Introduction

 

Today, the Earth and all the living things on our planet are now facing historic crises where our survival is threatened. Preventing and overcoming the crises has led us to look to the wisdom of Eastern thoughts.

 

The present crises has been primarily caused by an extreme pursuit in the world where people have relied solely and excessively on pervasive Western thoughts have dominated for centuries. Statistical evidence suggests thathuman beings have placed an unbearable burden on the Earth and its natural environment since the Industrial Revolution.

 

The Eastern thoughts to which I specifically refer are Confucianism, Taoism, Mahayana Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Shintoism; those are an intellectual resource that have been nurtured and accumulated in Japan for the past eight centuries.

 

We hope people on the Earth could absorb the wisdom of Eastern thoughts without wasting time in order to mitigate the abovementioned lopsided bias toward Western thoughts.

 

Yoshifumi Taguchi

 

From my standpoint

 

First, I do not intend to praise aimlessly Eastern thoughts though I have long studied them. At the same time, I do not seek to force Eastern thoughts completely on other people. Neither would I think of criticizing Western thoughts. What I aspire is to advocate an intellectual confluence of Western and Eastern thoughts and make it permeate civil society all over the world.

 

From my standpoint, the terms “East” and “West” are not considered in a geographical sense. There is no doubt that many people in the East worship modern Western thoughts, while some people in the West love Eastern thoughts. Accordingly, the terms “East” and “West” imply a difference in philosophy.

 

What I aspire is no discrimination, no confrontation, no fight among peoples on our Earth. This aspiration to prevent the outbreak of war is a real motive to combine Oriental and Western thoughts in order to fuse people’s hearts and minds.

 

What is global?

The shape of our home planet Earth is global. A global shape can be made just after the eastern and western hemispheres are combined. Accordingly, they have an optimally and mutually complementary relationship in themselves.

 

As I have mentioned, for the past centuries, Western thoughts had taken the lead to guide the world’s development. However, since the beginning of the 21st century, we have to work together, being guided by the wisdom of both the East and the West. Now I start with several suggestions emanated from Eastern thoughts.

 

On “Toku,” or Virtue in Eastern thoughts

 

“Toku,” or Virtue is the basic concept forming Eastern thoughts. “Toku” is based on the reasons of the universe.

 

What do the reasons of the universe mean by that?

Confucianists grasp the universe as “Heaven” in which there are its own mechanism and rules within itself. These mechanism and rules serve for smooth functioning of the Heaven, e.g., creating and evolving all things without ceasing. Thanks to smooth functioning, we are born to live; this functioning is sustained by Heaven’s mechanism and rules.

 

These mechanism and rules are called law or “nori.” We call Heaven’s “nori,” or the universe’s “nori.”

In our daily life, we live in accordance with our country’s law. When you violate the law, you are punished. The universe’s law is superior to the law of a state. Therefore, the universe’s law sometimes has greater influence on our destinies than a state’s law.

 

Compliance with the universe’s law suggests the universe’s rationale, or Heaven’s rationale. We can say that the political goal of a state is to develop its society and the day-to-day operation of its people in accordance the rationale. Yet, no matter how hard politics insists on the rationale, its goal cannot be achieved unless the populace understands the rationale. For this reason, education is of great significance.

 

It would be easily understood that societies defying the rationale are the ones where people lead their lives at the worst level. The raison d’être of the universe is that ....