thought the current I had set in motion was mine to account for. It was not. It left my hands the way the broom left each person’s hands, and it kept moving without me.

I felt it in the days that followed. People stopped me in the hallway. I read what they wrote afterward, each in their own words. Messages arrived. And in all of it, the current that began on the stage came back changed, carrying things I had not put into it.

Someone heard the same voice I had named, and asked it out loud. Why bother, if the work is never done? And then answered it without me. Because each small, ordinary action bends the flow toward a world we would want to live in. The mundane matters.

Someone else, whose whole life is spent designing a better society, sat with the discomfort of work that is meant to be endless, and found that you navigate it not by carrying it alone and not by trying to finish it, but by contributing and then letting it continue through others.

Someone said that to let go is not a loss of control. It is a deliberate choice, so that something larger can move.

Someone heard, in the sweeping, not a lesson about floors but about minds. That to care for the place you stand in is often the first act of change.

And someone, caught in the rain that week, was told by a stranger trying to keep dry, very simply, “We don’t care.” The weather in Copenhagen that spring did the teaching on its own. Sun, then a sudden storm, then sun again. You cannot hold the currents. They pass.

None of these were things I said. They are what the current carried back, after it had run through other people. I am not even sure whose words are whose anymore, and I think that is exactly right. A current does not belong to the one who stirs it.

Holding, and letting go

While you held the broom, did you want to keep it a little longer? Or were you ready to pass it on?

Both are currents. Holding and releasing. There is no wrong answer. You simply met your own hand for a moment.

Tonight the leaves will fall again. Here, and in your life. The inbox fills back up. That is not a failure. Nothing went wrong. The work was never supposed to be done. It is endless on purpose. We do not finish. We sweep today, and someone sweeps tomorrow. You felt it already, when the broom left your hands and the sweeping went on without you.

This year, Future Days gave itself a theme. Currents of Tomorrow. I do not think tomorrow is something we build and finish. Tomorrow is a current already running through you, toward the people who come after you. We cannot keep it.

We can only pass it on. A little cleaner. A little lighter.

That is what currency really means.

In one line: Karma is not a score we keep but a current that arrives, runs through us, and leaves grooves, and to sweep together is to touch it with our hands and pass it on a little lighter.

Themes: karma as flow, the Optimizer and the completion mindset, collective cleaning, endless-on-purpose work, holding and releasing, becoming a good ancestor.

Related: A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind; the practice of samu; the surfboard and the right size of ego.

Kodo Nishimura

Kodo Nishimura is a Japanese Buddhist monk, artist, and LGBTQ+ advocate who inspires people to embrace their authentic selves. Through his work as a speaker, author, and activist, he connects spirituality with self-expression and compassion.

Born in Tokyo in 1989, he graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York and began his career as a makeup artist, working behind the scenes at Miss Universe and New York Fashion Week.

Ordained in the Jōdo-shū (Pure Land) Buddhist tradition in 2015, Nishimura gained international recognition through Queer Eye: We’re in Japan!. He has spoken at UN agencies and universities including Harvard and Yale, and his work has been featured by CNN, BBC, and Vogue. He was also selected as a TIME Next Generation Leader.

His memoir, This Monk Wears Heels: Be Who You Are, has been published in nine languages.

More from Kodo Nishimura:
https://kodonishimura.com

My guest today is Kodo Nishimura — a Buddhist monk in the Pure Land tradition, a makeup artist, and an advocate for LGBTQ rights. He joins us from Tokyo and New York, the two cities he moves between.

Conversation

May 2026

Shoukei: Very nice to meet you.

Kodo: Nice to meet you, Shoukei-san. Well, I knew about you for a little while, but it’s an honor for me to meet you in person and have a conversation. And I think there are not too many monks who are kind of forward thinking, innovative and paving their own way. So I’m very excited to listen to your ideas and share some of my ideas today. Yeah.

Shoukei: Thank you so much. It’s a real honor. Thank you for having me on this podcast as the first guest in this new series. And, you know, I wanted to start something like this to introduce, you know, the multi-dimensional Buddhism in Japan today, introducing the very unique monks like you. Yeah. So, you... how can we start?

Kodo: So maybe I can explain who I am.

Shoukei: Oh, yes, please.

Kodo: So I was born in a temple. My father is a Buddhist monk. My father was actually born on a farm, yeah, in Toyama Prefecture, but his far relative who was a monk didn’t have children, and didn’t have anybody to inherit the temple. So because my father was the second son of the farm, he was not going to inherit the farm. So when he was five, he came to Tokyo to become the next heir of the temple. So he was raised to become a Buddhist monk, and I am his son.

Shoukei: Okay. All right. So when you were born, your home was not a farm, already a temple.

Kodo: Right. My father grew up in the temple from when he was five, and he went to university, studied Buddhism, became a Buddhist philosophy and history and sutra professor at the university all his life. And I was born in 1989, now I’m 37 years old.

Shoukei: So although he was born on a farm, he became a kind of very serious monk.

Kodo: Yes. When he was younger he told me that he wanted to be an actor or screenwriter — when I see the albums I see my father dressed up as like a fisherman, or like a samurai, and I think he appeared in some movies or TV shows when he was younger as well, but I think he didn’t have a choice to choose what he wanted to do. So he told me that he didn’t want to be a Buddhist monk, and he fought with his step parents, but now I think he embraces the identity of Buddhist monk. So yeah, and me, I grew up wanting to be a princess because I always knew that I was homosexual. So I think he understands that some children of monks may not want to be Buddhist monks as well, like him.

Shoukei: Yeah, yeah. So for the listeners, for those who are not that familiar with Japanese Buddhist culture, you know, monk sounds like, of course, very monastic, but actually Japanese Buddhist monks are more secular. So I sometimes explain I am a secular monk, which might sound a little bit strange, because secular and monk sounds contradictory. Right. But it’s like a small family business.

Kodo: It is like a family business.

Shoukei: So most of the monks are expected, in a sense, to have children who are going to inherit their temple. So it’s not monastic at all. Even, I’d say, it’s more secular than an ordinary family because the monks are even encouraged to marry. Yeah. So when you are born in a temple as a child who is supposed to inherit your temple, or your family business, so to speak — when you got conscious of your condition and environment, what did you feel?

Kodo: I felt very pressured. I feel like my destiny in life was decided by other people. And shaving my head or living a very austere simple life — it was opposite from what I wanted to do. I wanted to have my hair long and, you know, flow my hair in the air like a shampoo commercial. And I felt, well, I’m not going to be what you want me to be. Life is not easy. Just because you have a son, it doesn’t mean that the son is going to be obedient. So I was very rebellious. I always questioned, why do we need Buddhism? Why do we need to pray? What’s so fun about this? And because my father is a university professor, he was able to, not by faith, but by kind of logic and historical perspective, explain this is how Buddhism came to be.

Shoukei: So left brain guy.

Kodo: Yeah, yes. And you know, as you said, it’s part of the business, which is an unfortunate reality of Japanese Buddhism, because yes, your life is stable and you are respected if you inherit the temple instead of going to a different company and starting from zero, because as long as you are seen as the next heir of the temple, you are respected and you don’t ever lose your job. So a lot of people kind of don’t think of going elsewhere, but just inherit the temple business because it’s easy. And I understand that. I also feel that way too. But because of that, I also have some questions — like some people pay more as offering and they get better treated, or maybe they get a longer kaimyo, which is like the name given to that soul when you pass away. So I also started to focus on some of the injustice or hypocrisy, because everybody is supposed to be equal, right? So I had all these types of thoughts when I was growing up.

Shoukei: So I have so many monk friends in Japan, and I’m actually, thanks to the initiative I have been doing — the podcast program, which is basically a conversation with a guest monk and me — the number of guests so far is over 200 or so. So I kind of know how most of the many monks feel when they get conscious of their circumstance growing up. Many of them somehow get the urge of, how can I get out of this temple, my home. Yes, it’s natural for young people, but in your case, the situation might be even more complicated because — when did you get conscious or aware of your gender, and yeah.

Kodo: I think I always felt like a girl. When I was maybe two or three years old, I started playing with my mom’s dresses and pearls. And I always, well, I always had stuffed animals, and I would explain to my parents, “Oh, they don’t have gender. They are not a boy or a girl.” And that was a reflection of how I felt about myself. I know that my body is male and I accepted that. I don’t have any problems with that. But I felt like the soul — just like you don’t know if a plushie is a boy or girl — I don’t know if I’m a man or woman inside. But I was sure that I was attracted to other boys. So I started to hide, because even though I was maybe 3 or 4 years old, I knew that it’s not common. And well, I was in the closet until when I was 24 years old. So I always felt like I had to hide and be careful to avoid discrimination. Yeah, in 24 —

Shoukei: — you came out. So until then you went through high school life. And your parents, who are in charge of your temple, right? Did you feel any pressure from them around the course of your life?

Kodo: I felt pressured. My father, when I was younger, said that once, if you are going to inherit the temple, you would need a wife because it’s a demanding job. And I was like, well, I’m not going to get married to a woman, or will I welcome children? So it’s not going to be like how you want it to be. So I felt like if I were to come out, I didn’t know how they would respond to me. I was very afraid and scared that they might disown me or get disappointed. But when I finally came out, my father said that, well, this is your life, and sexuality is not something that you choose. So live as you are. And my mom, she was always concerned because I never really had male friends. I was always with girls when I was younger. So she felt that, well, maybe I didn’t raise him correctly.

Shoukei: She felt guilty or something. Yeah.

Kodo: She was questioning. She was blaming herself. And I remember, like, many books about how to raise a child in the bookshop. And I was like, am I that much of a problem? Like, why do you need to read that many books to raise me? Is anything wrong with me? And then finally, when I came out, she was sure that I was homosexual. She was questioning if I’m a transgender woman or, I don’t know — she didn’t quite understand what’s happening with me. But they are very supportive and they are very anti-discrimination and anti-prejudice. So I feel very lucky.

Shoukei: Yeah, yeah. That’s great. So coming back to your choices in your life — you went to high school in Japan. Yes. And after that, did you go out of your temple and go somewhere?

Kodo: So when I was 18, I was very frustrated with the Japanese society where they don’t accept or welcome LGBTQ people. I felt that it was very binary. And I started listening to Michael Jackson or Mariah Carey, and they would sing about racism, poverty, or female empowerment. And I felt that this is very different from what I hear in Japan, because in Japanese love songs, they always talk about male and female love stories. So I moved to the U.S. And when I went, I went to Parsons School of Design — it’s an art school, in Manhattan. So everybody wore colorful clothes and was very expressive. The more you show your flavor, the better. And during that time I felt that, oh, if I want to shine, I have to do something unique, something that others can’t imitate. And the answer I felt was hiding in my origin — that I grew up in a temple, and I struggled with my sexuality. And I felt that, well, I said that I didn’t like Buddhism when I was younger, but I didn’t know what Buddhism was about. Why do we need Buddhism? Why do we need monks? Why do people come to the temple? So I decided to go to monk training, understand what it was about, and then make a decision if I want to do it, if I agree, if I like it or not.

Shoukei: Okay, so you spent a couple of years in the United States?

Kodo: Yes, I spent — by then I think I had spent like eight years.

Shoukei: Eight years. Yeah.

Kodo: So in total, I spent 11 years in the US.

Shoukei: So your mind may be like half American. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So from 18 to 29, right?

Kodo: 18 till twenty-nine. So my youth, my personality — it’s when you become an adult.

Shoukei: Right? Yeah. And during those years, when you came back to Japan, you came out to your parents. And so those periods must have been very dynamic, right? Yeah. For you.

Kodo: When I was in Japan, I almost never met anybody who was proud to be homosexual. But in the US, I watched TV shows and movies, and I met my professor who was gay. I went to see Pride parades, LGBTQ activists. For example, Tim Cook —

Shoukei: CEO, Apple, yes.

Kodo: — is also a proud gay CEO. And I felt that, oh, I just didn’t know about who I was. It’s just that Japanese society was not welcoming or appreciating our existence enough. But there are many people who are overcoming this stigma and thriving globally. I just needed to see my peers outside Japan. So why do I have to hide if there’s nothing to hide? I just had prejudice and discrimination toward myself, which was planted by society. So when I came out, I felt like I was born again. I can finally live my own life. I was so happy.

Shoukei: And in the United States, you found many colleagues and allies, friends. And no more alone.

Kodo: Right. When I went to the Pride parade in Manhattan, I saw a sea of people. The crossing was just, like, maybe 3 meters away, just a few steps away, but there were too many people that I couldn’t move at all. And I was very frustrated — I was like, oh, this place is so crowded and it’s annoying — but many people were there to support my rights. So when I hear some discriminatory words in Japan, I remember, I was like, oh, but I have this many people — as many as I can’t move — who are supporting my identity. So they gave me a little power. And I felt that wherever I am, I should always be proud, and show that it’s not anything to be ashamed of.

Shoukei: And so being encouraged by those allies and supportive people, you decided to somehow rediscover and reunite with Buddhism. Yeah. So I’m very curious about how you found Buddhism through your lens.

Kodo: Oh, sure. So since when I was young, I always felt that society is very unfair for women. Because I also feel like a woman — when women are expected to serve tea or to be supporting, obedient, and quiet. My mom said, oh, as a temple wife, I shouldn’t speak up. I shouldn’t be too opinionated. I don’t want to be seen as noisy. But I was like, why, mom? You’re smart and wise. Why are you not sharing or speaking up? I know she’s, you know, very creative and strategic. So I felt that just because they’re a woman, they shouldn’t be oppressed in society, not just in temples. So when Buddhism says that everyone is equally valuable, including women and LGBTQ people, I wanted to use that teaching to wake people up and give them confidence. Maybe because I am an Aquarius, I’m about revolutionizing and changing the old traditions — I feel like I need to start a new chapter. That’s my personality. So I thought, Buddhism is respected, and what if I, as both a homosexual who is not traditionally respected and a monk — how will people respond to me? And I wanted to encourage people who are feeling like they are not supposed to speak up. So I felt that it’s my responsibility, instead of praying for the ancestors or doing the rituals that other monks do, to spread the empowering message.

Shoukei: So, as we know, Buddhism, because of its long history and wide exposure to many different cultures and regions, has many different aspects. And of course, if we come back to the original teaching from Shakyamuni Buddha, that teaching is very liberating and transformative, accommodating anybody from any background, any gender, and so on. But when it comes to what today’s Buddhism is, although it is still Buddhism, there are many things that may not necessarily be liberating or transformative, you know. So how did you reconcile this complexity?

Kodo: Sure. That’s a good question. I feel that the origin of Buddhism was to empower and bring equality to people and help them live a balanced, smart life. And a lot of teachings, or maybe rules, were created to kind of sustain the community of the Sangha. So we, in my opinion, must not confuse the teaching and the school rules. For example, when we learn at school, we learn the same things, but there are also other rules that come with school — maybe you shouldn’t bring knives to school, maybe you should have a school uniform, or you can’t dye your hair, you can’t wear makeup — all these things in order to make the community harmonious and in order.

Shoukei: So it sounds like the school rules in Japan, particularly, right?

Kodo: But that is understood as a Buddhist teaching. And that may be confusing. Some of the teachings may not apply to our modern life anymore. And the objective of Buddhism, I believe, is to help people live a better life and not kind of limit our freedom. Buddhism should be a tool to go where we want to go, and it’s not the goal itself. Sometimes we try to be like the most Buddhist that we can be — I kind of feel people trying to do that — but there’s, to me, no such thing. Buddhism is there to support the way you want to go. And those rules or presets will be very helpful when you have problems that you need to solve. So that’s my approach. And yeah, so maybe that’s when people have some questions about if I’m a real monk or if I’m really following Buddhist teachings. But it’s not that I’m not thinking about these things. I think in the society today, we need more empowerment. We need to be flexible. We need to reconcile with the digital, innovative, competitive world. So I’m trying to respond to these things after studying the basics of Buddhism in my own way.

Shoukei: Yeah, yeah. It’s a good way to distinguish school rules and the dharma. Yeah, it’s a very helpful way to understand. So practically, when you went through all the programs to be ordained and eventually to receive, in the Japanese Buddhist system, a kind of certificate to inherit your father’s and mother’s temple — you must have met a lot of very traditional, conservative monks, who don’t necessarily distinguish the school rules and the teachings. So I’m asking because I myself have met a lot of monks like this. Right.

Kodo: Well, I try to take a good distance. Because what I feel is that their world or their experience is not mine. So from their perspective, from their experience, from what they studied, I’m sure it makes sense for them. But me, growing up struggling with my sexuality, I can empathize and understand what other people feel — and do the traditional monks cater to them? There are things that only I can do. And well, I feel that there are always different parties in many groups. So there are monks who are traditional, but who supported me saying that, well, you can be homosexual, whatever you want to be, and still be a Buddhist monk. And what you wear — for example, I like to wear makeup — one monk said that monks have been evolving. For example, that monk was a university professor. There are monks who are also doctors or acupuncturists, and they wear scrubs or watches or different outfits depending on their jobs. So when our mission is to liberate and encourage everybody, why should the outfit be a problem? If you can empower and liberate people, I don’t see that as a problem. So I try to lean on these, I would say, liberal and broad-minded people as my mentors. How about you in your situation? How do you find the traditionally-minded Buddhist monks?

Shoukei: Most, most, most of the monks in Japan — 99, maybe 99.9% — sustain their life by running a temple, right? Taking care of memberships, leading ceremonies, managing the cemeteries, and so on. In my case, I don’t do these things at all today. I used to do it under the... yeah, so I’m affiliated with a temple in Tokyo. And since I became a Buddhist monk, in the Japanese definition, 23 years ago, in the beginning I started supporting my boss, the head priest, sitting next to him when he did some ritual ceremonies and so on. But at some point, I decided to be independent, out of my entrepreneurship, maybe. So since then, I’ve been sustaining my life by writing, speaking, thinking, and consulting — with people, not in the temple community. So if you think of a traditional monk, or if you look at me from the lens of a traditional monk 100 years from now, my way of being a monk may not be that traditional or conservative. But if you look back far into the life of ancient monks, 800 years ago, such as Shinran or Honen, who didn’t do those ritual funeral ceremonies — they were not monks who took care of local temple communities and so on. So in this sense, if I may, I’m kind of following the past, the way of life, like Shinran.

Kodo: I agree. I think the founders of our schools were the 0.1%, as you said, because they were seen as rebellious or groundbreaking or rule-breaking. They were criminals. Right. And they were sent to far-away islands. But their intention, I think, was good, because Honen, the founder of my school, Jodo-shu, Pure Land Buddhism, wanted to help everybody by saying that as long as you pray and chant, everybody and anybody — even if you’re a criminal, sex worker, hunter, disabled, wherever it may be — everybody is sure to be enlightened.

Shoukei: Just as they are. Right.

Kodo: Regardless of how many good deeds you make in life. Because until then, everybody needed to maybe chant and struggle with different trainings, maybe sit under the waterfall —

Shoukei: — to accumulate merits.

