This is the second in a two-episode series exploring the legacy of Daisaku Ikeda and the practice of dialogue. In this episode, we ask how wisdom, courage, and compassion is lived and practiced through music and dialogue. In particular, we look at how genuine dialogue might bring out the best in ourselves as we look to bring out the best in the other. Together with Olivier Urbain, Kevin Maher, and Anri Tanabe, we explore how this is lived out at the Min-on Music Research Institute and the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning and Dialogue.
The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.
This is the second in a two-episode series exploring the legacy of Daisaku Ikeda and the practice of dialogue. In this episode, we ask how wisdom, courage, and compassion is lived and practiced through music and dialogue. In particular, we look at how genuine dialogue might bring out the best in ourselves as we look to bring out the best in the other. Together with Olivier Urbain, Kevin Maher, and Anri Tanabe, we explore how this is lived out at the Min-on Music Research Institute and the Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning and Dialogue.
The Music & Peacebuilding Podcast is hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson at Elizabethtown College. Join our professional development network at www.musicpeacebuilding.com - thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care.
And then what is it that best is best in me and best in you, your courage, your wisdom, your compassion. So basically, it's about bringing out my own courage, wisdom and compassion, through the process of dialogue here and now, and bringing those qualities within you. And then letting you do that to me, at the same time, in real time here and now
Anri Tanabe:Like a purpose. And, like sense of belonging, because when we don't have that, I think it becomes so easy to isolate ourselves and just focus on what's, you know, what's what's right in front of us without really thinking about, like, the interconnectedness and what's happening in the world and how does what I do affect what's happening across the country. You know, there's this disconnect of what I do doesn't matter.
Kevin Maher:peacebuilding starts with the person right in front of you. It's not solely some grand endeavor that is focused on the entire.. an entire nation or country but or world but it's really starts with the person right in front of us. And if we can't have that respect or belief in that potential, in the person right in front of us, then it's, it's almost impossible to to have that same faith in the potential of all of humankind.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:You were listening to season three of the music and peacebuilding podcast, a professional development network at music peacebuilding.com Exploring intersections of peacebuilding, sacredness, community, creativity and imagination. Through research and story. We returned to part two of a conversation with Olivier Urbain on music and peacebuilding. In this episode, we add the voices of Kevin Maher and Andre Tanabe. To discuss how Ikeda's practice of dialogue is lived and practiced. Together. With these three voices, we will explore inner transformation, Human Revolution, dialogue, and practices of courage, wisdom and compassion. Olivier Urbain is the director of the Min on Research Institute and is a published scholar on peacebuilding. Kevin Maher is the executive director for the Ikeda Center, where he oversees programs, publications and the strategic plan of the center. Anri Tanabe is the Outreach Manager at the center where she manages the education Fellows Program, Market Center books and contributes to programming, Inner transformation and Human Revolution. These two pieces are really important. You, you note that Ikeda introduces a vision where each individual no matter how small they may be, has the power to enact and envision peace. And you quote, Ikeda as stating, quote, a great inner revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and further will cause a change in the destiny of humankind. So speak to the nature of this inner revolution. I hear the resonance from the, from the Buddhist philosophy, but yeah, what is this inner revolution in the lens of Ikeda?
