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Is Eastern Mind Getting Lost?
Akiko Miyake
Kansai Toast Masters' ClubMarch 10, 2002
My younger sister who has been teaching a Catholic woman's college in Kobe complains that her graduating students do not want to come to their farewell party. They believe that it does not make sense to entertain some of the professors that have never taught them in their four years of college life. "Mindless people!" I thought. A farewell party is not to feed their professors, but to flounce the long sleeves of their kimono, to show off their youth and beauty. They should invite anybody to celebrate their happiness!
Did my old students I taught until several years ago keep their mind? Certainly they had! Because even those unhappy students who had to put off their graduation by one year came to the farewell party. There is no reason that graduation must come first before the party, they argued. We professors laughed, but agreed with them.
I mean the Eastern mind is more subjective and peaceful than the Western mind. Once, in England, a professor from Switzerland recommended me to read a comparative study of the Eastern and the Western mind written by a German philosopher. The Eastern mind sets oneself in the center of the universe, and keeps peace with the world.
The Western mind rushed to the achievement, whether the achievement means a success in business or the kingdom of God in heaven. So the academic success or failure does not matter, so far as they are happy with their mind in the center.
This German professor's book recalled me the old Confucian teaching " ." "Hold yourself in respectfulness to others. Once I took a train in Taiwan, and I was struck at the good manners of the ordinary Chinese people in folk costumes. I have met many rich Chinese businessmen in Kobe. I made friends of many Chinese students in America, who were the very international technocrats. But those poor Chinese people were the very image of respectfulness. We Japanese people certainly learned this virtue through tea ceremony and the Meditation of Zen Buddhism.
Recently we are worrying that the Japanese mind is getting deteriorated, that is, getting worse and worse. One of my nephews who is working in the study of the modern China said that things are much worse in China, for there "The propriety ( is falling to pieces." He reminded me of the incredibly rude attitudes of the Chinese Communist Leaders of today. The subjective and peaceful Eastern mind is not fitting to win the competition in the twenty-first century's global economy, so it is getting abandoned, but what an awful crisis we Easterners should suffer, if the Eastern mind has to be lost.
(2002年3月11日 関西トーストマスターズクラブ 例会 スピーチ原稿 A-1 ）
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