Empathy: from social neuroscience to the Kokinshu

Brain images from Decety and Jackson’s article. (For an explanation, see the pdf linked at the bottom.)

I’ve recently been spending quite a bit of time deliberating empathy.  Yes, empathy, feeling the same emotions as another person or setting yourself in someone else’s shoes.

All these popular ideas about the unbridgeable relationship between the subject and the object has made me feel a little alienated.  (I guess that’s normal, I guess.)  A story about Rousseau watching his “Maman” put a piece of food in her mouth and realizing he would never know how it must taste comes to mind, and that just sends shivers up my back telling me there’s something a little off.

Does Japan have philosophy?

I grew up with a philosopher and theologian for a father.  He taught me about Heiddegar, Plato, and Kant.  I would then argue metaphysics with my best friend in high school.  But by the time I entered college, I had come to the solid conclusion that my feeble capabilities of logic and reason could never lead me beyond a certain point along the path to the Truth. One thing only I knew and that was that I knew nothing, and I didn’t know how to proceed after that. It has taken me eight years since then to figure out how to move on, and the search, which led me to Japan, has questioned my assumptions about what philosophy is. 

My Corner of the Ethnosphere

Wade Davis from the National Geographic is an inspiration.  He says that humanity’s greatest legacy is the “ethnosphere,” the cultural counterpart to the biosphere and “the sum total of all thoughts, dreams, myths, ideas, inspiration, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness.” An indicator that this richness of culture is dying out is the demise of languages, for “every language is an old-growth of the mind.” (see TED profile) This is very similar to what Goethe said about languages, “If you know one, you know none,” which can be applied as readily to culture.  However, Goethe’s quote also encourages the individual to explore a world that will challenge his or her unquestioned beliefs.

Okina: Religion and Male Chauvinism in Noh

Okina performance by Udaka Michishige, March 10 at Itsukushima Shrine

Perhaps the most beautiful Noh stage in Japan is located in Hiroshima at Itsukushima Shrine. It is surrounded by water at high tide, drawing a natural division between the material world to which the audience belongs and the world of gods presented onstage. Only men may stand on this stage, and early in the morning on March 10, I saw a performance of Okina by Udaka Michishige-sensei.

Okina is the oldest Noh performance piece, more a set of dances than an actual play. It is a piece that women may not perform. The lead actors (shite) who dance Okina are said to become invested with the presence of a god, to literally become the embodiment of a god, during the performance. In preparation, the lead actor will do bekka (a period of ritual purification), during which they are not to eat from the same dishes as women, cannot eat food prepared by women, and are not supposed to communicate directly with women. According to the demanding schedule of an actor and the traditions of their school, actors will practice bekka for a week to a month or (at least in the past) a year in hopes of calling the gods into their performance. Udaka-sensei went through a similar practice for a week before his performance, or so he says since I didn’t see him in that time.

When I explained this all to my father, he commented on the male chauvinism of Noh performance. I had not allowed myself to think about Noh performance as exclusive of women, but wanted to think that the exclusion of women from the professional Noh stage was rather in performances related to particular religious institutions that did not allow women to perform Noh in front of the gods. Yet, although believing male chauvinism exists can also lead to reverse prejudices, this comment prompted me to question women’s role in Noh performance more directly.

The Mindfulness of Movies

The edge of a humble path leading to an insignificant subtemple of Nanzen Temple

A great North American teacher of mindfulness wrote

When done in the right way, analytic deconstruction of emotion actually allows you to feel more deeply and intensely. . . The feelings become deeper and more intense but at the same time less problematic. Unpleasant feelings are more poignant but at the same time cause less suffering and pleasant feelings are richer but at the same time lead to less neediness. (Shinzen Young, p. 12)

From this I learned striving to remove desire and suffering from our lives does not mean to shove away emotion as well, but actually enhances them for us. This idea prompted me to sit on two cushions at the open door to my balcony for a good half hour before I grew too impatient.

But I think that meditation comes in many forms. Parts of the practice and rewards are wrapped into the tea ceremony, Noh drama, brush calligraphy, and many of the traditional Japanese arts, and I really love the time I can settle my mind fully into my lessons. Yet, I believe more paths to mindfulness exist.

One path I discovered in a conversation with Hana, my friend who lives on the other side of the Gosho, to the north. We were walking out of Daitokuji temple in search of the famous grilled mochi rice cakes sold at Kazariya, a shop just outside the gates of Imamiya shrine. Hana was talking of the pain in her legs during her efforts to meditate and her desire to overcome it so she could experience all the wonderful things she reads about Zen in books. I laughed and said, “Perhaps reading is another form of meditation.” And oh how true.