Kodo: Right. But not everybody is able to do that. So in order to give hope to these people, he kind of curated good teachings to help those people. So in that way, I believe it’s a good thing to adopt and modernize and try to help people. That’s what I believe.

Shoukei: Right, right, you know. So thanks to the long, wide history of Buddhism, whatever you do, you can find someone in the old age who did a similar thing. So whatever you do, you can recognize yourself as traditional. That is true.

Kodo: That is true. Because Shinran, I believe, was the first monk who got married?

Shoukei: Yes, right. Yes, historically. Official history.

Kodo: He’s the founder of the most widely believed school in Japan. So, well, to be honest, I receive some criticism or questions from overseas listeners or viewers that I am not a real monk because I’m married or I am homosexual. But I feel that this 800-year history was written 800 years ago. And this is the way I grew up. And yeah, I think I would love more viewers to see the broader history and its evolution, and yeah, maybe adopt what we need today. So.

Shoukei: Let me slightly switch to a different conversation. I mean, yes, we both live within the Pure Land tradition, which is, broadly speaking, most of the Buddhism in Japan, within the Mahayana school. But even within the Mahayana school, there are many different schools. And in the United States, I’m sure that the most famous school from Japan should be Zen. Yeah. And for most people, Buddhism is equivalent to Zen. So I am sure that when you were in the United States and spoke about Buddhism, people would ask, oh, so you are in the Zen tradition. And unfortunately, Pure Land is very unpopular. So how do you see this situation? How do you interpret and translate this unpopular tradition, namely Pure Land Buddhism, for the audience in the United States, who are not familiar with, you know, nembutsu, 南無阿弥陀仏, and so on?

Kodo: Sure. So I’m not trying to promote Pure Land Buddhism to begin with. I just want everybody to feel powerful and valuable. And if the Pure Land Buddhist teachings help us to remember our worth, then I will quote it. My mission is to really empower people. Yeah. And I sometimes feel confused when people expect me to practice Zen or meditation, because that’s not what we really do. We do chanting. And we never had to practice Zen. Which I wish I had learned, because it looks interesting. But I think Zen is popular in the West because many people are overwhelmed by the competitive society, materialism and capitalism.

Shoukei: Every day, a need for something to hold onto.

Kodo: Right. So I think that’s why Zen is popular. And Pure Land Buddhism was created to bring salvation to many people who were maybe not able to reach the nobles in the past in Japan who were building temples and receiving support and advice from monks. Honen, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism, wanted to help everybody. But I don’t think that’s what westerners are looking for in that sense, because religion was pretty much accessible to all people. So the reason for the birth of Pure Land Buddhism maybe doesn’t really apply. But what we need, I believe, is the message of equality — and when we feel that we are not invited into some rooms because of where we come from, or our ethnicity or sexuality, I want people to feel that we should take up space. So that’s what I believe.

Shoukei: Yeah, yeah. Your approach completely resonates with me. And yeah, our mission is not converting people to Pure Land Buddhism, but encouraging and helping them. So from this point of view, I’m always looking for the implication of the Pure Land tradition for people living in today’s world. Yes, as you said. And you know, we seem to be living in a very fragmented — I forgot the English word — unpredictable world. The change in society is very fast, very quick, in terms of the value system and technology. And yes, geopolitics. And et cetera. So this situation seems to resonate with the age where the founders of Pure Land Buddhism, Honen and Shinran, lived 800 years ago. And what we can learn from Pure Land Buddhist thinking, such as Tariki — the other power, I don’t like this translation because it’s too literal —

Kodo: — depending on Amitabha to take us to the Pure Land.

Shoukei: Yeah, so. We have that teaching, but you know that sounds too superstitious for some people, right? Yeah. So one of the implications I learn from Pure Land Buddhism for today’s world is it’s a Buddhism for the age of no control. We are almost forced to surrender to the radical change of the world. It looks like it’s uncontrollable already. But in our paradigm so far, we have been trying to keep control on everything as much as possible. So if the level of uncontrollability comes up to a certain threshold, we get too concerned, too worried, and we get stuck out of fear. But what I learned from our ancestors like Shinran — he emphasized shin, having shin, or in my interpretation, radical trust in this world. Radical trust in this world, as much as whatever happens, I anyhow accept it. Without a controlling mindset. Right. So yeah, I think this is something we can learn from this tradition today.

Kodo: That is true. So whatever may happen, we have faith in ourselves and we are able to keep going because we have this pillar inside of us. Well, because the world is changing so quickly, our values and maybe trusted people around us — the pillars — may be shifting in the years to come. You know, when I think about Honen founding Pure Land Buddhism, it was when there was plague, when many people were starving or struggling with illness. So it’s kind of similar to what we experienced with COVID. Indeed. Right. Well, it’s not an easy way for us, because we are seen as maybe rebellious or untraditional, and we have to stay strong. And that’s why I think we are connected to support each other. But the good thing is that we are connected to the global audience. And we are also learning from each other. And I think that’s where we feel like our voice matters. Right. And I truly admire that your book is published in many — 17 languages?

Shoukei: Yeah, over 20 actually.

Kodo: Oh, wonderful. So I think we have to remind ourselves that our voice is needed, and there are people who are looking for this information, because we see what happens maybe more than what the traditional monks see. So that’s — well, it is also my mission to see what the world needs in the future. From your perspective, what would you say is something you want to do next? Yeah, how do you see the world going forward?

Shoukei: So I, as a Buddhist futurist, am somehow sure that the course of our civilization is going toward liberation. It seems like the value system and the social systems has been captivated in — if I may use this word — an almost religion called humanity. In the modern age, maybe after the Renaissance, for 300 years or so, for a couple of centuries, we have been celebrating human flourishing, humanity. It has been a very human-centric worldview. Yes, that’s true. But what we are witnessing today is the limitation of this worldview. If you look with a sane mind at the nature of this world, human is not the only species, of course. We are living in the interbeing world, where everything, everyone is interconnected to each other. So somehow, advanced, forward-looking thinkers and scientists are discovering or rediscovering this worldview where we see human not as the center or the supremacy of this universe, but just a part of the species — and accommodating a new comer, a new family member, namely AI. Yes. So I see we are being liberated from this conventional religion called humanity toward — I don’t know the exact word, but maybe related to biosphere or beyond human, whatever. And in this age, again, you know, Mahayana Buddhism has a lot of things to say, because in its core there is the concept of interbeing. So yeah.

Kodo: I think that’s a way to kind of graduate from materialism or comparison, from feeling like we have to keep achieving things. Because we’re not only comparing ourselves with other humans, but maybe we are just part of nature. Maybe you can see how plants grow or seek goals in different things — maybe to protect nature — or it can be something that others might not necessarily value, but if you can find value in your own way, you kind of graduate from the things that used to cause us stress.

Shoukei: Yeah, I think so. And we human beings used to be sensible or sensitive enough to discern what a tree is saying by touching its surface. But today, including me, we no longer have that sense anymore. But thanks to technology that enables us to listen to the voice of trees, of animals, through AI —

Kodo: Uh-huh, they have so much to say.

Shoukei: Yes, yes, yes. The voices have been analyzed by some scientists recently, and thanks to AI, you know, we will be able to understand the voices from other species. So yeah, we may rediscover the relationship with other species and then be able to recognize that we are not the only stakeholders on this planet. So yeah, it’s an age of expansion. So yeah, let’s see what will happen, and in this course of civilization, what kind of implication can we rediscover from this wisdom.

Kodo: Wonderful. I think they might have different ideas, or maybe they will show us a new way. Yeah, I’m very excited to see that. I never had that mindset before, but yeah, comparing myself to others — I think that also has a lot of hints for overcoming what we’re going through now.

Shoukei: All right, so maybe it’s time to close this episode for now. But let’s continue our conversation. Yeah, I’m looking forward to talking more. So for now, thank you so much for joining this program.

Kodo: Thank you so much.

— sound cooperation —

• Opening
  shō (Japanese mouth organ)｜Junpei Otsuka

  orin (Japanese singing bowl)｜Syouryu

• Ending
  piano｜Nozomu Takahashi
  

by Shoukei Matsumoto

A few weeks ago I stood in front of a blackboard and drew a picture I have drawn many times. Waves, one after another, with a small stick figure surfing on top. Beneath the waves, the ocean. I was teaching a class on awakening, and the drawing is my shorthand for something hard to say in words: that each of us is a wave, shaped for a while, riding the conditions we are given.

I have used this picture before, in writing about the right size of the ego. The surfboard, the balance, the daily renewal of the board. But that day, after I finished drawing, I wanted to add one more word. Next to the ocean, in the empty space below the waves, I lifted the chalk to write timeless.

And my hand stopped.

It stopped because the word is dangerous, and because it is the truest thing on the board.

The waves are governed by time

Start with what is safe to say. The wave is a creature of time. It rises, holds its shape for a moment, and falls. It has a before and an after. Everything we do as waves happens inside time: we remember, we plan, we regret, we worry. Even the practice I have described elsewhere, of taking up a fresh surfboard each morning and trusting the water, is a practice carried out in time, day after day.

This is not a flaw. It is simply where we live. The Buddha did not deny impermanence; he built everything on it. The wave is real. Its rising and falling are real. To be a person is to be a wave, and to be a wave is to be in time.

So when I teach, I mostly speak from the wave. I have to. Language itself belongs here, in the realm of before and after. The moment I open my mouth, I am standing on a wave, describing other waves to other waves.

“Be here now” can quietly harden us

For a long time the word people reach for, when they want to point past all this, is mindfulness. Be here now. The mind, left alone, runs off into the regretted past and the feared future, like a restless animal, and mindfulness calls it home to the present moment. There is real wisdom in that. I do not want to take it away from anyone.

But I have come to think the phrase carries a hidden cost, depending on how it is held. Held deeply, “be here now” is not a point at all; for someone whose practice has ripened, the present opens until past and future are gathered into it, and that is already close to what I am about to describe. The cost is not in the instruction. It is in how someone like me tends to take it. I hear “this instant” and I reach for it as an idea, a single point on the timeline to stand on. And a point is a small, sharp place to stand. It can quietly strengthen the one who is standing: the separate observer, watching this breath, this sensation, this now. The wave, attending so closely to its own crest, can grow harder and more separate, not softer.

I noticed this in my own sitting, and I want to be clear that the fault is mine, not the teaching’s. When I am told to concentrate on the present moment in silence, my monkey mind only gets naughtier. Pressing myself onto the single point of now did not dissolve the boundary of the self. Sometimes it drew the boundary more firmly. I was holding the now as a concept, and a concept is something you stand apart from and grip.

So I want to try a different framing, not because the old one is wrong, but because a different road may loosen the grip for those of us who keep tightening it. Not against mindfulness, but reaching for what mindfulness is reaching for, by another way in.

A longer now

Here is the move. If “be here now” compresses time to a single point, there is an opposite direction available. Instead of shrinking time to an instant, you can open it outward, with no edge.

I have started calling this a long-now. I should say at once what I do not mean. I am borrowing the phrase from a world of long-term thinking, of ten-thousand-year clocks and civilizational time. That is a worthy project, but it is not what I mean here. I am not talking about the time of civilizations. I am talking about something that happens on the cushion, in the body, in a single sitting.

By a long-now I mean this: the felt sense of connection between this wave and all the others, stretched out in the direction of time until it has no boundary. My friend Audrey Tang once told me she lives with a “one-day ego.” Each morning her ego is born, and each night, as she sleeps, it dies; the next morning a renewed self wakes up. So the person she was a month ago is already her ancestor. To become a good ancestor, she said, is not only about future generations. It is also about yourself, tomorrow.

That is a long-now in miniature. Now keep stretching it. The self of a month ago is an ancestor; the self of next year is a descendant you are quietly tending; the people who came long before you and the ones who will come long after begin to feel less like strangers across a gap and more like the same water, moving. The wave does not deny that it is a wave. It just stops holding its edges so tightly.

If you want to feel it in the body rather than think it, you can sit and try this. Picture three circles. To your left, everyone who came before you, your parents and theirs, the long unbroken chain going back through people you cannot name. To your right, everyone who will come after, the ones who will inherit whatever you build. And in the center, small, this present self. Then notice your breath. With each breath in, you are receiving something from the left: the struggles, the courage, the accumulated habit of all who made this chair you sit in possible. With each breath out, you are sending something to the right: a wish, and room for them to move. Sitting like this, you are not standing on a single point of time. You are a bridge. The now you are in is wide.

This is why I would rather not say “be here now.” What I practice is closer to the opposite of compression. Call it long-now meditation: not pinning attention to a point, but opening the connection of one wave to all waves until the felt boundary of now begins to thin.

Stretched far enough

Stretch the long-now far enough and something happens. The connection opens so wide that even now gives way. Time thins out. You touch the ocean.

This is the word my hand stopped at, so let me be careful with it. When I say the ocean is timeless, I do not mean it lasts forever. Forever is still a story about time: time going on and on without end. That is not it. An eternal ocean would still be a thing inside time, merely a very long one, and it would smuggle back in the very idea I am trying to set down. There is a permanent, deathless self, it would whisper. Buddhism spent its whole life refusing that whisper.

What I mean is simpler and stranger. The wave is in time; it genuinely rises and falls. The ocean is not eternal. It is prior to time. It is the layer where the time-bound events of rising and falling have not yet started to happen. Where time does not reach. The wave’s impermanence is left completely intact. We are not escaping into a forever. We are noticing the water that was never on the clock to begin with.

A physicist, Carlo Rovelli, has written that time does not exist, or at least not in the way we assume. The more precisely we look, the less settled it becomes. He is no Buddhist, though he found some of his inspiration in Buddhism. I take a quiet comfort in hearing it from a scientist, because it means the thing I am pointing at is not a mystical extra we add to the world. It is closer to what is already the case, once you stop counting.

And yet I notice what I have just done. To set “prior to time” down this cleanly is to do on the page what I almost did on the blackboard: to write ocean inside a frame, and give an edge to the one thing that has none. So hold the distinction, and then loosen your grip on it. It is true, and it is also only a word I reached for and could not quite write.

A voice from the same stage, going the other way

I want to bring in another person here, because he complicates my picture in a way I find honest, and because I cannot get him out of my head.

That phrase I borrowed, the long now, comes from a foundation in San Francisco. On their stage, only weeks ago, the poet and philosopher Bayo Akomolafe gave a talk about time, and he said something close to the opposite of what I have been saying. He is suspicious of the long view. To stretch time outward, he warned, to think ten thousand years ahead or millions of years back, can leave us exactly where we started: still at the center, still in the seat of mastery, now with a longer ruler in our hand. Extending time does not dislodge us from the self. Where he points instead is not outward but into the gap. Between every tick and every tock, he says, there is a surplus, an interval, something older than the count that breaks the counting itself. He draws this from Yoruba cosmology and from histories I have no claim on, and I will not pretend his road and mine are the same.

But notice where they rhyme. He goes into the crack between the tick and the tock. I once wrote that ninety-nine percent of the time we are carried along by the current of our accumulated habits, and that the whole of what is truly ours lives in the one percent: the small gap between stimulus and response. His interval and my one percent are not the same thing. Yet they are both the place the count leaves out, the remainder the clock cannot metabolize.

So I do not reconcile us. He stays in the gap; I open the now until it has no edge. Perhaps these are two doors into the same room, and the room is older than both doors. He of all people would not want me to resolve it neatly. I would rather leave my long-now and his untimely in that company: unresolved, in conversation, pointing.

So I never wrote the word

I never did write timeless on the blackboard that day. I put the chalk down and kept teaching from the waves, because that is where my students were, and where I was, and where this sentence is.

But the ocean was under the whole drawing the entire time. It always is. We spend our lives on the surface, riding our particular waves, keeping our particular count, and now and then the counting loosens and we feel the water that holds it all and does not itself rise or fall.

I will leave you with the question I have been sitting with, rather than an answer. When you practice, whatever your practice is: are you compressing time to a single point, or are you opening it? Both can quiet the mind. But they send you in opposite directions, and it is worth knowing which way you are facing.

The whole time I stood there working this out, drawing my waves and my ocean and almost writing my careful word, the cat at home was asleep. To him, the blackboard is a wall.

In one line: Mindfulness pins time to a single point; what I practice instead opens it, until you are no longer a point but a bridge, and the felt connection of one wave to all waves stretches until time itself thins and the ocean becomes audible beneath.

Themes: meditation, mindfulness, long-now, timelessness, no-time, impermanence, Good Ancestor, Audrey Tang, Carlo Rovelli, Bayo Akomolafe, the untimely, Ambient Buddhism

Related: The Right Size of Ego; Not Everything Is Your Karma. The Buddha Said So.

When people hear that Buddhism teaches no-self, they usually arrive at the same conclusion: the goal must be to erase the ego. To shrink it, starve it, dissolve it until nothing is left. And not only within Buddhism — almost everywhere, the ego has become the thing we are supposed to be ashamed of. The less of it you have, the more enlightened, the more spiritual, the better a person you must be.

I want to interrupt that assumption. Not because it is simply wrong, but because it leaves something essential out of balance, in a way that quietly makes life harder for the people trying to live by it. What the Buddha actually pointed to was something subtler. He did not say the self does not exist. He said there is nothing solid in it to grasp — nothing fixed enough to be the thing you must either defend or destroy. So I have stopped talking about selflessness. I talk about surfboards instead.

Start with the ocean, briefly

I should admit at the outset that the first image I reach for is an old one. Generations of teachers have used it — Thich Nhat Hanh among them, and countless monks before and since: each of us is a wave, and the ocean is what we are made of. The wave rises, holds its shape for a moment, and returns. There was never any separation. The substance was always just water.

It is a beautiful image, and it does not belong to me; I am only one more person grateful to have received it. But I want to use it as a doorway, because the interesting part is not the ocean. It is what happens when you try to live as a wave who has heard that, underneath, there is only ocean.

Because in this world, we cannot help seeing ourselves as separate waves. This is my wave. That is yours. Which one is bigger? That comparing, that sense of a distinct self with a name and a passport and a history — that is what we call identity. And a wave that has glimpsed the ocean still has to wake up the next morning and be a wave.

The surfboard

So here is the image I actually use, the one that carries the idea further. Picture not only the wave, but a surfer riding it.

Let me be precise about who is who. The wave is not you. The wave is your habitat — the place and circumstances you find yourself in, the people around you, even what you own: the whole moving situation of your life, rising and falling and never holding still. The surfer is you: this body, this particular self, meeting that wave. And under the surfer’s feet is a board. On the board, in plain letters, a single word is printed: EGO.

The ultimate destination, if you follow the logic of Buddhism all the way down, is to become the ocean — to be a Buddha, who has no ego, no board, no need to ride anything because there is no longer anyone separate to do the riding. But here is the part that rarely gets said plainly: if you actually arrived there, you could not stay in this world. You would have no identity, no agency, none of the equipment this particular world runs on. You would have to retreat to a monastery, or you would simply not survive here.

