How and what a Japanese Science Educator discovered about the relationship between Science Education and Buddhism in Japan [通常講演]
OTSUJI Hisashi
First International Conference of the Transformative Education Research and Sustainable Development, Nepal., 36-37. TERSE2016Nepal 2016年10月 口頭発表(一般)
How and What a Japanese Science Educator Discovered About the Relationship Between Science Education and Buddhism in Japan
Hisashi Otsuji
One day, a colleague of mine, whose major is philosophy, said to me: "a teacher is akin to a Bodhisattva." That critical moment was the start of my ongoing study of Buddhism; a study that has focused on my lived experiences since childhood and has given me a 'meta point of view' for interpreting educational phenomena in a way that is somewhat different from most science educators in Japan. In this paper, I will discuss some of the outcomes of my study into how, in Japan, Japanized-Buddhism and science education are related both directly and indirectly. My study has been shaped by historical and auto/ethnographical research approaches.
It is said that the "two cultures" of Buddhism and science (i.e., Western Modern Science: WMS) have been generally thought to be contrasting fields that are incompatible with each other. Certainly, both worldviews are distinctly different. Buddhism professes relationism, which tells us that the phenomenal world is a momentary appearance of all related things that are in a constant state of transition. By contrast, WMS is based on reductionism, which focuses on independently existing elements prior to their relationships.
How do Japanese students learn those different ways of thinking? When I observed a school science class in my country, I noticed that these two worldviews were taking place in parallel. On the one hand, students receive uncritically WMS and its worldview as part of their living world, while simultaneously they collaterally preserve their indigenous ways of thinking.
However, there is also a similarity between these worldviews. Historically, Buddhism has transformed itself on the basis of the principles of rationalism and equality. For example, a person who belonged to the Kshatriya group began confessing that he had become awakened, although such an experience traditionally had been monopolized by the Brahmin. This is the founding of Buddhism, which opened this so-called privilege to other caste groups. The emergence of Mahayana Buddhism is also regarded as a similar transformation in Buddhism. Such fundamental characteristics are similar to WMS, which is open to every person and is full of rational rules.
When a disciple asked on what to depend after losing his master, his master, approaching nirvana, replied "In the future, you make yourself your light and depend upon your own self. You must not depend upon other people. You should also make the Dharma your light and depend upon them." This statement reminds me of a parallel saying by a talented elementary science teacher in Japan who taught prospective teachers: "Experiment gives students the answer. Answer is not given from the school textbooks nor from teachers."
In Mahayana Buddhism, which holds the precept that the perfect "benefitting self" can be accomplished only through "benefitting others", the concept of Bodhisattva is important. Before Mahayana appeared, the term Bodhisattva conveyed the meaning of "the founder in his training," but in Mahayana it came to mean a person who seeks to save all other living beings as well as achieving his/her own awakening. Also the ideal of selflessness came to be a focus of Mahayana. From my point of view, the ideal image of teacher is quite similar to the image of Bodhisattva, and is widely shared in Japan.
Since my auto/ethnographic inquiry started I, a grandson of a Japanese Buddhism priest, have gradually noticed the presence of nonexplicit factors in Japanized-Buddhism and in science education. I have come to recognize the importance of having such a 'meta-point of view' in mind for contemplating the Self. In my experience, auto/ethnography enables science teachers to transform the Self and their own teaching, and to help sustain students' cultural identities.
Keywords: Buddhism; student-oriented; selflessness; auto/ethnography; reflection