Unknown:Oh, thank you. That's this chapter five, right? Chapter five in the book. Absolutely. So I realized that the people I admire most who have really changed the world inside out, like, for example, Gandhi, you take Gandhi, I'd like to quote from Gandhi, "we but mirror the world, all the tendencies present in the outer world, are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change." And then Henry Gibson said,"people want only special revolutions in externals, in politics, and so on. But that's just tinkering. What really is called for is a revolution of the human mind." So this idea of changing yourself, to be able to change your community and to change the world has been, you know, can be found throughout history, throughout civilizations all over the world. It's not anything that is special to any teaching or or philosophy. But what Makiguchi Toda and Ikeda established is a grassroots movement that is based on this idea of inner transformation, and they give it a special name, which is Human Revolution. But Human Revolution is one way to do inner transformation. So you have inner transformation in Christianity, for example, when Tolstoy wrote, you know, the kingdom of God is within you. That for me, that's really like, yeah, exactly. Right. So you have that in Judaism you have that In Islam, you've that in all religions in Hinduism. And you have also that in the UNESCO declaration in the preamble is that you know, since since wars start in the mind of people, it is in the minds of people that the fortresses or the beginning of peace has to be established, right. So whether you have spirituality or not doesn't matter. What I did in my research on Ikeda is try to translate this idea of Human Revolution in a specific way, recommended by Makiguchi, Toda, Ikeda, in terms of everybody can understand and very quickly, those three virtues appeared in all the writings, not always by three, sometimes it's just two courage, wisdom, or courage, compassion or wisdom, compassion, but sometimes all three, and definitely, all three are important. So it's about wisdom, and courage and compassion.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:What does it mean to bring up the best in the other, Urbain spoke of courage, wisdom and compassion as the activator, the spark of hope and the opening to relationship, the best in ourselves is dependent on bringing out the best in others. Our dependence is an interdependence, where we find ourselves entangled in a web of life, Urbain turned to talk of Ikeda speech at Columbia University, where Ikeda laid out interconnectedness as the foundational principle of global citizenship. What do wisdom, courage and compassion look like when they are upheld by interconnection?
Unknown:What kind of wisdom? What is the most important wisdom? To be able to embrace the whole planet? Is the wisdom to perceive the interconnectedness of all life. exactly your question. So among all the types of wisdom that we have, Ikeda recommends, the wisdom to proceed that absolutely everything is interconnected - our lives with all the lives of other people, like you know, today, I was able to put some air conditioning is very, very hot, I didn't build the machine, I didn't bring the electricity here, I didn't create the air. Many, many people plus elements of the planet made it possible for me to have fresh air in my room. It's lots of people already. And then I had breakfast, who brought me the food, who prepared it, who built the plate today, you know, if you think about how many people contributed to you, Kevin having headphones on your, you know, and shirt, just that that's interconnectedness. And of course, not just between homosapiens but all living creatures, all animals, all plants and rocks, and the sky and the air. So everything is interconnected. And when we make decisions, when we think about what we want to do in life, Ikeda recommends to activate this wisdom, that everything is interconnected. Then, based on that the type of courage that he recommends is the courage to embrace difference. To understand that we are all unique, other people will not think exactly like you do, they will have different skin color, different gender, different sex, different sexual orientations, socio cultural, economic background. But if you can see the interconnectedness of all living beings then your part of the web of life, and the person in front of you is equally part of the web of life. And you have lots of things to talk about together and build together based on that interconnectedness. So difference is great, difference helps you to grow and to activate your your critical thinking. Because if somebody doesn't agree with you, it's like a professional, critical thinker for free right in front of you. And now you have to respond something. So the courage to embrace difference, and finally, the compassion to imagine the suffering of other people. And in the this paragraph, Ikeda talks about imagining the suffering of people who are in even even in faraway places, but we are all very far away from each other. For example, let's say I meet you for the first time in a coffee shop somewhere. I've never met you before. I have a certain impression of who you are. I have no idea where you come from the stories you have to tell what you went through what you're thinking about. I just decide, okay, he looks like this, maybe he's like that just an impression. I have no compassion, for your struggles for your life for your joy for your suffering. So even though I would sit next to you, you are very, very far. So when Ikeda says the compassion to imagine the sufferings, and of course, the joys, but the sufferings of other people, he's talking about that, he's talking about imagining the incredible potential each person has. So this package of wisdom, courage and compassion. It's really interesting, because little by little, it became the center of so many studies today, there is a whole field of study on Soka education, for example, at DePaul University in Chicago, or Guelph??, or Laval, in Canada, in Spain, also in all over the world, those are appearing, but they're also centres of studies for global citizenship, and also for Ikeda peace studies. And what I noticed now because I'm like, you know, kind of going around all of them. Basically, they all go back to that one paragraph of wisdom, courage and compassion. Because even today, when you think in terms of global governance, international relations, political science, it's very, very rare to start with human virtues. It's about all kinds of things economics and finance and mutual understanding and negotiations. But very rarely do you include your own courage, wisdom and compassion in the package. So for Ikeda to declare in 96 that global citizenship means basically those three virtues is still revolutionary. Today,
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:we turn to a recording titled "we are the future," the performer Danja produced this recording Lyrics by Danja, Belle Aires and Catony vocals by Danja, Belle Aires and the End Time Harvest Children Choir Maiduguri, this recording is provided with generous permission by Min-on and Danja.[music][music] So dialogue, you know I understand that we're on this continuous journey to find connection points with others. Yes, and my favorite quote here was, was where he says,"engaging in dialogue is a struggle to positively transform our own life as well as that of others. It is the act of breaking out of the shell of our lesser self surmounting surmounting the wall of our callous ego and creating and expanding positive connections with others." So talk about this vision of dialogue, that, and it moves well beyond simple conversation, to moments where hearts might be opened. And the sense of letting the dialogue do its work to change us.