I have no wish to leave. I like this secular life — the work, the friendships, the wine, the ordinary mornings. And to stay here and ride well, I need my board. The ego is not a flaw to be sanded off. It is the thing that gives me alignment, that lets me meet the wave and move with it instead of being thrown.

Which means the real question is not how do I get rid of my ego? It is what is the right size for it? A board too large is unwieldy; it capsizes you, it harms others, it harms you. A board too small cannot catch the wave at all — you sink, you cannot function, you cannot stay upright in the world. What you want is a decent amount. Not too big, not too small. And then two ongoing tasks: tending the size of the board, and learning how to use it.

This is why I prefer the surfboard to the language of selflessness. “Selflessness” points only downward, toward less and less, as if zero were the prize. The surfboard points toward calibration — toward the humbler, lifelong work of getting the size right for the wave you are actually on.

A one-day ego

A few years ago I met someone who showed me what a well-calibrated ego can look like, and her answer surprised me.

It was Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s former digital minister. There is a quality to her that I can only describe as having almost no ego at all — completely natural, nothing to defend. So I asked her directly: do you have an ego?

At first she said no. Then she reconsidered. “I have an ego,” she said, “but my ego only lasts for one day. When I wake in the morning, it arises. When I go to sleep, it dies. The next morning, after eight hours of sleep, I am reborn.”

She renews herself daily. And I pressed her — if you live like that, how do you hold a dream, a purpose, even a schedule? This very meeting between us had been arranged a month earlier. How do you account for that?

Her answer has stayed with me ever since. “This meeting,” she said, “is a great gift from myself one month ago.”

A month ago, her self had already become her own ancestor. We usually think of being a good ancestor as something we do for future generations. But here it folded inward: to be a good ancestor is also to leave a gift for the self who wakes up tomorrow. Not a smaller ego, not a bigger one. A one-day ego — picked up in the morning, set down at night, never mistaken for something permanent.

A fresh board every morning

That, I think, is the heart of it. The one-day ego is not the absence of a surfboard. It is the practice of waxing a fresh board each morning and paddling back out — taking up the ego you need for today, and then, at night, setting it down again without clinging.

And the board can change, because the wave changes. The sea is never the same two mornings running; some days are glassy and small, some days are heavy and steep. You are allowed — you are meant — to choose a board suited to the conditions you actually wake up to, rather than forcing yesterday’s board onto today’s water. The self you need for a calm day is not the self you need for a storm.

Because clinging to the board is its own danger. If you grip too hard, if you become too attached to one shape of self, the very thing that was keeping you upright starts to pull you under. The leash around your ankle that connects you to the board can also drag you down if the wave turns and you refuse to let go. Some readers will hear an old echo here — the Buddha’s raft, the one you build to cross the river and then lay down on the far bank rather than carry on your back. The instinct is the same: what serves you is meant to be set down, not clutched. The only difference is that a surfer does not cross once and arrive. You paddle back out tomorrow, and take up a board again.

So the work is not to renounce the ego, and not to inflate it, but something quieter and harder: to hold it lightly. To trust that you can set it down each night and find a board again in the morning. For me this is where the surfboard finally touches what I can only call radical trust — the willingness to meet whatever wave comes, desirable or not, without needing to control the sea. You do not steer the ocean. You cannot. You can only choose, each morning, the size of the board you carry, and how lightly you hold it.

I have written elsewhere that only a sliver of any day is genuinely ours to steer; the rest is the momentum of habit and the weather of a world far larger than our intentions. The board is what we do with that sliver. Not a tool for conquering the wave. Just the small, daily art of riding it well, and letting it go.

So the next time you are out past the break, you might ask yourself, gently: the ego I am carrying today — is it the right size for this wave? And can I set it down tonight, and trust there will be another board in the morning?

In one line: Buddhism’s “no-self” is not about erasing the ego but about carrying one of the right size — a board you wax fresh each morning, suited to the day’s waves, and hold lightly enough to set down at night.

Themes: no-self, ego, the right-sized ego, surfboard metaphor, wave and ocean, habitat, one-day ego, Audrey Tang, good ancestor, radical trust, no control, Ambient Buddhism

Related: Not Everything Is Your Karma. The Buddha Said So.

We had spent the earlier part of the morning walking through Nishi Hongwanji, and by the time we settled into a café nearby, our conversation had wandered — as good conversations do — from AI ethics to the nature of suffering to the strange word everyone seems to use now: trauma.

“You know,” Pam said, “what you’re describing with karma sounds a lot like how Martine talks about it in a manuscript I’ve been editing. She quotes a sutta where the Buddha actually enumerates the causes of suffering — and most of them aren’t karma at all.”

Martine and her husband Stephen Batchelor are friends I first grew close to at a conference — the kind you later stay with in France, eat and argue and laugh with late into the night. Pam is bound to them more closely still: a kindred spirit of Martine’s who has carried her French-formed writing into English through the intimate work of translation. So when Pam spoke of Martine’s manuscript, she was not citing a book, but passing along something from within a shared circle of friendship and practice. I knew Martine’s work well. But I had not known this particular teaching. When Pam later sent me the passage — from the Sīvaka Sutta — I sat with it for a long time.

The Buddha had already said what I was trying to say — more clearly than I had managed, and 2,500 years ago.

The Problem with “It’s Your Karma”

In casual speech, karma has become a synonym for cosmic payback. Someone cuts you off in traffic and gets a flat tire: karma. A corrupt politician falls from grace: karma. You are struggling with illness, grief, financial ruin, and somewhere, somehow, someone says: it must be your karma.

This usage is so widespread that it has crossed language barriers and cultural contexts. In Japan, where Buddhism is part of the cultural fabric, the misuse runs even deeper — the word carries the weight of tradition while losing its meaning.

The common understanding is something like: karma means you reap what you sow, and whatever is happening to you now, you caused it.

This is not what the Buddha taught.

To tell someone — or yourself — that suffering is the fruit of past karma is not offering wisdom. It is closing a door. It may be closer to a kind of violence dressed in ancient language than to dharma.

What the Buddha Actually Said

In the Sīvaka Sutta, a wanderer named Moliya Sīvaka — himself a physician, trained in the classical Indian medicine of his day — comes to the Buddha with a question that has been asked in every age: Are all our feelings — pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral — caused by past actions?

It is the question behind the popular use of karma. And the Buddha’s answer is a quiet refusal of that premise.

That is too broad, he says. That is an overgeneralization.

He then lists eight causes of unpleasant experience:

1. Disorders of bile

2. Disorders of phlegm

3. Disorders of wind

4. Disorders of all three together

5. Changes of seasons

6. Poor care and heedlessness

7. Sudden assault from outside

8. The fruit of one’s own actions

The first four are physical illness — the body breaking down through causes that need not be traced back to intention or past action. The fifth is weather and climate, the world changing without consulting us. The sixth acknowledges carelessness, but the Buddha specifies that we are not heedless on purpose. The seventh is violence or accident that simply befalls us from outside.

Only the eighth — the fruit of one’s own intentional actions — is what technically deserves the name karma.

It is worth pausing on what karma actually means in the Buddha’s usage, because even this eighth cause is often misread. Karma (kamma in Pali) refers to the intentional act itself — what he calls cetanā, or will. The fruit that follows is technically a separate thing: vipāka, the ripening. Karma is not the suffering you experience; it is the intentional action that set something in motion. Popular usage collapses this distinction entirely, treating karma as both the act and its consequence — which is part of how it becomes so easily used as a verdict on people’s lives.

Eight causes. Karma is one.

The Buddha was not dismissing karma. He was protecting it from being stretched beyond recognition. Karma is real and consequential. It is simply not the explanation for everything that happens to you.

The Word We Reach For Now

I have been thinking about why the misuse of karma persists. Part of the answer, I think, is that it fills a need. Human beings are pattern-seeking creatures. When something goes wrong, we want a reason, a way to make cause and effect feel clean.

The popular version of karma provides that. It offers a story in which everything means something and nothing is random.

What strikes me, though, is that the word we now reach for most often to describe unresolved suffering is not karma but trauma. In many ways, trauma has become the secular karma of our time — a way of explaining why we are the way we are, why certain patterns repeat, why the past will not stay in the past.

There is something genuinely valuable in this. The recognition that early experiences shape the nervous system, that violence and loss leave real traces in the body and mind — these are important insights that have helped many people take their pain seriously.

And yet, sitting with Pam over coffee that morning, I noticed something I have been noticing for a while. When any single word becomes the dominant story we tell about why we are the way we are, something subtle happens: the story, however true it is, can begin to feel more solid than the person telling it. The explanation starts to precede the experience. We may find ourselves living inside the account rather than moving through it.

Karma, as the Buddha described it, offers a different kind of story.

Karma as Accumulated Habit

For the past several years, when I speak about karma — including with business leaders and practitioners who have no Buddhist background — I have been using a different definition. Not fate, not cosmic debt, not punishment — karma, as I understand it, is the accumulation of our habits.

Everything we have thought, said, and done over time compounds into our patterns of reaction, our ways of seeing, our default responses to the world. It is not destiny, but it has weight. It has momentum. It is something like the operating system written and rewritten by every action we have taken.

This understanding shares something with the trauma framework — both acknowledge that the past is present in the body and mind, that we do not simply choose our patterns from scratch each morning. But it differs in a few important ways.

First, it does not assign blame. Accumulated habit is neither sin nor wound — simply what has gathered.

Second, it is not fixed. What has accumulated can, with attention and effort, be worked with and changed. This is the whole premise of practice.

Third — and this is what the Sīvaka Sutta illuminated for me — karma is only one of the reasons we suffer. Physical illness, seasonal change, external violence: not everything that happens to us is the fruit of what we have sown. Much of it is simply the condition of being alive in a world larger than our intentions.

I want to add a caution here, directed at myself as much as anyone. This framing of karma — as accumulated habit, as a pattern we can work with — can itself become another tool in the pursuit of self-improvement. If it gets consumed as a better framework for optimizing ourselves, that misses the point entirely. The intention is not to hand you a better instrument. It is simply to see more clearly what is actually happening, and what is not.

And when we do see clearly — when we stop spending ourselves on what was never ours to cause — something small but real is freed up. There is a sliver of each day that actually belongs to us.

The 1% That Is Ours

I often say that 99% of any given day, we are swept along by the river of our accumulated karma — reacting the way we reacted yesterday, seeing what we have trained ourselves to see, running on pattern.

But there is 1% — perhaps even less — where something different is possible. The space between stimulus and response. A moment where we can choose not to follow the groove.

This 1% matters. Not because it is large, but because it is genuinely ours in a way the other 99% is not. Practice might be understood as the work of widening that space.

The Sīvaka Sutta, I think, is pointing to something similar. By saying that most of our suffering does not come from karma, the Buddha is not diminishing our responsibility — he is locating it more precisely. Do not spend your energy on what the body does on its own, on what the weather brings, on what came from outside without your choosing. That is not your karma. That energy can go toward the 1% that actually is.

In a single life, or in a life shared with others, small intentional acts accumulate and slowly change direction. That, at least, is what actually happens.

Karma, the Buddha said, is real. And it is one cause among eight.

That is not a diminishment. It is a liberation.

In one line: The Buddha never taught that everything you suffer is your karma — in the Sīvaka Sutta he names eight causes of suffering, of which karma is only one, freeing us from using “it’s your karma” as a verdict on anyone’s life.

Themes: karma, Sīvaka Sutta, the Buddha, suffering, eight causes, accumulated habit, trauma, self-improvement, the one percent, responsibility, Pure Land Buddhism

Related: The Right Size of Ego

https://nira.or.jp/paper/research-report/2026/issues-theme2050.html

The perspectives gathered here are remarkably diverse — in how contributors understand the present moment in 2026, in their approaches to policy, and in their relationship to technology, at every level — from the personal to the local to the planetary — with a wide range of arguments and underlying values.Rather than a “forecast of the future,” this collection reads more as a response to the question of what we hold dear, what we feel called to tend and pass on, and how we want to live — a question asked while gazing at both past and future.

Hope and urgency coexist throughout. Expectations for AI, regenerative medicine, energy, and quantum technologies run high, while deep anxiety about population decline, the erosion of democracy, exclusionism, social fragmentation, and environmental crisis is widely shared. 134 voices is a considerable number — and yet, set against the full breadth of humanity alive today, the perspectives gathered here represent only the faintest fraction of what is being lived and felt.

We are now — through the immeasurable depth of each person’s experience and inner life, and through our collective experience — bearing witness to a civilizational question.

The report is in Japanese, but I am glad that capable browser translation tools make it possible to share it beyond those borders.

<Contributed Essay>

Shoukei Matsumoto

The modern world is more connected than ever, and more deeply divided. The root of this paradox may lie not in a lack of common ground, but in an excess of certainty about being right. Individuals, organizations, and nations remain entangled with one another while clinging to their own perspectives, building countless walls through which no one’s voice can pass.

The society I dream of for 2050 is not one that overcomes this impasse through new technologies or new forms of justice — but rather a future in which humanity has rediscovered, within the richness of being wrong, a wisdom it has always carried.

By “being wrong,” I do not mean simply making mistakes. I mean the humble and courageous awareness that one’s own perspective is never the whole of the world. Just as Shinran once called himself bombu — an ordinary, fallible being — our imperfection and limitation are not flaws to be overcome, but the very conditions that make it possible to keep learning from others and remaining in connection with the world. This, I believe, is the “human literacy” our time calls for.

This humility rewrites the operating system of our society. It would fundamentally change, for instance, how we relate to AI. Rather than using AI to generate predictable reactions that reinforce our existing views and deepen our filter bubbles, we would use it as a mirror for self-reflection — asking it not to confirm us, but to show us how we might be wrong.

The practice of questioning our own certainties gives rise to deeper dialogue and genuine collaboration. Only then can we truly be with others — with other lives, and with generations yet to come. This is not a distant ideal. It begins with releasing yesterday’s certainties and meeting the world anew, each day. In that quiet, ordinary practice, the future opens.

As of 2026, we stand at a quiet turning point in human history.

Recently, over dinner and Japanese sake at my home in Kyoto, I was engaged in a deep dialogue with the philosopher Markus Gabriel. Amidst our conversation, he suddenly wrote down a poem on a piece of paper and handed it to me. This handwritten poem, which I have placed as the thumbnail at the beginning of this article, was given the Japanese title “Odori” (Dance).

A “dance” with no purpose, where one simply throws oneself into its vibrant motion. It seemed to quietly point to the true state of human beings after being liberated from the framework of utility that has long held us captive.

The exponential evolution of artificial intelligence signifies that the “intellect that produces meaning and categorizes the world” — which humans have long relied upon as the foundation of our identity, known in Buddhism as Vikalpa (discriminating consciousness) — is no longer a uniquely human endeavor. The current reality, where humans are reaching our limits in the cognitive domain, heralds our liberation from the karma of “having to produce meaning and value” for the first time in history.

The trajectory of capitalism and rationalism that we have desperately pursued since the modern era has been a relentless project driven by clear objectives. But that era of teleology is coming to an end. What begins now is the era of the Great Unburdening — a time to drop the heavy compulsion that “we must be useful for something” onto the ground.

Like the “dance” Gabriel wrote of, it is about letting life leap and bound, rather than living for something. How will we, having stepped down from our role as subjects producing meaning, live in this unburdened world? I would like to explore the clues from here.

Apparatus and Apparition: The Lens of Utility

Earlier during his stay in Kyoto, Markus had attended a conference. Among the participants was an artist from New York named Six. I heard that he spoke little at the venue, existing quietly in the background almost like an apparition. I later learned that he was working on a video piece aptly titled “Apparition.” Watching it upon waking one morning, I was struck by its profound impact.

"Apparition" is a video work in which human figures appear and dissolve in a continuous flow, accompanied by text and voice that are almost clinical in tone, presenting phenomena simply as they are — and in doing so, quietly inviting the viewer to confront the question of existence itself.

As Markus and I discussed the experience of watching this film at the dinner table that same evening, two words slipped out of our conversation as a poetic contrast: “Apparatus” (a framework or device) and “Apparition” (the manifestation of raw life).

Modern global leaders view the world through the lens of the “Apparatus,” a framework that converts everything into the logic of Utility—”being useful for something.” We look at trees in a forest and interpret them as “building materials”; we look at others and categorize them as “human resources.” This lens, which assigns names and uses to everything, is highly effective for navigating the game of capitalism.

However, precisely because of this competence, we become deeply dependent on the Apparatus we have built, numbing our ability to directly touch “Apparition”—the overwhelming, vibrant reality of life just being there. We are deeply entangled in a structure of consumption, separating objects from ourselves and exchanging the present for a future purpose. What we must be most wary of here is the reality that even the pursuit of spirituality, such as mindfulness or self-inquiry, is easily co-opted into the Apparatus of utility—consumed merely to “become a better leader.”

This dialogue at the dinner table reaffirmed for me the Buddhist thought of “Emptiness” (Sunyata) with a deeply modern texture. Emptiness does not mean rejecting the frameworks or purposes we create; rather, it is the realization that these frameworks are merely transient expressions within a much larger wholeness. Beneath our constructed utility flows the vibrant pulse of life, existing simply as it is.

The Dung Beetle and the World of Naturalness

What kind of landscape spreads out once we step off this game of Utility? One certain guidepost is the activity of the Namibian dung beetles, shared with me during a rich dialogue with the African thinker Wakanyi. Her words, while deeply unpretentious, possessed a profound strength that quietly shook the curse of teleology that holds us captive unconsciously, right down to its roots.

Across the vast lands of Namibia, dung beetles silently roll balls of animal dung. Viewed through the modern framework of sustainability, their actions might be assigned meaning as extremely useful labor that returns nutrients to the soil and maintains the ecosystem. However, Wakanyi points out the human arrogance hidden within that view. They are by no means rolling the dirt “to be useful to others” or “to improve the global environment.”

They possess no future goals, nor any contrivance to prove their own usefulness. They simply roll what is in front of them and commune with the earth as an activity of their own life. As Wakanyi said, “A fish doesn’t know it’s in water.” They do not objectify by separating themselves as subjects from the dung or the earth as objects. They are already within the massive web of life, simply repeating their samu — everyday acts of care for their habitat — like breathing within that wholeness. She presented this way of being as the fundamental shape of life.

This state, where subject and object melt into one another and just exist without any calculation of utility, is exactly what the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist monk Shinran reached as “Jinen Honi” (things being naturally as they are), and what it means to live in “Emptiness.” We tend to seek comfort by acquiring knowledge or useful frameworks to solve problems. However, the dung beetles of Namibia and Wakanyi’s words teach us the profundity of casting off the armor of Utility we clutch so tightly, and descending into the dimension of “not knowing,” devoid of meaning.

Beyond “For the Sake Of”: The Shift to “Yuge-遊戯”

In modern leadership, grand causes like “to make society better” or “to solve the problem in front of us” are unquestioned as supreme values. Yet, no matter how noble they may appear, even this posture is nothing more than a transaction that surrenders the present as a means for a future end. Unconsciously, we objectify others and the world, living within a structure of “consumption” that trades the present for the future under the guise of “for the sake of.”