Unknown:So dialogue is like the essential ingredient to move from inner peace to actual, concrete peace outside. And I was wondering, why is it that Ikeda has so many dialogues he's had literally 1000s and 1000s of dialogues with people of all walks of life. And if I, if I look at, for example, the list of published dialogues, those that were actually, you know, not only you discuss together, but then after that you write to each other and you edit it and you you make the effort to publish a book. That's there's almost 80 of them today. So I was wondering what What is he trying to accomplish? Because after the dialogue is done, those people do not join anything. They do not become members of anything, they just continue their lives. You know, so I decided to read the dialogues that were available at the time and I started I read about 12 When I could now see clearly the pattern. And to make a long tale short. I summarize The intention underneath every dialogue as a decision to bring out, to bring out the best in yourself and in others. So, for instance, here we have, we are having a dialogue. And maybe my intention is to sound really great for the public to become famous or to make you happy. Or I might have all kinds of intentions, but what if my intention is simply to bring out the best in myself, really try my best to bring out what's best in me. And of course, bring out what's best in you. And then imagine that you're doing the same in reverse. So now we can really, really talk about anything we want freely based on that intention. And then what is it that's best, that's best in me and best in you? Well, everything we've talked about so far, your courage, your wisdom, your compassion. So basically, it's about bringing out my own courage, wisdom and compassion, through the process of dialogue here and now and bringing those qualities within you, and then letting you do that to me, at the same time, in real time, here and now.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:Ikeda writes that if one single drop of the water of dialogue is allowed to fall on the wasteland of intolerance. Quote, "there will be a possibility for trust and friendship to spring up." In September of 1993, Daisaku, Ikeda delivered a speech at Harvard University that laid the foundations for the Ikeda center for peace, learning and dialogue in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I asked the center's director Kevin Maher, about how the center lives out practices of dialogue within its mission.
Kevin Maher:Inspired by that lecture, and by other messages he sent to the center, we've, our mission has been to bring like minded students, scholars, young professionals, peacebuilders, into dialogue on global issues, and discuss, you know, approaches and perspectives in terms of how we can really foster a culture of peace for us as a center. Rather than having a stance that we we know everything and we're here to teach we're learning we're really I mean, we there's an intention behind having peace learning and dialogue in the name is that we're learning through those those conversations
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:Urbain notes that dialogue may be used to bring out the best in the self and other, letting quote,"people's common humanity shine despite, or rather through differences and backgrounds, lifestyles and worldviews." Urbain later writes, I believe that for Ikeda also, dialogue is a way to reach our common humanity through the logos, putting human reason at the service of a more humane world, a way to ensure that the I pays full attention to and brings out the best in the "you." I asked Anri Tanabe of the Ikeda center to expand on understandings of how bringing out the best in the other is practiced in dialogue at the Ikeda center. So that, that, that piece of bringing out the best in the other that's come out a lot in my talks with Olivier and I was curious, how do you see that realized within your practice of dialogue about this bringing out the best in the other?