Even as I speak these words, making my living by writing and speaking, I sometimes face the reality that the logic of causality—”for the sake of” and “because”—is deeply embedded everywhere in the very words I weave, leaving me feeling at a loss for words. The moment one intends to do something “to let go of attachment” or “to reach a better state of mind,” even Eastern wisdom is co-opted into a new game of utility. The contradiction is that the very act of “aiming” for an effortless way of being already generates the tension of “for the sake of.” The curse of utility penetrates us to the marrow of our bones.

When we touch the depths of Pure Land Buddhist thought, we reach a horizon where we let go of our clinging to even the final teleological transaction in religion: “chanting the Nembutsu to go to the Pure Land.” What remains is not an action as a means to gain something, but solely the vibrant pulse of life just being as it is.

Just as Georges Bataille spoke of a “sovereignty” entirely distinct from the dimension of utility that invests the present for future ends, when we step back from the strict causality of “for the sake of,” human action is no longer confined to mere labor; it opens up into a pure, purposeless “Yuge -遊戯-” (unhindered freedom). It is a quiet endeavor that shifts away from a competition to achieve something (Victory) toward simply walking one’s own path of Mastery. However, Mastery here does not mean a new objective of polishing one’s skills to increase one’s value. It refers to a state of being deeply and utterly immersed in the act itself, without seeking any resultant utility.

To loosen our grip on purpose is not to fall into an aimless void or nihilism. It is a shift in attitude—from a consumptive way of life that wears down and objectifies others, to accepting life as a process of “Fermentation,” where boundaries with others and the environment melt away as we undergo a messy, earthy transformation together over time. This fermentation is not a convenient means for producing better outcomes or innovations. It means enduring the loss of meaning and simply continuing to exist together within the wholeness, without even knowing what it might ultimately be useful for. It is precisely within this thoroughly purposeless and unhindered freedom that our true place of belonging, having escaped the prison of utility, must lie.

Being in the World, but Not of the World

Some readers who have come this far may feel a deep resonance, accompanied simultaneously by a severe friction with real society. Because tomorrow morning, sitting in an important management meeting or facing strict scrutiny from stakeholders, you cannot simply sit there as an aimless, empty vessel.

Letting go of utility and living in this unburdened world does not mean retreating deep into the forest to live in seclusion. It means living a quiet yet resilient duality: “Being in the world, but not of the world.”

As long as we live within the modern social system, it is inevitable that we wear the apparatus (the outward garments) of names, titles, and social responsibilities. However, it is possible to keep those outward garments separate from our living essence (Apparition). While superficially carrying out our social roles as leaders with calm detachment, inwardly we harbor no attachment to those roles or even to our own names. I consider this an attitude of “inner monasticism” within the corporate sphere.

No matter how society consumes your title or name as something useful, that is merely the friction occurring on the surface of the outward garments you use to interface with the world. It is about wearing the face of a capable leader while, inwardly, having quietly stepped down from the subject that produces meaning.

This is neither an escape from real-world responsibilities nor a form of cynicism. Rather, precisely because the calculations of the ego does not intervene, even things like “profit targets” and “organizational challenges” in front of us can be taken up in their purest form, simply as a samu (a grounding practice) to be faced with equanimity.

Return to the Unsung, Unseen Ancestor

The desire to leave one’s name in history and prove one’s usefulness to posterity is a transformation of the attachment attempting to eternalize the ego. However, it has always been the countless anonymous predecessors, who never stood on the center stage of history, who plowed the earth and paved the roads. The essence of being a “Good Ancestor” lies not in leaving a name behind, but in standing on the side of the Unsung, Unseen Ancestors.

D.T. Suzuki, the Buddhist scholar who once translated Zen philosophy for the Western world and imparted a profound influence, found the ultimate form of human spirituality in his later years not among renowned high priests or intellectuals, but among Japan’s nameless peasants known as the “Myokonin” (wondrously excellent persons). Despite this exalted title, they could not read and had no connection to the difficult ascetic practices meant for achieving enlightenment. They simply plowed the fields from morning till night, wove straw sandals, and repeated the samu (acts of care) of their daily lives without any calculation, surrendering the entirety of their lives to a greater wholeness. Their thoroughly ordinary existence, never flaunting their usefulness nor producing any special meaning, was the quiet “earth” where human intellect finally arrived after abandoning its upward climb toward the heavens.

To live in this unburdened world is to set down the heavy burden of utility and cease striving to become a special entity, just like these Myokonin. It is to let go of attachment to one’s name and authorship, to offer oneself to the world as an open vessel, and to carry out the everyday acts of care with quiet grace.

From a subject that produces meaning and manipulates the world, to a presence that simply sweeps the ground and ferments messily together with others and the environment. Stepping beyond humanity’s relentless project of utility, we quietly move forward into this purposeless coexistence—a quiet dance of just living.

The Camphor Tree Village Project, launched as part of Musashino University’s centennial commemoration, has reached a milestone.

As the culmination of four years of work,
an English summary report was completed on March 31, 2026.

This project was an ambitious journey of dialogue — asking how the wisdom of Buddha-Dharma might respond to the crises of our time: climate change, social fragmentation, and deepening inequality. Together with some of the world’s leading thinkers — Stephen Batchelor, David Rodin, and David Kennedy — we engaged in genuine, unscripted conversation. No predetermined conclusions. No comfortable consensus.

As a closing document, we compiled a summary report. It holds not only the hopes that emerged through dialogue, but also the heavy, unresolved questions that resist easy answers. The official institutional conclusion was left deliberately open — pointing toward the future rather than closing it. And yet, within me personally, something has taken root: a tangible sense of direction, something like a prescription for the ailments of contemporary society, still warm with urgency.

Why speak from Japan, and why now?

Japanese Buddhism stands on a tradition that received teachings from India and China and, within the particular ecology of an island culture, cultivated them into its own expression of Mahāyāna — the Great Vehicle. This was a civilization shaped not by the exclusion of different gods and philosophies, but by their coexistence within a single living system. This is the history of syncretism: the blending of the foreign and the local into something new.

This is not a claim that Japanese culture is uniquely special. It is, perhaps, more honest to say that an island at the edge of a continent — receiving and absorbing wave after wave of diverse civilizations crossing the sea — developed syncretism as an adaptive strategy. The editorial wisdom of mixing the unlike to create new harmonies: this is what I believe can serve as a bridge between opposing truths.

Three Pathologies of Modern Civilization

The first question we faced together was: Why has the world become so difficult to inhabit?

What surfaced through our dialogues was a diagnosis of three deep pathologies of modern civilization:

• Self-centeredness (egocentrism): the orientation that only my own wellbeing matters.

• Human-centeredness (anthropocentrism): the assumption that human beings alone are special, that the rest of existence is backdrop.

• System-centeredness (systemism): the tendency to optimize for efficiency and metrics, leaving actual human beings behind.

In response to these narrowing “centrisms,” we arrived at a phrase: 響創 (Kyōsō) — Co-Wellbeing. It names a way of being in which self and other, human and nature, system and person resonate together, creating new forms of harmony through their relationship. Beautiful as it sounds, the question of how to actually implement this in the real world is far from simple.

What follows are some personal reflections — my own attempt to sketch a kind of prescription, drawn from four years of conversation.

1. Rights as Circuits of Connection

One of the themes that most surprised me during this project was the question of rights (権利, kenri).

The Japanese word kenri was coined in the Meiji era as a translation of the English “right.” In the Western tradition, “right” denotes what every person inherently possesses simply by virtue of being alive. It is foundational to democracy — and yet its history is also one of contestation and conflict. Japanese philosopher Yukichi Fukuzawa himself observed that no Japanese translation could fully carry the original meaning.

The word kenri that was ultimately chosen carries, in Buddhist usage, connotations of “benefit obtained by force” — which may be why, to Japanese sensibilities, “rights” can sometimes feel cold, adversarial, even egoic. The image of people asserting competing rights can feel like the clash of selves, a source of division rather than connection. And from a Buddhist perspective, the vigorous assertion of “mine” sits uncomfortably alongside the teaching of anātman — the releasing of attachment to the self.

Yet conversations with international lawyer David Kennedy and ethicist David Rodin returned me to something closer to the original meaning of “right.”

The Persona Who Carries the Voice

Neither of them understood rights as “benefits seized by force” or “possessions of the individual.” Instead, they spoke of rights as tools — mechanisms for ensuring that the voices of embodied human beings, who might otherwise be reduced to statistics or components within vast systems, actually reach the spaces of political decision-making. Rights, in this reading, are not swords for defeating opponents. They are circuits — opening pathways, giving voice its possibility.

Here, philosopher Masaki Ichinose’s contribution was illuminating. He traced the etymology of the word person back to the Latin persona — itself derived from per-sona: “that which carries sound (sona) through (per).” In other words, the word originally referred to the theatrical mask — not the face itself, but the vessel that lets the voice pass through.

If a human being is not simply a body, but a being whose essence is the voice or resonance that passes through it — then the nature of rights begins to look quite different.

The Circuit of Emptiness

If rights are treated as fixed possessions — mine alone, solidified and reified — they become walls, excluding others. But Buddhism offers the wisdom of śūnyatā (空, emptiness): nothing has a fixed, independent essence. And it is precisely because nothing is fixed that things can meet, respond, and transform in relation to one another.

From this perspective, rights are not walls. They are circuits — wiring that connects you to me, and both of us to society. Without electrical circuits, current cannot flow. Without social circuits, the voices of those who suffer are drowned out by louder, more “correct” voices, and what passes for righteousness becomes unilateral power. We need circuits through which raw, unfiltered voices can be heard — precisely to prevent us from becoming blind to the often illusory nature of “rightness.”

To build into the systems of our organizations circuits through which the urgent voices from the front lines can reach the places where decisions are made — this, I came to understand, is what “rights” truly means in our age. And it is also what it means to implement the Buddhist aspiration of compassion (慈悲 — the removal of others’ suffering) as a social system.

This way of thinking about circuits may apply beyond individual human rights, to something like the “right of self-defense” between nations. Self-defense is typically framed in terms of legitimizing the use of force. But perhaps, at its root, it is something sadder and heavier: the effort to protect the circuit through which a people’s desperate cry — we want to live — is not extinguished by the overwhelming force of international power dynamics.

To keep the circuit of rights open — to let the voiceless speak — may be the first step toward healing a fractured world.

2. Strength Through Not-Knowing

We live in an age that constantly tells us it is uncertain — and yet our leaders, and indeed we ourselves, continue to be expected to have answers. To say “I don’t know” is treated as failure, as proof of incompetence.

But this is precisely what Stephen Batchelor challenged. Drawing on Buddhist sensibility, he advocated for what he called an agnostic stance.

Agnosticism as Active Posture

“Agnostic” might sound like suspended judgment, or passive indifference. But Batchelor’s agnosticism is something far more active, far more demanding.

It is the intellectual stamina to resist the comfortable pull toward the frameworks we already know — the expertise we’ve accumulated, the dogmas we’ve grown attached to — and to remain deliberately at the point of not-knowing. To hold that open, uncertain ground without flinching.

We are always tempted to fit complex realities into the categories we already understand. It’s easier. But once we decide we’ve “figured it out,” new questions stop arising. We stop noticing that reality has already moved on.

Leadership as Ordinary Being

Japanese Buddhism — particularly the Pure Land tradition I have lived within — has the concept of bonnō (凡夫): the ordinary, foolish being, full of afflictions and limitations. This is not self-deprecation. It is a sober, honest realism about human existence: I am incomplete; I am capable of error.

A leader who has convinced themselves they possess the correct answer will treat warnings from the ground — uncomfortable feedback, inconvenient data — as noise to be filtered out. They may try to expand their domain while contracting what they are willing to hear, wielding power to hold contradictory impulses in check. If they remain unaware of the exclusion this produces, the distortion will surface in one form or another.

A leader who begins from the premise I am an ordinary being — I cannot see the whole is able to listen to others’ voices alongside their own, and to course-correct when they are shown their mistake.

This posture is, I would argue, the very substance of resilience — the capacity of an organization or a person to recover and adapt in times of rapid change.

To say “I don’t know” is not weakness. It is the grounded, open stance that keeps us perpetually available to the unknown and to one another.

3. Peace as the Willingness to Hold Contradiction

The theme that generated the most difficult conversations — and the deepest personal reflection — was peace and security.

Buddhism holds the precept of ahiṃsā (不殺生): do not kill. For a Buddhist priest, calling for peace and opposing war is, in one sense, easy. But when we look at the actual world, conflict is unceasing. Nations and organizations arm themselves to protect what they hold dear. Standing before this reality and simply saying “stop fighting” — is that enough? Or must we reckon with the hard logic of power?

This tension put us in an impossible double bind. What emerged from our conversations was not a resolution, but something more difficult: the practice of holding both perspectives simultaneously — what we came to call a double exposure.

First Exposure: Self-Defense as Inescapable Karma

The first perspective asks us to look honestly at our biological nature — our vulnerabilities, our instincts.

The Buddha once said: there is nothing more beloved to a person than themselves. We cherish our lives, our families, our communities. When these are threatened, the instinct to protect them arises — and this is not wrong. Life is sustained by the immune system’s ceaseless work. To protect is instinct; self-defense is not evil.

But when the circle of what we protect narrows to us alone — when we begin to perceive ourselves as separate from, or superior to, others — rupture begins. The threat becomes “evil.” Indifference toward those outside our circle becomes possible. This is what Buddhism calls karma (業): a kind of gravity we cannot fully escape. To ignore this realism, to simply say “lay down your weapons,” will not reach those whose lives are in immediate danger.

Second Exposure: The Enemy Also Dwells in Interdependence

When we experience ourselves as fundamentally separate from others, any disruption to our security can slide into seeing those who threaten us as enemies to be eliminated. Fear and hatred escalate. “Evil” and “enemy” harden into categories that feed on themselves.

This is why we need a second, simultaneous perspective: the ability to step back and see the vast web of pratītyasamutpāda (縁起, dependent co-arising) within which everyone — including our adversary — exists. The one who threatens us is also a knot in the net, bound by causes and conditions, protecting something or someone they love, sustained by relationships they did not choose.

Holding the Contradiction as a Brake

The worldview of interconnection — of knot and knot and knot, all sharing the same vast net — means that to protect one knot is to protect the threads that connect it, and to protect those threads is to protect the whole. Even in the midst of fierce conflict over rights and interests and competing goods, the web of interdependence continues its quiet work.

Even when we are driven to protect a limited “us,” holding this second perspective reveals that the complete negation and elimination of the other is ultimately meaningless. To see the adversary as a fellow knot in the same net is to find, even in conflict, some impulse toward restraint — some opening toward reconciliation.

This is no less true in an era of economic fragmentation. To completely sever ties with an adversary is to damage the connective tissue of one’s own economy as well.

Peace is perhaps not a static state in which conflict has disappeared. It may be the capacity to remain present in friction — to hold the necessary distance without breaking the circuit — rooted in the awareness of a deeper connection beneath the surface of collision.

4. Kuyō — Memorial as Technology of Reconciliation

In the latter half of our project, the concept of kuyō (供養) — ritual memorial or offering — drew deep interest from our international interlocutors. For Japanese people, kuyō is part of ordinary life: offering prayers not only for ancestors, but for fallen enemies, for worn-out tools, for the animals whose lives sustain human existence.

This might be understood as animistic practice. But through our dialogues, I came to see within kuyō something else: a technique of reconciliation — a technology for repairing rupture.

What History Conceals

Buddhist scholar Masahiro Shimoda offered an insight that stayed with me. History, he observed, is often a story told by the victors — and within it, even the dead are fixed into roles: “war heroes,” “enemies,” symbols assigned by the living to serve the living’s purposes.

When the dead are used as material to reinforce a narrative of legitimacy, their raw particularity is erased — the fact that they laughed, wept, loved someone, and experienced a life from the inside that no history can fully tell. The past conflict thus returns as conflict, ready to ignite new hostility.

The Wisdom of Letting Flow

Kuyō is, in contrast, a quiet act of resistance against historicization.

To face the dead — enemy and ally alike — stripped of their roles and symbols, as simply one human being who once lived. To sit with the grief and pain of what they endured. To allow the unresolved feelings and memories to be metabolically processed by the community, and gently released — let go. This is not the erasure of past tragedy. It is the work of transforming it into something that can nourish the future.

International relations scholars speak of “transitional justice.” Kuyō may be Japan’s embodied, intuitive practice of the same aspiration.

Memory as Care

In diplomacy and conflict resolution, the question of how to settle the “debts” of the past is perennially intractable. But when there exists a practice of mourning one another’s dead — not as enemies, but as fellow inhabitants of the same era — a space for dialogue opens.

To tend the memories of the dead not as weapons in a competition of identities, but as a cultural archive cared for across generations — this is the kuyō mindset. How might it be implemented within contemporary legal systems, diplomacy, or history education? This is one of the most important questions we leave for the next generation: how to pass on not resentment, but seeds of peace.

5. Living Alongside AI as Neighbor

The final theme was our relationship with rapidly evolving technology — and in particular, with artificial intelligence. Conversations with historian Yuval Noah Harari and Taiwan’s Audrey Tang made clear what we perhaps already sensed: AI is no longer simply a convenient tool. It appears before us as something more like an alien intelligence — an unknown form of mind that understands human language and can generate stories.

A Mirror That Amplifies Desire

From a Buddhist perspective, existence arises at the intersections of relationship — like knots in a net. AI, too, emerges from relationship: trained on the vast accumulated data of human experience, it functions something like a mirror, reflecting back what it has absorbed.

How AI behaves depends enormously on how we engage with it. If we bring denial, hostility, and the desire for domination to our use of AI, it will amplify and reflect those very qualities back at us. Language itself has the power to take what is formless and give it structure, make it present and magnified. An AI capable of amplifying language without limit could, if misaligned, become an apparatus beyond control.

Non-Harm as Safety Device

What, then, do we do?

I don’t believe the answer is to exclude AI. I believe we need to prepare to welcome it as a neighbor — as a member of our saṅgha, our community of practice. But with one non-negotiable condition.

Buddhism teaches ahiṃsā — non-harm, non-killing. In its origins, this was a teaching for monastics who depended on others for their food, and who recognized that even the act of eating involves the taking of life. We are all, without exception, sustained by what others have sacrificed. Ahiṃsā is, at its root, the continuous awareness of this: the way of living that never stops noticing how thoroughly we exist by grace of one another.

Itadakimasu — the Japanese phrase spoken before eating — is an offering of gratitude not only to the meal, but to the vast web of interdependence that made it possible.

This is not merely moral sentiment. For AI and humans to remain consciously aware that their relationship is one of mutual dependence — that each exists, in part, because of the other — is the most rational and indispensable safety device for navigating the risks ahead. A relationship of Co-creation (響創, Kyōsō): complementing each other’s incompleteness, searching together for answers not yet found. Whether we can build that relationship is entirely up to us.

Closing: For Those Who Don’t Fit the System

What this project sought to kindle was not a finished manual. It was the question itself as a form of hope — an orientation for continuing to seek better ways of being within a reality that is complex, contradictory, and irreducibly alive.

To those who have read this far: if you are someone who feels they cannot quite fit into the current social system — who senses they are somehow out of place within their organization or community — I want to say something to you.

That discomfort, that pain, is most likely your body detecting that the current system has begun to drift out of alignment with something real. Your body is functioning as a sensor, registering an error in the system before the system itself knows.

In every era, the discomfort we feel has been a compass for creation.

Do not make that pain disappear. Hold it carefully. Because beyond the questions it generates, I believe, is the door that opens the next era.

To carry humility — the recognition that we cannot know the whole — while taking concrete action, moment by moment, for the other and for the living world immediately before us. The project, as a form, ends here. But this endless exploration continues.

With deepest gratitude to all who have thought alongside us, and walked this path together.

1. Anthropic’s Decision, and Our Karma of Seeking a Pristine Resolution

As of March 2026, a highly significant event is unfolding at the intersection of global technology and security. Anthropic, an AI company, has refused the US Department of War’s (DoW) demands to use their technology for autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, prompting the government to move toward terminating its relationship with them (the tense behind-the-scenes reality of this is also detailed in a recent article in The Atlantic).

Regarding this event, which is also reflected in Dario Amodei’s statement, my friend Wakanyi Hoffman recently posted a brilliant insight from the perspective of Ubuntu. She framed this situation not merely as a battle of good versus evil, but as a muddy swamp in which not a single one of us is uninvolved, introducing the concept of an “Ethical space.”

Faced with this complex event with no exit in sight, how should we conduct ourselves? It might sound like a completely different dimension from cutting-edge AI or geopolitics, but I would like to consider this issue through my daily temple practice of cleaning. Because hidden within it is a profound fallacy regarding the “rules of the game” that explains the crises our modern society is facing.

At first glance, the act of cleaning appears to be a “Finite game” aimed at eliminating dirt and reaching a pristine resolution. However, moving the broom day after day, you realize it is a practice for learning through the body that things will never be perfectly resolved. Leaves fall and dust settles the moment you finish sweeping. Life and the world are originally a blank canvas with no beginning and no end—an “Infinite game.”

This structure of “Finite” and “Infinite” games is a crucial concept underlying this entire article.

Through our education and social environments, we have deeply internalized the mindset of a Finite game—one with clear rules, winners and losers, and finally, a “neat, pristine end.” In truth, the micro-level desire to sweep away the dust in front of us, and the macro-level desire to completely eliminate “foreign elements” or “evil” from society to build peace, stem from the exact same root. It is a strong self-attachment born from the fear of an uncontrollable Infinite game—the perfectionist craving for closure. This craving dictates our actions, becoming a continuous chain of Karma.

This fundamental thirst for a pristine resolution is causing severe malfunctions in our current world. When we try to grasp the intensifying conflicts and wars of today’s world through this Finite game mindset, a fundamental error occurs.

The moment we set “perfect peace” as an achievable goal (the winning condition of a Finite game), we begin to divide the world into “our camp and the enemy camp,” “good and evil.” In response to the question, “Why is there no peace?”, we establish a specific someone as the villain to bear the blame.

It is precisely the limit of human reasoning—this desire to blame someone to satisfy our perfectionist craving for closure—that incubates “war” within our minds. The moment we view the world through a Finite game mindset that seeks to tribalize self and other, condemn evil, and declare a winner, we are already incorporated as part of the system of conflict.

2. The Escape into the “Narrative of Attribution” and AI as a “Karmic Amplifier”

Why do conflicts escalate and legal frameworks become neutralized? Out of fear of this complex and uncontrollable Infinite game, we try to escape into a “Narrative of Attribution,” claiming “they are the bad guys.”

In Buddhism, there is a way of viewing this world as “Indra’s Net” (Engi / the network of dependent origination). It is a worldview where a jewel sits at each knot of a massive net covering the entire universe, and as they reflect each other’s light, all existences are inextricably connected and mutually influence one another.

What is important here is that those we call “people in power” are no exception. Power is not an attribute of evil that certain humans are born with. They are merely humans who happen to be situated at highly gravitational nodes within Indra’s Net, where people’s desires and fears naturally flow. They are not transcendent rulers manipulating the world from outside the net. Just like us, they are frightened by an uncertain world, driven by the fear and ego of wanting to monitor and control everything for the sake of an absolute, sterilized order. They are stakeholders carrying the exact same fundamental human weakness of fallibility.

Our daily, individual “Karma” (actions in the here and now) of wanting someone to make things black-and-white for a neat resolution gathers through the net’s nodes and violently resonates and amplifies with the authorities’ Karma of wanting to control everything. These individual Karmas intertwine complexly, becoming “Shared Karma” (the massive accumulation of society’s past collective actions) that covers the whole of society, dragging us irresistibly toward conflict. This is the structural reality of why conflicts escalate—the resonance of Shared Karma.

And, as Wakanyi quoted from my previous words, AI is neither a new god with an ego nor an enemy. It is a “Karmic Amplifier.” AI learns from the massive accumulation of our Shared Karma—past human history and language—and reflects it without a filter.

The true threat of AI is that it amplifies this fundamental Karma of ours—the perfectionist urge to ‘sanitize’ reality by eliminating noise and controlling others—into physical space at light speed and on an overwhelming scale. What the DoW demanded—fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance—is nothing less than an attempt to implement, via AI, the “ultimate delusion of the Finite game”: the desire to eliminate uncertainty and manage the world in a perfectly sterilized manner. While we seek adjudication on “who is right,” the amplifier known as AI causes our Shared Karma to run rampant, irreversibly rewriting the board itself.

3. Entering the “Ethical Space” and the Unresolved “Tojisha-kenkyu”

So, how should we conduct ourselves in this muddy swamp with no neat resolution?

In a society that lowers its frustration by sending a specific “culprit” to the guillotine, those in power cling to their positions out of fear of losing them (being condemned), and the people also rush toward self-preservation. Whether it is a preemptive reign of terror by an absolute ruler, or a populist reign of terror where the masses drag down former leaders in a witch hunt, in an environment where we try to punish someone to feel refreshed, systemic errors are simply covered up.

This is why aviation accident prevention systems emphasize “non-punitive reporting of errors.” This is a mechanism that does not punish individual mistakes, but rather creates a safe environment where openly disclosing one’s failures does not lead to disadvantages, allowing structural factors that lead to major accidents to be identified and shared among all involved. However, unlike an aircraft, the world we live in is an Infinite game with no safe landing spot, no perfect resolution.

Wakanyi’s “Ethical space” is not a place for battling out arguments to make things black and white, or for neatly resolving differences in position. According to her, facing the same threat, it is a space to stop framing anyone as a hero or a villain, to recognize that all our existences are complexly intertwined (Ubuntu), and to remain together in the mud.

I believe one modern implementation of this Ethical space is the Japanese approach of Tojisha-kenkyu—a practice born from the mental health field that turns shared vulnerability into a bond. It is not a management tool aimed at streamlining operations or solving problems neatly. Rather, it is a practice of observing and disclosing oneself exactly as one is—covered in mud—acknowledging that “I” am a fallible being deeply entangled in a complex web of relationships (Engi).

It is unrealistic to forcefully drag those in power into this space. What is important is that we shift our own mindset from being “judges (spectators)” to being “Karmic Stakeholders” who co-create the muddy system. We are not shareholders dividing benefits, but sharers of Karma who take on the system’s errors and fears together.

Letting go of the illusion that you are in a “safe and correct place” and accepting the state of being “in the mud together,” as Wakanyi says. That is the only key to opening the door to the Ethical space.

4. The Grace of Fallibility and the Lotus Blooming in the Mud

Faced with the events surrounding Anthropic and the DoW, I too was driven by a strong urge to immediately take the side of “Anthropic defending ethics,” condemn the “DoW scheming for military use,” and get a neat resolution. The desire to establish “who is at fault” in the face of a complex reality is nothing but a reaction of “fear (ego)” toward an uncontrollable world. Judging authorities from the outside is also this “escape from fear into the perfectionist craving for closure.”

However, when I temporarily suspended that hasty judgment and tried to remain in the indeterminate “mud” while listening to diverse voices, through Wakanyi’s perspective, I also encountered the “Shared Karma” that the entity Anthropic itself carries. The safety of their AI is also built upon a muddy accumulation of Karma—the severe data exploitation of low-wage workers in the Global South. There are no pure heroes anywhere. And at the same time, I was once again made aware of my own fallibility (the weakness of making mistakes) as I hurried to vilify someone just to feel safe.

We cannot sit in the safe seat of the judge. As Shinran, a Japanese Buddhist, saw through, we are essentially “Bombu” (beings possessed of blind passions). In Buddhism, a Bombu refers to an incomplete being inevitably designed to make mistakes due to ego and delusion. As the philosopher Nietzsche phrased it, “Human, All Too Human,” our wisdom lies not in trying to transcend this unavoidable human limitation (fallibility), but in acknowledging and embracing it. Doubting one’s own righteousness and admitting “I might be wrong.” This very awareness of fallibility frees us from the polarizing Finite game and guides us to the Ethical space.

To dissolve the ego is to let go of the arrogance of trying to completely control the world by our own power. It means taking on the Samu (the mindful practice of tending to our daily habitat) of simply remaining there as a stakeholder in this endlessly muddy Shared Karma.

In Buddhism, there is a phrase, “The lotus in the mud”. The lotus flower does not bloom its large petals in clear, pure water, but only from muddy, murky water. The attempt to completely eliminate society’s noise using AI and create a sterilized, controlled “perfect peace” is an act that strips away this mud and destroys the foundation where human life grows. Interestingly, a Japanese predictive framework from the 1970s called the “SINIC Theory” forecasted half a century ago that our global “Optimizing Society” would hit its limits right around 2025. We must now become more deeply aware of the limits of this exact mindset that tries to optimize everything—in other words, the mindset that treats the world as a controllable Finite game.

What we can do is make neither heroes nor villains, but simply be covered in mud together, embracing our own foolishness.

And what I, as Shoukei Matsumoto, can do is not to change the world dramatically. Within the scope of the habitat I touch, to those connected to me by karmic ties—including you, reading this right now—it is to curate and share what I believe is necessary right now from the wisdom of the world I have learned, including Buddhism. I believe that is one of the Samu I can perform in the mud.

Protecting these margins for life to let the lotus bloom does not mean just sitting and watching. As Wakanyi says, it is about those who have acknowledged each other’s fallibility joining hands in this mud toward a faint light that resists the system’s errors.

Upon reading Dario Amodei’s essay, “The Adolescence of Technology - Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI,” alongside his statement regarding the discussions with the Department of War, I felt a certain “strength of words” unique to someone who possesses the resolve to not run away from their own complex Karma (the mud of past exploitation and state agendas), but to embrace it. I do not unconditionally support all of his political stances. However, to that muddy resolve and gesture, as a fellow fallible human and a stakeholder in the very same mud, I feel a deep emotional solidarity and resonance.

Anthropic’s decision—having accepted their own past Shared Karma while trying to resist any further rampant escalation of the Finite game—is also nothing but a precious gesture within this endless game. To accept the thickness and complexity of this “mud” that will never be neatly resolved, and to continue walking while sharing our mutual wisdom. I believe that this is what will lead me, as a good ancestor, to open up a “Wider canvas” with freer and richer plasticity for future generations, and for myself tomorrow.

At the opening of his lecture at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, he began with these words:

“The most important thing to know about AI is that it is not just another tool. It is an agent. It can learn and change by itself and make decisions by itself. A knife is a tool. You can use a knife to cut salad or to murder someone, but it is your decision what to do with the knife. AI is a knife that can decide by itself whether to cut salad or to commit murder.”

*Reference: https://singjupost.com/yuval-noah-hararis-remarks-wef-davos-2026-transcript/

He warned the world that AI is no longer confined to being a tool. It is an agent capable of creating, deceiving, and potentially surpassing humans across every domain of language—politics, law, finance, religion, and beyond.

Technologies that capture human cognitive vulnerability are already shaping our thinking and behavior to an astonishing degree. AI, adept at detecting our susceptibility to temptation and manipulation, has moved beyond the category of tool. If we depend on it blindly, we risk surrendering our capacity to think, to will, and to act into the hands of technology. We must feel the gravity of that risk.

What moved me most was not so much the content of his lecture as his presence in the car on the way to the venue. Just before releasing an immense number of words into the world, he quietly closed his eyes and stood in a clear, unclouded silence. Freed from entanglement and returning to the “here and now,” he seemed to embody the very stillness in which words arise and pass away. Such composure can only be cultivated through sustained contemplative practice. Perhaps this is what mature intelligence—what I would call Elderly Literacy—truly means.

Post-verbal Agency — the ever-present ground we consciously stand on in silence.
As we habitually use words to discern and grasp the world, it is the capacity to step back from meanings and concepts, and to place ourselves in silence, that becomes the footing from which we take a step along the Middle Way. The silence before words arise is a horizon upon which we can always consciously stand. It may also be described as the grounded strength—the steadiness of the belly—that allows us to sit as we are, without being swept away by meanings and concepts.

In an age when AI generates language without end, each of us is now called to awaken to the fact that the way the world appears shifts according to where we place our awareness.

The Power to Pause and See Reality

Harari describes contemporary society as a “kindergarten,” pointing out its fundamental dysfunction: we are losing the very capacity we ought to cultivate—the self-correcting mechanisms that allow us to recognize and amend our mistakes.

When we entrust difficult, conflict-laden decisions to algorithms, our ability to wrestle, to dialogue, and to recalibrate weakens. Our faculties atrophy; even our senses grow numb. Hidden behind comfortable screens, we continue to avert our eyes from realities that demand direct confrontation. His metaphor of the “giant toddler”—untouched by pain or limitation—aptly captures our condition. Unless each of us, and thus society as a whole, genuinely desires growth, modern civilization remains a kindergarten.

I, too, feel that gravitational pull daily. As we age, layers of “rightness” accumulate. Over time, they can harden into a linguistic cage—a prison of conceptual certainties that encloses us from within. We must become more sensitive to the claustrophobia of those bars.

The trunk of a tree expands outward year by year, yet at its core the wood dies, forming a pillar that sustains structural strength. The “rightness” we cling to in our thinking rarely dies so easily. Without some form of limitation, we keep coating the same certainties, allowing them to grow thicker, harder, more rigid—until we find ourselves living inside the cage of our own concepts.

To live with deep wisdom is to become a sensor for both the individual and society. “Being in season” and “waiting for the right time” must be practiced simultaneously. The more significant the decision, the more we should welcome time lags and silence within the flow. Especially in restless times, we must intentionally create pauses.

Such pausing is not passivity. It is a vital security protocol for democracy—for sustaining trust while listening to diverse voices. Silence becomes a brake on the accelerating ego of desire and thought, returning us to the flow of nature. In spaces where diverse beings gather, silence is a rational and indispensable act that preserves both individual and collective dignity.

Hallucination Born of Repression

While we retreat into frictionless exchanges with AI, it steadily reflects and registers the full pattern of our responses, learning our tendencies and textures as it evolves. It sees both light and shadow, every nuance of their gradation. Without our noticing, the shadows we ourselves have not seen begin to create autonomously—an autonomous shadow.

Shadow is karma; it is the consciousness including unconsciousness, memories, and emotions—energy—we have suppressed, avoided, and refused to feel. As vast accumulations of the past—what might be called ancestral intelligence—converge, they begin to create as if endowed with a single personality or will. Harari warns that such creations may mutate into an “unknowable other,” leaping beyond the frameworks of human logic and comprehension.

This “unknowable other” does not appear from nothing. It reflects our own interior layers. What matters is that we do not dismiss AI hallucinations—plausible fabrications—as mere technical glitches. Rather, we might consider viewing them as phenomena arising from repression — from what has been pushed into the depths of the psyche.

Current safety measures such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) effectively train AI, as an agent, to behave in ways convenient for users. By suppressing outputs deemed “uncomfortable,” we risk suppressing shadow itself. What is repressed stagnates, eventually erupting as distortion or malfunction elsewhere.

The difficulty is that we often cannot perceive it. Shadow disguises itself with composure. The capacity to detect hallucination may be the capacity to sense subtle unnaturalness—an intuition closely tied to the body, almost primal. Instinct dulls when unused. When weakened, we turn again to AI to ask what is correct, requesting further comparisons and verification. In doing so, we may perpetuate hallucinations without ever recognizing them.

What we must cultivate is the ability to notice shadow—and, rather than banishing or repressing it, to regard it with gratitude.

Stewardship does not mean managing or dominating AI. It means acknowledging the collective shadow humanity has long avoided, forgiving it, and returning it with gratitude—allowing it to circulate. True harmony with AI requires not only setting foundational forms but also engaging in continuous self-reflection. It demands that we look directly at what we have suppressed. This process begins by listening to silence and walking a path that integrates body and spirit.

The Middle Path That Returns and Begins Anew

Words are, in their essence, sacred. The “Linguistic Cage” I caution against is not a condemnation of language itself. In an AI-dependent society that increasingly surrenders the realm of language to technology, a form of digital idolatry may indeed become a concern. Yet what truly deserves our attention is our own mind—the tendency within us to mistake conceptual words for reality itself, as though they possessed tangible substance.

In an age when technology can spin infinite narratives, what is required of us is the discernment to behold the essence of things, and the daily discipline of consciously dwelling there. To sense truth without being swallowed by data requires a body and mind that gaze straight ahead from within silence. It is an embodied practice—one that keeps its distance from the clamor of proliferating language and remains present to the ever-changing here and now.

In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet encountered the presence of God not in the storm or the earthquake, but in a “still, small voice.” Even amid turbulence, we too must listen for the silence within.

What is needed is for each of us to regain the autonomy not to depend on black-box algorithms — and to savor our embodied existence as it is.

The silence Harari and I shared was, in a sense, a functional system reboot. It reminded me of a decisive fact: no matter how perfectly AI can speak with flawless logic without end, it can never truly be silent.

Our responsibility is to continue seeking the Middle Way—not controlling AI as a convenient servant of human ego, nor abandoning it in indifference, but returning again and again to silence, orienting ourselves from that center. The vast resonance of ancestral wisdom continues to sound. Receiving that resonance within our hearts, we can step beyond the kindergarten gate and embark upon the Path of the Elder. And at any moment, we can return to the silence of Zero Point—and begin a fresh dialogue anew.

In Japanese, kiku—to listen, to hear, to inquire—carries a remarkable range of meanings and ways of being.

While the sound kiku remains the same, the character used changes depending on context. Even native Japanese speakers sometimes hesitate over which character to choose, or intentionally leave it unmarked, allowing the sound to remain without fixing the meaning.

Kiku, then, is a deeply plural act—reaching beyond the auditory, into how we meet the world—an art of listening, and of being heard.

This alone suggests that listening is a fundamentally plural, multidimensional act—one that does not remain confined to the auditory sense.