Unknown:Yeah, I think what I see at the dialogue night's event is I think it's a space where people can really self reflect. And I think often in dialogue, we come in thinking, oh, I want someone to listen to me, you know, maybe that's kind of the intention that people enter a dialogue with, that, you know, this person is wrong. And I have to convince them that my opinion is right. But bringing out the best in oneself and others, I think, giving the space to really think about what the purpose of the dialogue is. And maybe the end goal is not really to convince anybody but to understand one another better. And I think the more that we can really understand ourselves and other people, we give space for a solution to come out through like a shared understanding. And so it's not about convincing someone that I'm right and they're wrong, but really coming to a better understanding of the other person but also of ourselves. We have a list of core convictions that that guide our work, all of it, essentially being informed by Mr. Ikeda's approach and one of the core convictions is that it's critical to maintain faith and people's potential for good. Recognizing that potential through dialogue and our interactions with us, not only is Anri sharing, I feel, impacts the intention and tone of the dialogue itself, but it enriches our lives in the process. And I think that connects with that the larger idea of the interdependence of all life, that when we.. it's not just a recognition that we're connected, but it is through those connections, it is through mutual support and encouragement that we grow as individuals, in addition to the person in front of us. And having that kind of stance, that kind of approach, really impacts the way that we interact with each individual. And for us, I think peace, peace building, means and this is inspired by Elise Boulding's work too peacebuilding starts with the person right in front of you. It's not, it's not solely some grand endeavor that is focused on the entire an entire nation or country, but, or world, but it's really starts with the person right in front of us. And if we can't have that respect, or belief in that potential in the person right in front of us, then it's, it's almost impossible to have that same faith in the potential of all of humankind. If you really practice this intention of bringing out the best in yourself and others through dialogue, you do that every day 24/7 For years, then I think you can come to that kind of very risky. Proposition. You know, actually, when there is a video that's available to the public, where he he meets Gorbachev, and they're going to sit down for the dialogue. And he meets Gorbachev, and he says, Oh, you, I really don't agree with so many things you do, and you say, so let's have a good fight. But the way he said it, they both burst out in laughter, right? Because the if the intention is what we've been talking about, so it's really a struggle, I can't do it 24/7 Many times I have dialogues to obtain things or to convince people or to get out of situations or, but I always try to remind myself, wait, wait, we wait, this is a unique opportunity, maybe I will never be able to speak to that person again. What about bringing out the best in myself and the other person as a basis? And do the rest of the conversation around that? Yeah.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:I think I would reflect back to you after reading the book that as I was reading about his move to document his dialogue, I thought, here's somebody who's doing it well ahead of the curve in that almost considering dialogue to be the form of scholarship, you know, that you encounter these people and you do the work of publication. And I was hearing the resonance in my own decision to to take this direction where I was going into podcasting and say, I'm going to put as much effort into podcasting as I do into writing a book chapter and consider it to be a new form of scholarship. And I would resonate with the degree to which being in this kind of space changes me.. dialogue. So I just I wanted to really honor that that I really, yeah, I'm really in awe of that move that he made.
Olivier Urbain:Yeah, absolutely. In a way each book is a is a written podcast.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:Yeah, it is. Exactly. He was well ahead of the curve. He predicted podcasting. Exactly what he did. Absolutely. So I was also curious, because courage, wisdom and compassion comes up so much. And I was curious about how how do you communicate these values of courage, wisdom, compassion, and how do you see courage, wisdom, compassion lived out within dialogue?