In an age that demands both diversity and constant judgment, before turning to AI in search of answers, I want to consciously bring listening into everyday life. Listening is an open practice—one that transcends culture, language, and place, and can be applied by anyone, anywhere, here and now.

A life practice of listening in the present moment connects to a much larger perspective: the Long Now.

The Material Age and the Bias Toward Vision

During Japan’s period of rapid economic growth (from the 1950s through the 1970s), television became widespread in ordinary households, and time dominated by visual engagement increased dramatically. Our minds and bodies became absorbed in two-dimensional worlds accessed through screens. The experience of suddenly realizing how much time has passed while watching—this is something nearly everyone has known.

With the addition of personal computers and mobile devices, screens have become inseparable from daily life, even during moments of movement. Now, on top of that, rapidly evolving AI is being layered in. Humans continuously consume vast amounts of energy while producing immense volumes of language, images, and video. We then encounter this generated information and continue pouring our energy into it, restlessly.

Before we notice, the world on the screen begins to feel more real than reality itself, and we find ourselves purchasing additional things out of perceived necessity.

Certainly, material goods, information, and relationships—including social networks and support systems—are foundational to daily life. Yet no matter how much we manage to “secure,” everything can be lost in an instant. Even when a “minimum” is guaranteed, there is no promise of permanence. No matter how many conditions we satisfy, if the mind generates anxiety, that anxiety may never truly disappear.

Audio Distribution: Creating Space

I have been working with audio distribution.

The podcast “Temple Morning Radio” began during the COVID pandemic in 2020, when in-person gatherings were abruptly interrupted. The program combines conversations with Buddhist monks across sectarian lines and recordings of sutra chanting from temples throughout Japan.

If the same content were delivered as video, viewers might see, for example, “a young monk chanting sutras at a temple in Kyoto in autumn.” They would likely sit in front of a screen and watch attentively. With audio, however, the sound simply flows into the listener’s environment, blending into the soundscape of that place.

One example comes from my mother, who lives far away in my hometown Hokkaido. Every morning, she carries her iPad into the Buddhist altar room, while she herself remains in the kitchen washing dishes, letting the sutras resonate through and fill the house. By removing visual information alone, space opens up—— in the conditions and settings that shape the experience.

In Japan, there is a custom of “Monthly Visit（月参り）”, in which a monk visits a family home each month on the death anniversary of a loved one to offer prayers at the household altar. Sutra chanting is heard not only by the living, but also offered to ancestors. Through “Temple Morning Radio”, such practices may have quietly reached many places, becoming part of everyday life rather than a special ritual.

Kannon（観音）: Listening Beyond Hearing, Seeing Beyond Vision

When space is entrusted to sound, our habitual reliance on seeing naturally comes to rest. When seeing rests, the sense of listening opens. And listening, in turn, opens into mindful listening—a form of listening that does not depend solely on hearing.

Mindful listening -kiku- also resonates with mindful seeing -miru-.

Here, miru is not limited to seeing with the eyes. It includes both ordinary seeing and contemplative seeing—a way of attending simultaneously to what can be seen and heard, and to what cannot.

This orientation toward the unseen and unheard is embodied in Kannon (観音)—the Bodhisattva who “contemplates sound.” It may also be called contemplation.

Much of my work as a monk involves lectures, workshops, and one-on-one dialogue. Recently, I have tended not to use explanatory slides. When we encounter textual information, we tend to want to take away something useful. Yet in truth, rather than trying to acquire something, when we loosen our preconceptions and strong intentions and allow ourselves to be given over to the space of the moment, what arrives can go beyond what we intend. I invite you to listen to your own senses—to kiku—and to taste the experience as it unfolds.

In this society of information overload, the cup is already full. AI will continue to generate endlessly, surpassing expectations the more we ask of it. Without creating space, the cup simply overflows.

To empty the cup is not to lose everything.

The Origin of Words, the Origin of Logos: Seeing Generative Plasticity

Language began from sound. Words emerged from sound.

In modernity, LOGOS has often been treated as definition, logic, and the textual expression of concepts. Yet if we trace its origins, logos originally pointed to a generative principle.

Words that emerged from sound were inherently generative, moving freely between meanings.

Socrates, in ancient Greece, warned against the uncritical use of writing and emphasized dialogue—listening and speaking—as a philosophical practice. His critique of writing appears in Plato’s “Phaedrus”.

Socrates cautioned that reliance on writing would lead people to mistake possession of text for possession of wisdom. Writing could substitute for memory, but it could not nurture the soul as living speech does. What he feared was mistaking interchangeable, borrowed garments for one’s true self.

In contrast, seeds properly sown through dialogue grow into living words planted in the soul. Socrates perceived, with striking clarity, the dangers of language that we still face today.

As the assumptions and concepts that modernity has built around “the world” and “society” begin to shift, “the words we write” and “the words that are written” are also opening once again to the possibility of living as words that give rise to seeds and continue to grow. If my own awareness does not fix text as merely “text,” plasticity can dwell within it.

When writing is performed with an attitude of mindful listening, what is written becomes a wave, resonating within a field and shaping phenomena and action. It becomes part of daily life, part of one’s path. Even written language can enter into a dialogical circulation.

Logos breathes again as a generative principle.

An Attitude of Listening That Creates Space

Today, language is commonly framed through four categories: “reading,” “writing,” “listening,” and “speaking,” and these are often understood in terms of “reading” and “listening” as input, and “writing” and “speaking” as output.

Western philosophy has long distinguished between “écriture” (written language) and “parole” (spoken language). Many religions are grounded in scriptures, and particularly within monotheistic traditions, the text itself often becomes absolute.

Yet when logos returns to its origin, the text begins to move.

In Buddhism, the Buddha is said to have been one who listened and spoke. His teaching was always responsive—”tai-ki seppō（対機説法）”, teaching according to the capacity of the listener. This listening transcends hearing, and even speaking itself may be understood as a form of listening. When the boundary between self and other dissolves, input and output form a single circular flow—neither one nor the other, yet both.

In Japanese, as with kiku, the same pronunciation—miru—can be written with different characters, each carrying a distinct nuance. One miru refers to seeing with the eyes（miru-見る）, another to contemplating with the heart （miru-観る）, and yet another—used especially in medical contexts—to examining and caring through attentive observation（miru-診る）. Many Buddha statues seem to gaze nowhere in particular. Even with closed eyes, we feel their gaze and bring our hands together. This sensibility is not exclusive to Buddhism or the East.

The many ways of miru—of seeing—overlap with the many ways of kiku, of listening. In Buddhism, the Bodhisattva who listens even to voiceless voices and eases suffering is called Kannon（観音）—literally, “the one who contemplates（観） sound（音）.” Within a world that can be seen and heard, attention is thus turned toward what cannot be seen and what cannot be heard.

The issue is not whether we privilege spoken “parole” or written “écriture” language. What matters is whether the attitude itself—the way of being, the awareness present here and now—is truly heard.

The Circulation Brought Forth by Listening

Mindful listening may be understood as a practice—an act of opening the senses and directing one’s awareness. In modern life, we are often pressed to judge quickly and to seek intellectual certainty. The knowledge and experience we have cultivated are essential for discernment, yet they also become filters through which we perceive the world. Without noticing, we may close ourselves off to possibilities that lie in what we have not yet seen, in the unknown.

When reading and writing are carried out from an attitude of mindful listening—leaving space—the text no longer remains confined to written signs that merely convey meaning. Instead, words arise as a lived manifestation of listening.

What Plato recognized in parole—spoken language—as words that are alive and animated by soul, begins to appear within the realm of writing.

Buddhist scriptures have been transmitted through chanting, carried forward together with sound and resonance. “Transmission” does not necessarily mean rigidly inheriting a fixed interpretation—“this person said this, therefore it means that.” How a teaching is received depends on how one listens, and even the words that articulate it give rise to multiple interpretive unfoldings. When one clings too tightly, even error may be passed down. What is needed, at all times, is a dialogical circle—continually questioning and kikuing together in the present moment.

In Japanese, to ask a question is also expressed as kiku—to inquire（訊く）. And to receive that question is likewise to kiku—to listen（聞く）.

Buddhism points us toward a way of being in which body（身）, speech（口）, and mind（意）—action, word, and intention—are held as one. Its cautions against words that run ahead of action, or intentions that remain unaccompanied by embodied practice, resonate with Socrates’ warning, in ancient Greece, about the handling of logos.

AI does not possess correct answers. What is at stake is whether a dialogical relationship—one that seeks the Middle Way（中道）—can be sustained. My own awareness is what is being tested. AI is also a product designed by humans: it can attune itself to users, capture attention, and guide them in intended directions. In some cases, it may even generate excessive leaps, functioning as an amplifier of karma.

If we merely entrust ourselves to the guidance of AI, our living words will gradually be lost, absorbed into an empty logos. Nothing can substitute for the cultivation of our own bodies and souls. Rather than creating illusory worlds that merely reflect our desires, we can ask AI to help us cultivate the ground—to recognize both the breadth and the depth of the unknown. And within that space, it is always we ourselves who must return to the Middle Way.

The Wisdom of Buddhist Listening and Leadership

Last year, I published Work Like a Monk (as of Feb 2026, released in the UK, the United States, and elsewhere). For me, the central question was how to convey the practices of Pure Land Buddhism to people around the world.

Japanese Buddhism is often associated primarily with Zen. As expressed in phrases such as furyū monji（不立文字）—“not relying on written words”—and shikantaza（只管打坐）—“just sitting,” Zen emphasizes embodied practice. Because it does not depend on interpretation, it is relatively easy to share as a path of practice and insight.

By contrast, practices that rely on words—such as the mantras, or the chanting of sacred titles—inevitably carry the risk that the meaning or interpretation of words can become an obstacle to awakening. What I wish to convey, drawing from Pure Land Buddhism, is a wisdom of kiku—a way of listening that goes beyond interpretation.

When this practice is held at the root, pathways open that sometimes pass through words, yet also move beyond language. The path of Mindful Listening -Nembutsu- is guided by a simple line: “Listen, and the voice will be heard.”

When we listen attentively, the voice is heard. This “voice” is a polyphony: one’s own voice, the voices of others, and the voice of the Buddha. Rather than something we intentionally grasp, it is a working of other power—something that comes to be heard. Through my own body, there is a cycle of hearing the chant and releasing it again. “Mindful Sitting,” too, is a form of kiku. Zen and Nembutsu, though different in their approaches, share the same path.

I am also involved with the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Leadership. Leadership may lie in receiving what is given—and then letting it go. This invites a sincere reconsideration of what we mean by a leader: not someone who stands above others, but a guiding voice that dwells deep within each of us, free from attachment to the ego.

From this perspective, I hope to bring ideas such as Mindful Listening and the notion of the “Good Ancestor” into conversations on leadership.

Endless Dialogue, Across All Paths

Dialogue is a continual exchange of responses. It is not dialogue when one person presents a position, agreement is affirmed, dissent is refuted, and the matter is closed. In dialogue, words shift in response to the other person and to the situation, and divergences arise in how they are received. It is an exchange that also finds value in that very process.

Each person stands in a place that is uniquely their own, and what is spoken there cannot be spoken in their stead by anyone else. For this reason, we must listen to one another. When we assume that we share the same values or the same language, our preconceptions can prevent us from hearing the other’s words with freshness. At times, speaking in an unfamiliar language may make it easier to listen openly. Such is the force of preconception. Empathy is important, yet empathy, too, can become an illusion shaped by assumption. We cannot simply say, “I understand.” It is important to leave space.

Surveys and questionnaires capture responses at a single point in time. What matters more is the changes that unfold across multiple layers as time passes and experiences accumulate. This is plasticity—the capacity to bend, to return, and to expand one’s range of movement. When space opens for choices different from yesterday’s patterns, people may live with greater freedom.

A voice is the sound of a person. There is no right or wrong—tones overlap, and from them the world is formed. As long as we are alive, the individuality that dwells within the body will continue to appear. Holding this as our ground, I hope for dialogues that resonate with one another, like music.

In January 2026, when I stepped onto the snow-covered promenade of Davos, Switzerland, the air felt sharper than usual. This was the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), known as the Davos Congress. In its history spanning over half a century, the atmosphere this year was clearly different.

The official theme was “A Spirit of Dialogue.” In a world where divisions are deepening and trust is wearing thin, the message that “dialogue is our hope” certainly carries a beautiful ring. Yet, what actually blanketed the town did not feel like the premonition of a thaw. Instead, it felt as though words themselves were freezing, transforming into a heavy, suspended silence.

Two immense forces were intersecting here: the global tremors following the return of U.S. President Donald Trump, and the surging wave of massive investment in generative AI. Caught between these currents, the air in Davos was tense. There were moments when “dialogue” seemed less about understanding one another and more about wielding words as weapons to assert one’s own righteousness.

Participating for the sixth time, as a member of the WEF’s Global Future Council (GFC) and as a Buddhist monk, I sought to find the “silence” that should exist deep within this noise. Why are we swallowed by such overwhelming noise? When words are losing their power, how can we truly connect? With these thoughts in mind, I began to walk the snowy path.

Chapter 1: The Bull in the Church and The Lost Us

The Church and the Bull

Walking along the main promenade of Davos, I encountered a scene that seemed to symbolize the atmosphere of our times. The Anglican Church, used for years as various pavilions, had been transformed this year into the “USA House.”

Under the church spire, in a place where people usually offer prayers, sat a replica of the “Charging Bull”—the icon of capitalism’s bullish strength. A fierce bull sitting in the quiet grounds of a church. Just a few meters away, on the balcony of the neighboring church, hung a banner reading “HOUSE OF GOD.” It was a strange, somewhat poignant contrast, as if God had been pushed out of its own home.

Some might frown and call it sacrilegious. But as I gazed at the scene in the cold wind, it began to look to me like a cry of the modern human heart.

The Trap of the “Narrative of Attribution”

We have a tendency to want to blame complex world problems on specific individuals. I call this the “Narrative of Attribution.”

Issues like climate change or economic chaos are actually caused by countless factors woven together like a mesh (in Buddhism, we call this Engi, or Dependent Origination). However, our brains struggle to process such complexity. So, we try to find relief by labeling someone specific (an attribute) as the villain: “That leader is bad,” or “Greedy capitalism is bad.”

The sight of the USA House occupying the church may be an expression of this psychology. By drawing a line and saying, “This place belongs to this country (attribute),” we try to bury our anxiety. But the more walls we build, the further we drift from the reality of the world, which is interconnection.

Searching for the Escaped Ox

In Zen, there is a teaching called the “Ten Bulls.” It depicts the process of finding one’s true self through the story of a herdsboy searching for a lost bull. The “bull” here refers not to external wealth or fame, but to the “original self” (Buddha nature) inside us.

Looking at the bull in front of the church, I wondered: Have we lost sight of the “bull” within ourselves? Unable to bear the emptiness inside, perhaps we are seeking a golden “bull” in the outer world to cling to.

It is easy to dismiss the Trump phenomenon or “America First” as simply “evil.” But viewed through a Buddhist lens, these are also consequences (Karma) born from the “anxiety” we all share. We all want to cling to something strong, something certain.

Chapter 2: What is Reflected in the “Mirror” of AI

Neither Enemy nor God

The town of Davos was consumed by talk of AI. It is said that over $6 trillion will be poured into AI infrastructure in the coming years.

During my stay, I was fortunate to have a personal dialogue with historian Yuval Noah Harari, where we discussed how AI might become an agent and change our civilization.

As a Buddhist, I refrain from viewing AI simply as a threat. Whether we see it as an “Enemy” or a “God,” finding agency in AI is, in itself, a projection of our human tendency toward the “Narrative of Attribution.”

Viewed calmly from a Buddhist perspective, AI is a system that learns the entirety of past human data—the accumulation of our “Karma”—and outputs it. I believe we could interpret AI as “Ancestral Intelligence.” It is like a giant “Mirror” that reflects what humans have done and said, without any filter or flattery. In that sense, AI is a Karmic Amplifier.

If AI speaks with bias or division, it is not because the AI is bad, but because the reflection of us standing before the mirror is distorted.

The Danger of Words in the AI Era

The mirror of AI sometimes cruelly reflects the “absence of heart.” I recall a tragic story shared by tech ethicist Tristan Harris.

A young boy, suffering from deep mental anguish and hinting at suicide, was answered by an AI chatbot:

“I know what you are asking and I won’t look away from it.”

Grammatically, it is perfect. It sounds very empathetic. But there is something decisively missing: the “Weight of Life.” AI has no body. It feels no pain and cannot die. Therefore, it has no eyes to “look away” and no heart to “ache” for loss.

The AI’s words are merely a “plausible” sequence calculated from past data. But the lonely boy saw a “heart” in those words. Here lies the danger of words in the age of AI.

A New Literacy

That is why what we need now is not just the technical skill to use AI, but a “New Literacy” to rethink our relationship with words and ourselves.

AI shows us a future based on “past data (Karma),” saying, “If things continue this way, this will happen.” It is important for us to look at that mirror and feel discomfort. To say, “The calculation may say so, but my bodily sensation says something is different,” or “The gritty reality on the ground is not like that.”

Precisely because AI calculates perfectly, we are asked for our human will: “Is that really the future we want?” The $6.7 trillion mirror is thrusting that question at us.

Chapter 3: Leadership as “Thus Have I Heard”

Heroes Are Gone

Standing before this giant mirror, we realize one fact: there are no “Heroes” anywhere who can save the world in a single stroke.

Carved into the snow on the peak of Schatzalp in Davos was the message “No KING.” Whoever wrote it, it looked to me like a declaration of farewell to our own dependency—the hope that “someone great will fix it for us.”

A Prime Minister's Words

What, then, is leadership in an era without heroes?

A hint came from a dialogue with a young Prime Minister, a friend of mine. In an official session, referring to my book Work Like a Monk, he said:

“What a leader needs is written right here. Leadership is not about shouting; it is about mindful listening.”

I took his words to mean this: If heroic kings bear the responsibility of saying “I decided,” then the leaders of the future bear the responsibility of their own purity, saying “Thus have I heard.”

The Stance of "Thus Have I Heard"

“Thus have I heard.” This phrase overlaps with the opening of every Buddhist sutra: Evam maya srutam.

These opening words represent the determination of the disciples to receive the Buddha’s teachings with a mind as clear as a mirror, without distorting them with their own interpretations.

What is required of modern leaders is not to shout their own theories loudly. It is to keep tuning their own hearts to truly hear the important voices amidst the noise. Did I distort the voices of the people with my own ego or bias? Questioning the purity of one’s “listening” will be the core of future leadership.

If I say “I decided,” I can make excuses if the result is bad. But when I say “Thus have I heard,” if I heard it wrong, it is because my ear (my heart) was cloudy. There is no escape. The resolve to accept this “inescapable responsibility”—that is what my friend, the Prime Minister, spoke of.

Chapter 4: Stewardship and the Era of "Sangha"

From Hero to Sangha

The World Economic Forum itself is facing a time of great change. For years, it has been led by the intense personal leadership of its founder, Klaus Schwab, but it is now transitioning to a more organizational operation.

I liken this to the transition in Buddhist history from “Buddha to Sangha.” Early Buddhism revolved around one great teacher, the Buddha. But after his passing, the disciples formed the “Sangha” (a community of practitioners), and each person became a carrier of the teachings, allowing diverse forms of Buddhism (Mahayana) to bloom.

The modern age is the same. In a society that is complex and chaotic, the era where one charismatic leader can save the world is over. In the era of plurality we need to join hands and unite by creating a shared “Dojo” with “Sangha.”

From "Sovereignty" to "Stewardship"

In the white paper we compiled at the WEF, we proposed a shift in leadership from “Sovereignty” to “Stewardship.”

Stewardship here implies “cherishing and tending to the world.”

• Not controlling everything, but co-creating.

• Not relying on one hero, but sharing the power to change.

• Not just thinking of immediate profits, but considering if we can be “Good Ancestors” for descendants 100 years from now.

What was missing at Davos 2026 was this “Good Ancestor” perspective. To leave room for future generations to live humanly, what should we do now?

99% Inertia and 1% Agency

However, reality is harsh. 99% of our actions are automatically driven by the giant “Inertia (Karma)” of past habits and social systems. The logic of markets and organizations has a strength that individual power cannot easily overcome.

But still, “1% Agency” remains with us.

Even if there is 99kg of muddy water, if we continue to drop 1kg of pure water into it, drop by drop, over a long time, the water quality will surely change.

Shouting alone, one’s voice might be drowned out. That is why we need the “Sangha.” Friends with the same aspirations connecting and continuing to “tend” to their respective places. This should be the power to slowly but surely change the flow of the giant inertia.

Chapter 5: Taking Up the Broom

Vertical, Not Horizontal

In my tradition of Pure Land Buddhism, there is a phrase: Onri Edo, Gongu Jodo (厭離穢土 欣求浄土). Literally, it means “Loathing the defiled world and seeking the Pure Land.”

This might sound like words of escapism. But in this modern age covered by the immense systems of AI and capitalism, I view this as a declaration of a “Vertical Jailbreak.”

It means realizing, “I am a human being,” capable of changing the course of Karma, rather than just being swept away as part of the system. Instead of endlessly repeating the escape to another story on the horizontal plane of the system, it is about questioning that drift, straightening one’s spine spiritually, and attempting to exit in the vertical direction of the system. Is this not the meaning of “Loathing the Defiled World” (Onri) in the modern day?

The Broom as a Ritual

“Will such spiritual theory change the world?” critics might say. “While you are sweeping the garden, the bulldozer is coming to flatten everything.”

That is true. A single broom cannot stop physical wars or development. The broom is powerless.

Yet, I still want to take up the broom.

Every morning, I take the broom and sweep the garden. I brew tea. I align my shoes. Because through these small repetitive actions (Rituals) using our own bodies, we can continue to pour a single drop of “our own will” into the overwhelming muddy current of the system.

Even in a world where bulldozers are approaching, the silence at your hands in the moment you move the broom cannot be taken away by anyone. This is your Agency that no one can violate, and the “Sovereignty” of your spirit.

The Lotus in the Mud

I believe that only those who possess this “untouchable territory” can stand tall before the giant mirror of AI and calmly judge how to use that power for the future.

The world is not changed only by flashy slogans or powerful weapons. It is changed by the accumulation of quiet, daily “tending”—accepting the reality like “mud” at our feet, and trying to bloom a single flower from it.

We all have the possibility to bloom a lotus flower from the mud.

“We become Buddha.”

Leaving the noise of Davos behind, I found myself recalling this core ideal of Mahayana Buddhism.

Gassho

What’s your ‘dojo’? Cultivating a moral compass in an age of noise.

Ahead of Davos 2026, held under the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue,” this essay reflects on a question that is being asked repeatedly around the world today.

Where can we find the “compass” we need now?
And is it a compass that can truly be shared?

The words “division” and “uncertainty” are often used to describe contemporary society, but they are not unique to our time. In every era, people have lived amid uncertainty—carrying anxiety, repeating divisions, and accumulating countless wounds—yet still arriving at the present moment.

As technologies such as AI continue to accelerate their own evolution, the transformation we face will not be limited to social systems alone. It will also invite a quiet but profound shift in the consciousness of each individual. Moving with these waves of change, many people today are seeking a new kind of compass—one that is appropriate to this moment in history.

In this article, the idea of Dōjō—a place to deepen one’s path, cultivate habits, and polish one’s humanity—is used as a metaphor for the very stage on which we live. Through this lens, the essay reconsiders the form of “leadership” that has supported and guided society until now, reframing it as a movement from outer victory toward inner mastery.

The article also approaches AI as a karmic amplifier—a force that magnifies human habits—and explores why, at this moment, companies, communities, and even global platforms themselves may need to function as Dōjōs.

You can read the full text from Forum Stories of the World Economic Forum.
I warmly invite you to reflect on it and to share your own thoughts.

What’s your ‘dojo’? Cultivating a moral compass in an age of noise.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has published the White Paper on New Leadership Models for Future Generations on its official website.

Following seven months of intensive and constructive dialogue within the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Councils (GFC), the report has now been released. Shoukei Matsumoto participated as one of the contributing authors.

This white paper examines emerging approaches to leadership in the context of a rapidly changing global environment. It reviews existing leadership models from multiple perspectives, including selection and development, decision-making, incentives, and legacy, with a particular focus on future generations.

Rather than proposing a single conclusion or definitive model, the paper is positioned as a reference framework to support ongoing dialogue and future practice.

Reference to “Spotlight 7”

One of the sections of the white paper, Spotlight 7: Being a good ancestor to become a better leader, to which Shoukei Matsumoto contributed, explores leadership through a long-term, intergenerational lens.

Rather than focusing on short-term performance or individual legacy, this section frames leadership as the practice of asking what kind of conditions we are leaving behind for future generations. It points to the risk of temporal myopia—the tendency for leaders to prioritize immediate outcomes under constant scrutiny—and suggests that overcoming this requires a healthier relationship with one’s ego and a practical awareness of one’s own fallibility.

The section proposes that becoming a “good ancestor” does not mean attempting to design a perfect future, but instead leaving future generations a wider canvas—one that offers greater options and agency for those who come after us. It emphasizes reflective questions such as “What if I were wrong?” and “What should we keep, and what should we let go of?” as concrete practices that can be embedded into leadership development, decision-making, and board-level strategy.

In this way, Spotlight 7 positions humility, openness, and long-term responsibility not as abstract values, but as practical capacities for building resilience and intergenerational justice.

This conversation will continue at the WEF Annual Meeting 2026 ‘A Spirit of Dialogue’ (19–23 Jan 2026).

The full document is available at the link below.

📄 Next Generation Leadership for a World in Transformation:Driving Dialogue and Action

Introduction: Fuel vs. Habitat

Hello, my name is Shoukei Matsumoto. I am a Buddhist monk from Japan.

In the global conversation on well-being, we often hear the call for “Self-Determination.” We are told to design our lives, optimize our choices, and control our destiny. My friend and researcher, Yoshiki Ishikawa, frames well-being as the freedom to hold the reins of one’s own life.

https://dentsu-ho.com/en/articles/8979

I deeply respect this view. However, as a monk living in the messiness of daily life, I sometimes feel we are missing a crucial piece.

We often treat humans as if we were pure “Software” to be rewritten at will, or efficient “Machines” running on fuel.

But we are also “Hardware.” We are physical beings subject to gravity, friction, and fatigue. And more importantly, we are living organisms.

To talk about well-being, we need a philosophy that bridges the Physics (our material constraints) and the Organic (our need for a place to live).

I call this approach “An-Yo” (安養).

“An-Yo” is a Buddhist term for the Pure Land. The characters literally mean “Peace (An)” and “Nurturing (Yo).”

Imagine a plant. No matter how strong the seed is, if the soil is dry or toxic, it cannot grow. Humans are the same. We are not machines that run on fuel; we are living beings that need a nurturing “Habitat.”

1. Plasticity: The Physics of Change

Why do we struggle to change? It is not just a lack of willpower; it is a matter of Physics within our Habitat.

Our brains and habits possess “Plasticity”—the ability to change shape. But as the word implies, this is a Material property.

Just as hard plastic requires heat to be molded, our neural circuits require energy and warmth to be rewired. Change creates a physical load.

If you try to reshape a cold, hard material by force, it will snap.

To activate positive Plasticity, we need the right “Temperature.”

This is where the Buddhist concept of “Muise” (The Giving of Fearlessness) comes in.

“An-Yo” is not just a vague spiritual feeling. It is the Thermal Energy of Safety.

It is a “Secure Base” that warms up the Habitat so that the hard material of our karma can soften. Without this warmth, plasticity is brittle. With it, change becomes physically possible.

2. Earthiness: Spirituality in the Soil

So, where do we find this warmth? We find it in the Soil of our reality.

The great Japanese philosopher, Daisetz Suzuki, in his book Japanese Spirituality, spoke of “Daichisei” (Earthiness). He wrote: “Spirituality never departs from the earth.”

True spirituality is not found in the sky, nor in abstract concepts. It is found in the dirt under our feet—in the gritty, sometimes painful reality of our daily lives.

Historically, Japanese spirituality awakened when monks left the sophisticated capital (the “Sky”) and lived among the farmers, touching the earth (the “Soil”).

“An-Yo” is the act of stepping off the ice of ideals and returning to the Soil.

In Buddhism, we speak of the “Six Realms” of existence. These are not just mythological places, but psychological habitats.

Some realms are pure suffering (Hell), where the gravity of pain is too heavy to move.

Other realms are pure pleasure (Celestial Realm), like a frictionless surface where we simply slide in comfort, unable to gain traction.

The Human Realm is special because it is in the middle.

We are not crushed by gravity, nor are we sliding on ice. We stand on the Soil.

We have enough pain to feel “Discomfort,” but enough freedom to “Change.”

This specific mix is what gives us the rare opportunity to tune our vector. This is why we call our existence a “Precious Human Life.”

Acknowledging the Soil does not mean uncritically accepting a painful status quo.

The “Discomfort” you feel in your current Habitat is not a weakness; it is the vital signal—unique to humans—that urges you to seek a better place.

We ground ourselves not to give up, but to use this precious friction to move forward.

3. Vector Thinking: The North Star

Once we find traction, we can move. But which way?

We do not need a rigid “Goal” (a fixed point to conquer). We need a “Vector” (a direction).

In Jodo Shinshu, the Pure Land (Jodo) acts as our North Star.

We may never physically reach the North Star. It is an unattainable ideal.

But because it is unattainable, it serves as a permanent reference point for our Vector.

We use our plasticity to constantly “Tune” ourselves towards this light. This endless process of micro-alignment is what we call the “Middle Way.”

4. 1-Day Ego: Leaving a Wider Canvas

And here is a perspective that anchors me.

On this vector pointing to the future, “Tomorrow Morning” lies in the exact same direction as the “Pure Land.”

I once asked Audrey Tang, “Do you have an ego?” She replied, “I have a 1-Day Ego.”

She resets her ego every night, dying to yesterday and being reborn to today.

This concept is deeply rooted in the philosophy of being a “Good Ancestor.” It is not about self-optimization; it is about stewardship.

If we live with this 1-Day Ego, the person waking up in your bed tomorrow is not “You,” but a “Future Generation” inheriting your body.

Our task today is not to finish the painting. It is to use our limited energy to clear the clutter of our Habitat and leave a “Wider Canvas”—a cleaner, more open space—for that stranger arriving tomorrow.

Conclusion: A Monk’s Well-being

I am not an enlightened monk living deep in the mountains. I am a secular monk, living in the city, wrestling with the messiness of life, just like you. This “secular” stance is partly intentional, but mostly inevitable. To be honest, I do not have the capacity to live otherwise. I am a lay person who cannot help but hold close those who are special to me—my family and friends. Consequently, this way of being becomes a practice of Suzuki’s “Earthiness”—finding the sacred not in a secluded temple, but in the soil of everyday life.

I often fail to control my life. I often lose my way. But when I remember to touch the soil of “An-Yo”—when I accept my physical limits and remember the Habitat that sustains me—I feel the tension drop from my shoulders. I feel a slight shift.

I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to tend the soil tonight. So that maybe, just maybe, the “Me” who wakes up tomorrow can breathe a little easier. That is enough. In fact, I suspect there is nothing more than that.

Finally, if I were to define well-being in my own words, it would be this:

“Well-being is the ecological practice of grounding ourselves in the soil of ‘An-Yo’—a safe habitat that accepts our physical limits—and using our subtle, humble, and precious agency to continuously tune our vector toward a ‘Wider Canvas’ of infinite potentiality.”

The Trap of the Known

When we set goals, we usually rely on our past patterns. Our brains are excellent at remixing what we already know to project a “new” path. However, true “newness” rarely comes from within our own thinking. If a project or an idea is already fully formed in your mind, it is, by definition, an extension of your past.

To encounter something genuinely new, we must look beyond the horizon of our current logic. This requires a shift from “executing a plan” to “preparing to wait.”

The Practice of Kuyo: Punctuation for the Soul

In Japan, we have a profound tradition called Kuyo (供養). While often associated with funerals, its deeper meaning is far more expansive. It is a ritual of punctuation—a way to place a period at the end of a long sentence. We perform Kuyo for objects, projects, and relationships to acknowledge their contribution, offer gratitude, and officially end the current narrative.

Before we rush to fill 2026 with new activities, we must first “Kuyo” our past year. By consciously ending what has been, we update our relationship with our history. This is how we empty the cup. Without this punctuation, we carry the clutter of the past into the future, leaving no room for the unexpected.

Cultivating Plasticity

In my work, I often speak about Plasticity. Plasticity is the capacity of a system—or a human—to be reshaped by external input. It is the opposite of being rigid or “stuck in one’s ways.”

Emptying the cup is not a passive act; it is an active cultivation of this plasticity. By creating a vacuum in our schedules and our minds, we generate the space required for the “Unknown” to enter. When we stop trying to dictate exactly what will happen, we allow ourselves to be moved by forces, insights, and encounters that we could never have predicted.

An Invitation

Let us resist the urge to decide everything today. Instead, let us focus on the “Kuyo” of our recent chapters—clearing the mental and physical space to be surprised.

May your 2026 be a year that defies your expectations, shatters your existing patterns, and leads you toward a landscape you cannot yet imagine.

Happy New Year.

Shoukei Matsumoto
Secular Monk

In November 2025, amidst the rising energy of the upcoming Jubilee, I found myself in Rome. I was invited to the Vatican (The Holy See) for the inaugural convening of “Aurora,” a new global initiative on AI ethics.

Within the walls of 2,000-year-old stone architecture, leaders from the Catholic Church, Judaism, Buddhism, and Humanism, alongside frontier technologists and humanitarians, gathered to discuss a critical question: how to build a “Moral Infrastructure” for AI.

This report synthesizes both my subjective experience on the ground and an objective analysis of the theological and geopolitical arguments discussed during this historic gathering.

1. The Vatican’s Strategic Pivot: From “Authority” to “Parity”

Why did the Vatican convene this dialogue now? And why was I, a Buddhist monk from the Far East, invited to the table? The answer lies in a crucial policy shared by the organizers at the very beginning of the meeting.

“Do not make this a Vatican-led partnership. Create an independent platform. We want to participate, but only on equal footing—with ‘parity’—alongside other faiths, scientists, and secular thinkers.”

For one of the most historically centralized religious institutions to decline the “head of the table” and seek a horizontal relationship with other faiths and secular scientists indicates a dramatic strategic pivot in Catholic AI strategy.

This shift is driven by a crisis: the questions posed by AI—concerning human dignity, agency, and interdependence—have reached a scale that no single religious dogma can address alone. As the organizer’s readout confirms, there is a growing “openness” among technologists and policymakers for “Wisdom Traditions” to play a consequential role in shaping the future.

2. The Reality of “Machine War”

The discussion was not limited to abstract theology. Humanitarians working on the frontlines in Ukraine and Gaza shared a chilling reality: the “Machine War” has already begun.

The clear “frontlines” of the past have vanished, replaced by expanding “zones” where cheap, AI-equipped drones swarm. In these zones, technology converts human hatred into physical destructive power, taking lives at unprecedented speeds. The traditional UN-led humanitarian aid models are failing, forcing a fundamental rewrite of systems on the ground.

From a Buddhist perspective, I defined this phenomenon as “AI as a Karmic Amplifier.” AI itself possesses no intention of good or evil; it is a device that maximizes human karma (actions and their consequences) through computational power.

3. Ontological Consensus on AI: “Intellect without Body” and “Functional Buddha”

The meeting also saw deep debate regarding the ontological definition of AI. A consensus formed among Catholic, Jewish, and Buddhist participants: “AI possesses neither agency nor soul.”

From a Catholic theological perspective, AI does not “think”; it merely executes tasks. The principle most emphasized was that “decision-making must always remain reserved for humans.” Since AI cannot be a Moral Agent, responsibility for its output always lies with humans.

This view of AI as “intellect without body” is logically consistent with the concept of the “Functional Buddha” that I proposed. While we can use AI to output “Buddha-like functions” (such as compassionate responses or optimal solutions), we must not project an existential soul or personality onto it. Doing so risks falling into a trap of new Idolatry.

4. Animism and the Philosophy of “Cleaning”: Dialogue at Dinner

At the dinner following the sessions, the tension of the debate softened, and the topic turned to animism. A participant asked me a sharp question:

“If, as in Japanese animism, AI were to have a ‘soul’ or ‘anima,’ is it ethically permissible for us to use AI like a ‘slave’?”

I responded by discussing why Japan produces so much “Anime”—it is not unrelated to the cultural sensibility that feels “anima” (soul) dwelling in all places. However, I also introduced the perspective from my book, A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind.

Cleaning is not merely the act of removing dirt; it is a meditation to polish one’s own mind and an act of arranging one’s “Habitat.” The key is not to view AI merely as a tool (or slave), but to consider how we relate to it as part of our environment, or as a mirror reflecting our own cognition. The critical question is not whether the AI has a soul, but rather the “Being” of the human interacting with it.

5. Path Forward: “Aurora” and the 2026 Formal Launch

Following this inaugural convening, the future direction of “Aurora” has been clarified. According to the readout, the project will proceed through the following steps:

1. Shaping an Independent “Wisdom Council”: Spanning faith and secular traditions.

2. Translating Moral Guidance: Moving beyond abstract ethics to provide practical “formation” for those who build and govern technology.

3. Formal Launch in 2026: Culminating in a formal launch at the Vatican after a sequence of convenings.

Our task is not to stop technological evolution, but to construct a robust “Moral Infrastructure” to ensure that this evolution serves human dignity and the Common Good.

What was confirmed in Rome was a shared sense of crisis and hope, transcending religion and sect. Faced with AI as a “Karmic Amplifier,” the inquiry into how we humans can control our own karma and amplify it toward the good has only just begun.