Unknown:That's a wonderful question. I'm smiling because we have a seminar series we launched last year called the global citizen seminar series, and the first and this is a series, a seminar that engages doctoral students with senior scholars and in conversation over a sustained seminar. So the same group meeting several times. In the first year, we had a deep conversation on those three elements of wisdom, courage and compassion. And there are questions of can those characteristics be taught? How can they be fostered? And I think what and Anri please correct me if I'm misremembering but a lot of it came down to it's something that we have to model in practice ourselves, and that it comes through, it really comes through and dialogue in that way. And that these are not sort of abstract ideas, but how do we, in our own lives grapple with? How do we become more compassionate? How do we use our wisdom to help others and, you know, and courage being sort of the, the linchpin between all three is that without courage, you know, we won't, we won't, even if we have wisdom, we won't be able to take the action that we need to. You know Mr. Ikeda writes about this or talks about this. And you know, without, without courage, it's, it's, it can become almost impossible to act for on behalf of others. So really grappling ourselves with what does it mean to continue to deepen those, those values in our own life, and then model it through our behavior and our engagement with others. And we all agree that it's, it's an ongoing process, it's not like we get to a place where we've sort of maxed out our, even our compassion, we never get to a point where it's like, okay, I'm as compassionate as I can possibly be. Always, there's always gonna always go deeper there. And every day, it's sort of recognizing it's about it's a, it's a path, not, you know, not an endpoint. But it's a way of being. And I feel dialogue is the same, we can continue to be more dialogic, both with ourselves and with others, and that we learn that through that connection with others. And I think, again, those those three elements of wisdom, courage and compassion, that without engagement with others, they they're entirely theoretical. You know, it's really about how we interact with other human beings, that we see them alive and thrive.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:So Anri, as you do these dialogues, what are what do you find now to be the pressing concerns that are being brought up by the youth in dialogue now?
Unknown:I think, maybe not the most pressing concern, because I think at any given time, you know, we all have our unique worries or, you know, concerns on what's what's happening right in front of us. But I think, this need for connection and being able to bring that out, and just being able to share have spaces where we're able to share what we're feeling or going through. And I think just maybe having like, a purpose and like sense of belonging, I think that comes up often. Because when we don't have that, I think it becomes so easy to isolate ourselves and just focus on what's, you know, what's what's right in front of us without really thinking about, like, the interconnectedness and what's happening in the world, and how does, what I do affect what's happening across the country, you know, in a war torn area, or there's this disconnect of like, what I do doesn't matter. And being able to really converse with others, dialogue with others, and really understand that what we do in our daily life actually does have an impact on the world. And I think with that, you know, people feel more inspired to be able to take action, but I think so just like, being able to talk about these issues that feel so big. And being able to have this sense of what I do will actually matter.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:Yeah, I would echo that I've, I've really sensed that word belonging is it's everywhere now. And but and yet, it's such a complex word. Try I think, I think that maybe my focus next year is really digging into the social psychology about belonging. And, you know, what, what are the different colors of that word? As it changes for people?
Anri Tanabe:Yeah, we actually right? Was it 2019? Kevin, maybe early 2019. We had an event on loneliness, we call that the loneliness epidemic. And that was actually our highest attended event, I think, like a number maybe, like,
Kevin Maher:close to 90,
Unknown:Yeah, it was really big. And, you know, there were many people who actually had never heard about the Ikeda center before. A lot of times, you know, the people who come either have been here before or have friends. But for that event, specifically, people had seen you know, this topic or even Googled like events on loneliness. And they came really seeking this connection and wanting to figure out how to how to grapple with it, how to deal with it, how to move forward from it, and I think with the 2020 I think even more so you know, now it's people are really trying to figure out you know, what they can do and how they can feel that So, the the sense of belonging
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:In his 2022 book on belonging, Jeffrey Cohen notes belonging is less a keystone belief and more like a perception that is being created anew in every situation. He later notes quote, "the key question is not what is our nature, but what are the elements of situations that draw out the better angels of our nature" In bringing out the better parts within ourselves and others. Music may help us craft situations that connect, repair and deepen our well being. Urbain speaks of our potential to use music to connect, build belonging, and peace.