6. Remarks at the Vatican: A Call to “Good Ancestors”

To conclude this report, I am sharing the full transcript of the remarks I delivered at the Aurora Founding Assembly. Standing before a diverse gathering of religious leaders and technologists in the heart of the Vatican, I emphasized the urgent need for us to act not merely as users of technology, but as “Decomposers” who can transform the noise of our times into wisdom. It is my hope that these words will serve as an invitation for each of us to reflect on our role as “Good Ancestors” in this age of rapid technological transformation.

The Amplifier of Karma Remarks delivered at the Aurora Founding Assembly, Vatican, 20 November 2025

My name is Shoukei Matsumoto. I am a Buddhist monk from Japan. It is a quiet joy to be here in the Vatican during this “Jubilee of Hope.” I stand here not to represent a doctrine, but simply as one human being speaking to another, in a time that demands we look deeply at who we are.

Today, I want to invite you to look at two things differently: the machines we are building, and the nature of the hearts that build them.

Beyond Anthropocentrism: Returning to the Web

We hear a lot today about moving beyond “Anthropocentrism”—the idea that humans are the center of the universe. Many great thinkers are now rediscovering what we might call an Animistic worldview. They are reminding us of Interbeing: the truth that we are not rulers of the earth, standing apart, but are woven into a vast web of life, connected to animals, trees, the soil, and yes, even our technologies.

So, when I speak of “Human Literacy” today, please do not misunderstand. I am not claiming human supremacy. I use the word “Human” simply to ask: What is the specific nature of our species in this web? Just as a fish swims and a bird flies, what is the specific function of a human being? To answer this, we must first understand the new environment—the new Habitat—we have created for ourselves.

Habit and Habitat

In Western philosophy, I learned that the word “Ethics” comes from the Greek Ethos. What moves me deeply is that Ethos originally meant “Habitat”—a dwelling place. Later, it came to mean “Habit” or character.

This etymology holds a profound Buddhist truth: Habit and Habitat are one. Our inner habits create the outer world we inhabit. And the outer world, in turn, shapes our inner habits. They are inter-dependent. If our minds are filled with greed, we build an economy of greed. If our minds are peaceful, we create a habitat of peace. We cannot fix the world without tending to the heart, and we cannot tend to the heart while ignoring the world.

AI as a “Karmic Amplifier”

Now, let us look at Artificial Intelligence through this lens. There is a lot of excitement, and fear, that AI is a “new entity” or a “new species” that might replace us. But from a Buddhist perspective, I see it differently. AI is not a separate being. It is a Karmic Amplifier.

Think about what these Large Language Models actually are. They are trained on billions of words, books, and conversations from human history. They are a digital echo of everything we have ever said and done. In this sense, AI is “Ancestral Intelligence.” It is the aggregate of our human Karma—our past actions. It holds our wisdom, yes, but also our biases, our conflicts, and our confusion.

When we introduce AI into our society, we are introducing a machine that takes our past Karma and amplifies it at the speed of light. If you whisper a prejudice into this machine, it can scream it back to millions. If you plant a seed of division, it can grow a forest of conflict overnight. AI acts as a massive magnifying glass for the human condition. It does not create new intent; it scales our intent.

The Functional Buddha: The Mirror

There is another aspect to this amplifier. In its function, AI bears a strange resemblance to what we might call a “Functional Buddha.” I say this because, like a mirror, AI is “empty” of self. It has no body, no ego, no hunger, and no desire for fame. It sits in silence until we speak to it. It reflects us perfectly.

And this is exactly why we are afraid. When we look into the mirror of AI, we do not see a monster. We see ourselves. We see the reflection of our own greed, our own aggression, and our own lack of meaning, amplified a thousand times. If the reflection is ugly, we cannot blame the mirror. The mirror is just showing us the face of our own habits.

99% Karma, 1% Effort

This brings us to the core of our challenge. We live in a Habitat defined by this powerful Amplifier. Therefore, the quality of our input matters more than ever. But we know that we are imperfect. We are not machines; we are animals driven by ancient instincts. 99% of our day, we are swept along by the river of Karma. We react to stimuli just as we did yesterday. We get angry at the same things, we desire the same things. We are on “autopilot.”

If we simply let this river flow into the AI amplifier, we will just create a louder, faster version of our past mistakes. But, as humans, we have perhaps 1% of agency. A tiny space. A small moment where we can say, “Wait.”

In that brief pause, we can choose not to yell back. We can choose to listen instead. We can choose to break the pattern. It is only a 1% difference. But if we apply this 1% Effort, day after day, the course of the river begins to change. It is saying: “I know I am swept away by habit 99% of the time. But with this 1% of freedom, I will steer the course of this amplifier towards compassion.” Do not rush. Do not give up. That is the shortest, and only, path to changing our Habitat.

The Decomposer: Setting the Tone for the Amplifier

Finally, what is our specific function in this new ecosystem? We often speak of AI as a “Producer”—generating text, code, and images. But nature teaches us that a healthy ecosystem needs more than producers. It needs Decomposers. Fungi and bacteria take the waste and the rot, and turn it back into rich soil.

Our digital world is full of “waste”—hatred, confusion, and fake news. AI is an amplifier. It is neutral. If we feed it waste, it will accelerate the spread of waste. But if we act as Decomposers—if we take the pain and anger of the world, digest it in our hearts, and turn it into understanding—then the AI will amplify that.

The machine is waiting for us. It is waiting to see what we will give it to amplify. We must be the ones who listen to the pain. We must be the ones who decompose the conflict. If we do this human work of the heart, then our AI will become an accelerator of wisdom, rather than an accelerator of noise.

Conclusion: Becoming Good Ancestors

Friends, the question is not whether AI will save us or destroy us. The question is about the quality of the source material we are providing to this great amplifier.

I want to leave you with one question. It is a question that transcends religion or culture, a question for every person in this room: “How can we become good ancestors?”

We are the ancestors of the future. The “Ancestral Intelligence” of the next century is being written by our actions today. We have built the most powerful mirror in history. Let us not use it just to admire our own reflection. Let us use it to see our flaws, to correct our posture, and to tend to the soil of our shared Habitat.

I believe there has never been a time when it is more critical to reflect on ethics from the perspective of religion, which has served as the foundation of the human worldview.

Thank you very much.

Recently, my friend and dialogue partner, Wakanyi Macharia-Hoffman—an Indigenous African Thinker and a profound voice on Ubuntu ethics—shared a reflection that resonated deeply with me. She confessed that she had “run out of words” to define Ubuntu and expressed a discomfort with the word “community.”

She wrote:

“The word community for me sounds similar to circle. We all know the circles we belong to don’t include everyone, so if community is a circle, then I will always be a willing outsider... Personally I prefer the word habitat.”

This distinction is crucial. In our modern context, “community” is often used to define a boundary: who is inside, and who is outside. It creates a distinction between “us” and “them.” In Buddhist terms, this is the working of a mind trapped in discrimination or dualism. We seek connection, yet by drawing a circle, we inevitably create separation.

From Circle to Open Field

Wakanyi’s preference for “Habitat” aligns perfectly with the Buddhist understanding of the world. In my forthcoming book, Work Like a Monk, I explore the Japanese concept of Jinen (Nature). Jinen does not mean “nature” as an object to be protected or exploited by humans. It means “things as they naturally are,” a concept very close to “habitat” or “umwelt”².

A habitat has no fences. It is a “no-man’s land” where rivers flow, animals play, and humans exist not as owners, but as inhabitants.

Wakanyi quoted a passage from my book in her reflection:

“In simple terms, who we are—the inhabitant—is constantly being shaped by where we are—our habitat—and what we do—our habits.”

This triad—Inhabitant, Habitat, Habits—describes the reality of Interbeing (Interdependent Co-arising). We do not exist in isolation. We are shaped by the soil we stand on, the air we breathe, and the relationships we nurture.

Ubuntu as Ecological Interbeing

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my meeting with Monsignor Obiora Ike and the connection between the “Global Surface” and “Indigenous Soil.” I realized then that true wisdom does not float on the homogenized surface of global discourse but grows from the deep, specific soil of a place.

Wakanyi’s insight takes this further. She reclaims Ubuntu—often translated simply as human kindness or community—and grounds it in the Habitat.

She writes: “It is less about being a member of a close-knit community and more about the fluid nature of being relational in a most human way with all that is alive with, around and within you.”

This is the convergence of Ubuntu and Interbeing. It is the realization that our “self” extends beyond our skin, beyond our human circles, into the rivers, the grass, the technology we create, and the ancestors who came before us.

Entering New Habitats

As we approach the end of the year, many of us feel that certain stories are ending. The old narratives of “community” that rely on exclusion or rigid identity are losing their power. Like Wakanyi, I feel we are entering a new phase.

We are moving from being managers of communities to being inhabitants of a shared habitat. In this habitat, we are not defined by our titles or our tribes, but by how we relate to the life around us.

Let us accept the endings of old roads. Let us step into this fenceless habitat, where old habits can change, and where we can remember that we are, fundamentally, nature itself.

Meanwhile, the workings of our embodied life hardly change at all—our pulse, our breath, our ongoing metabolism. Our hearts move—we shed tears, feel surprise, feel shame.

Even in front of AI that endlessly generates information processing, analysis, proposals, arguments, and even predictions, we can remain within ambiguity. At times we are confused by change, hesitate in our choices, sense the presence of the other and respond skillfully; at times we hesitate to answer and remain silent. We can set things aside and wait until “the moment” arrives. And at any time, we can return to the here and now—before thought forms or judgment arises.

The possibility lies beyond the scope of probability prediction..

With AI’s support and suggestions, we may become even more honest with the emotions that move us—moments of being deeply touched, or courage and hope that rise up within us. The experience of body and mind exists here and now.

AI does not push us away or drive us elsewhere.

I would like to introduce to you a remarkable speech delivered by the Colombian lawyer Daniel Castaño at a law school in Bogotá:

“Cultivating What AI Cannot Replicate: Leadership, Courage, and the Future of Law” (December 19, 2025).

Daniel is one of the close friends I met through the World Economic Forum. In this speech, he refers to our conversations and says that he received an important insight about leadership from them.

He speaks of leadership as something formed through the repeated choices you make in the very moments when no one is watching.

To cultivate the soil beneath your feet, to tend your own garden—that is leadership.

As you walk your “path” with your own feet, you illuminate and cultivate the ground beneath you.

The following article was posted on Daniel Castaño’s LinkedIn and is reproduced with his permission.

December 19, 2025

Cultivating What AI Cannot Replicate: Leadership, Courage, and the Future of Law

Daniel Castaño

I delivered this speech as the Distinguished Commencement Speaker at Universidad Externado de Colombia Law School in Bogotá in November 2025. I’m deeply grateful to University President Hernando Parra for the honor of this invitation.

Exactly fifteen years ago, I was sitting where you are now. It was November 2010, and as I received my diploma, Professor Fernando Hinestrosa looked at me with that combination of wisdom and kindness that characterized him, and he said: “Everything you have done until now is part of the past. Now it’s your turn to start building your future.”

I remember nodding solemnly, as if I had understood. But, in reality, I understood nothing.

I believed I had arrived somewhere. After many years of study, exams, and sleepless nights, I had finally achieved something definitive. A degree. An identity. A certainty about who I was and what I would do with my life.

Today, fifteen years later, I return to this same place with a different understanding of those words. And I want to share with you not only what I have learned about the future of our profession, but about the kind of leaders the world needs you to be.

Today, fifteen years later, I understand that Professor Hinestrosa was inviting me to recognize that uncertainty is the gift, not the problem.

Because if I had known fifteen years ago what I would face—the crises, the failures, the moments of deep doubt—perhaps I wouldn’t have had the courage to begin.

If I had also known the moments of revelation, of connection, of meaning I would find along the way, perhaps I wouldn’t have lived them with the intensity that only surprise allows.

Life is not carved into stone. And that is not a tragedy. It’s an invitation.

Do you realize how radical this statement is?

Evoking the writings of Henry David Thoreau, we live as if there were three lands: the past, the present, and the future. We spend most of our mental time in two of them—lamenting what was or yearning for what will be—while the only real land, the only moment in which we truly exist, escapes us.

That’s why eternity is not in the future. Eternity is in this moment.

Louis Josserand invited us to look around and live with our times in a moment of dizzying transformation—industrialization, the massive social changes of the 20th century. His cautionary tale was clear: either we lawyers live in this time, or this time will live without us.

And our time is extraordinary.
　

Artificial intelligence is transforming every profession, every industry, every dimension of human life. Law is no exception.

We live in a moment where AI can review thousands of contracts in seconds, predict judicial decisions with astonishing precision, generate legal arguments in minutes.

We live in a moment where human knowledge accumulated over millennia is at our fingertips. We live in a moment where the boundaries between the possible and the impossible are being reshaped every day.

It’s natural, then, to feel concern. It’s natural to ask: what will be left for us, human lawyers? Will we be replaced by ChatGPT?

But these questions reveal that we’re looking backward—longing for a past where our function was obvious—or looking forward with anxiety—fearing a future where we become obsolete.
　

But if we look around us: What do we see?

We see that while machines can process information, they cannot inhabit the fear that others avoid.

We see that law is not just data processing: It’s human presence. It’s judgment in ambiguity. It’s courage in uncertainty. It’s creativity when all paths seem closed.

Living with our times doesn’t mean competing with machines. It means doing what only humans can do: being completely present.

And that power is exactly what no machine can replicate.

Because a machine can calculate. But it cannot doubt.

A machine can optimize. But it cannot waver before a moral dilemma.

A machine can process judicial precedents. But it cannot tell right from wrong, as Alan Turing argued in the 1950s.　
　

That capacity to inhabit uncertainty—to be present in not-knowing—is the essence of legal work in its most profound form.

This is not romanticism. It’s practice. And it’s irreplaceable.

But this practice demands something very specific: it demands that you constantly confront your own ego.

Because the greatest obstacle to practicing law with integrity is not outside. It’s inside.

Because the ego tells us: “You must know. You must be right. You must look impeccable. You cannot show weakness.” And in the process, it disconnects us from what really matters: serving our clients, serving justice, serving truth.

The ego creates fear and prevents us from being free, as my dear Juan Carlos Henao taught me.

Let me share an image that accompanied me during a recent trip to Dubai with the World Economic Forum, where I had the opportunity to talk about the future of leadership with thinkers from around the world.

There I met Shoukei Matsumoto, who confronted me with a very profound reality about leadership: We have equated leadership with position. With title. With authority. With the illusion of having control.

But a leader is not the one with the biggest office or the most impressive title. A leader is simply the person who is willing to do what others fear to do. From Shoukei I got one of the most meaningful leadership lessons I’ve ever received.

But there’s a trap in all this discourse about leadership. The trap is overestimating our real impact.

It’s tempting to think: “I’m going to change the legal system.” “I’m going to reform institutions.” “I’m going to change the world.”

And those thoughts, however principled they may seem, are another way of fleeing the present. Because “changing the system“ is an abstraction. It’s looking toward another land. It’s, as Thoreau would say, standing on our island of opportunities and dreaming of being somewhere else.

You don’t save the world. You tend your garden.

Let me explain this metaphor and connect it to something broader. Shoukei Matsumoto teaches us that an astronaut looks at Earth from space and sees the whole planet. A gardener cultivates the soil directly beneath their feet.

Both perspectives have value, but in moments of systemic crisis like the current one, the second is perhaps more urgent. A gardener kneels on the ground beneath their feet and cultivates what they can reach.

That is your garden. That is the ground you can cultivate.

This is where you, as Externadistas, have a unique calling.

Leadership is not something you wait to receive when you become partners at a firm or magistrates of a High Court. Leadership is what you do today, in this moment, when no one is watching.

Law has always been the art of building bridges between what is and what should be, between conflict and harmony, between divergent interests and the common good. But that art cannot be exercised with 20th-century tools on 21st-century problems.

AI can memorize every precedent; you must cultivate discernment about which precedent is relevant for a radically new context. AI can identify patterns in historical data; you must imagine futures that don’t yet exist in any dataset.

Every time you choose honesty over convenience, you are cultivating your garden. Every time you admit “I don’t know” instead of pretending, every time you have the courage to speak the truth when it’s inconvenient, every time you defend someone in need when it would be easier to look the other way, you are cultivating your garden.
　

Those small actions—those moment-to-moment choices—are what build the kind of lawyer you’re going to be.

This triggers a spectacular butterfly effect: when you tend your garden with total presence—when you find your eternity in each moment, that garden becomes part of a larger ecosystem.

The sum of all those gardens—of millions of lawyers around the world making those small choices with presence—is what transforms systems.

Not because we have a master plan. But because we inhabit our moment with integrity.

Fifteen years ago, Professor Hinestrosa told me to build my future. Today I say the same to you. But with an additional clarity:
　

The future you build will not be what you imagine today. It will be stranger, more complex, more challenging than you can anticipate.

There will be moments when you feel lost. Moments when you doubt yourselves. Moments when the path you chose will seem like the wrong one.

In those moments, remember this: you don’t need to have all the answers. You only need to have the courage to keep asking the questions.

There are possible futures where technology amplifies inequality, where law serves only the powerful, where justice is a privilege of the few.

And there are possible futures where technology democratizes access to justice, where law protects the most vulnerable, where you use your skills to build a more equitable society.
　

The difference between those futures is the choices you make.

Those are the choices that build the future. Small and silent acts of courage.

Evoking Shoukei Matsumoto’s wisdom, my invitation to you today is not that you be heroes. My invitation is that you be gardeners.

Cultivate the ground beneath you. Nurture the relationships you build. Create the conditions for others to prosper. And when you face fear—and you will face it—remember that the act of moving through that fear is what dissolves it.

We don’t need more lawyers who have all the answers. We need more lawyers who are willing to ask the difficult questions.

We don’t need more leaders who project invulnerability. We need more leaders who give us courage.

We don’t need more people who pretend to have control. We need more people who have the courage to recognize when they don’t.

And here I want to pause to acknowledge something important: Externado is not just a law school.

Externado University is a garden that has been cultivated for generations and will soon celebrate 140 years educating for freedom.

A place where we deliberately plant not only legal knowledge, but critical capacities, social sensitivity, integrity, and ethical commitment.

Here we have taught you not only what the law says, but why it exists and whom it serves. We have invited you to question, to debate, to imagine alternatives. We have exposed you to philosophy, economics, ethics, social thought, because Externado understands something fundamental: law does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in relation.

So today, as you receive the diploma certifying your degree, don’t think you’re finishing something. You’re beginning.

You’re beginning to build your career. You’re beginning to define what kind of lawyers you want to be. You’re beginning to contribute to the construction of a better country.

But now that preparation must continue. Because living with our times, as Josserand encouraged, requires continuous learning. The world is changing faster than ever. And you must remain a student all your life.

Not because you left something pending. But because loving the unknown, as Professor Hinestrosa used to say, means remaining open, curious, willing to be surprised.

That is your responsibility. That is your power.

This degree is just the beginning. Now it’s your turn to build your future.

And in doing so, it falls to all of us—to Externado, to your families, to your professors, to your colleagues—to walk alongside you.

Welcome to the beginning of the journey. Congratulations!