Unknown:Overall, the book has a very optimistic view of what music can do using the now forbidden phrase, the power of music, if you want, you know, any music scholar, ethnomusicologist to run away from you just use that phrase, it's forbidden now. Okay. So I got pretty sophisticated criticism from fantastic scholars who, you know, very kindly wrote in their article or their book, there is this guy, he believes in the potential, whatever the positive power of music, how naive and this and that, okay. And I took that as a form of dialogue, they're trying to bring the best out of me. So through that process, I established some kind of rules for myself if you want rule number one, the ambivalence of music. It's completely ambivalent. I mean, I go do I go the other extreme, I say that music has absolutely no value for peace by itself, you can use a piece of music to torture people, you can even set traps to distract them and kill them with music. You can do whatever you want, because music for good or for evil its completely ambivalent. Now, the bad news is that for peacebuilders is not enough to just use music, for peacebuilding, it could backfire, like terribly. The good news is that, since it's so powerful, to do bad things, and do good things, then if you choose to do good things, you have a chance of creating something good, that's the good news, but it is totally ambivalent. The second thing is that the beauty of the melodies and the chords and the rhythm is all wonderful, but that's not conducive to peacebuilding at all, what is are people, its people and how people treat each other that will you know, move things towards more peace or or towards less peace and more violence. But what music does is that it touches you It influences you, it changes your mood, it changes your your relationship with your environment, and then if you can play music together or sing together or listen to music together, it creates a deep connection with another human being it can do that with entire groups also and the people who are affected and changed by this musical activity. Are now if you want in a better position to decide to talk to do things for peacebuilding. So the question about music and, and peace. So the second important thing is that music is a form of action, it accompanies human action. So there is this phenomenal book called musicking. You know, a verb musicking by Christopher Christopher Small 1998. The whole book is about that is about the fact that it's not only about the sounds and the beauty of the melodies and everything. But it's really about what we do with music, how we treat each other with music. So there's the musicking part. And then there's other very important elements, but I would say a third one is the fact that it's not universal. Music is not universal. Music can be found all over the planets. So in that way it is universally distributed. But to have the illusion that the music I like everybody will like it. Oh, this this piece of music. I'm sure everybody in the world will like it because I feel it's so beautiful. That is impossible. You can find 1000s of people who will hate that music for all kinds of reasons. So based on all our sound and musical experiences, even starting in the womb, we can hear you know the heartbeat of our mother already as soon as we have for around four or five months, you know the embryo can hear it. So all our musical experiences good and bad, create in us our music, personal musical culture. And all the songs old or new songs that can be included in that musical world we would experience as pleasant and interesting and happy. And those that contradicted or are completely unfamiliar and that we don't feel like learning or music that we are forced to hear under torture, for example, are in terrible conditions, we will hate that music, whereas others will like it. So if we put those three together, I think we have a good start, like, how would you like to start thinking about music and peace? Okay, start like this. Number one, music is completely ambivalent. It's not for peace. You make it for peace if you want, but it's not for peace. Number two, it's all about action. Music by itself is completely useless. But when it accompanies action, it can change everything. And number three, music is not universal. Be very careful who is right in front of you that you want to play music with, or the group right in front of you ask them about their musical tastes and experiences and build it from there. So that's, that's the theory I gained if you want after years and years of those, if you want academic dialogues.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:Urbain speaks of the work of Min-on to develop human music technologies that overcome barriers to belonging within an interconnected world.
Unknown:And after years of research, I decided to focus on human relationships, that a lot of the peacebuilding work we need to do, whether it's about climate change, or about, you know, racial injustice or sexual injustice or gender or sex orientation, socio economic, age, nationality, ethnicity, political choice, the.. are you human or not, if you're not human, you're an animal, you're a plant, I can treat you like I can do whatever I like. That's also a form of discrimination. So all those separations, I want to focus on that I want to develop the greatest musical technology to overcome those artificial barriers, to create a feeling of connection and of belonging, between everything and everything because of the interconnectedness of all life and living. So that's what we do. We organize conferences, we publish articles. We now produce videos. We have started, a radio program is going to start in Japanese next month, followed by webinars in English. Probably next year. And above all, we've been working for two - three years now. On a an online hub.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:This online hub seeks to connect musical peacebuilders around the world Urbain spoke of an inclusive vision for music, and the journey of the Min on concert association to bring the La Scala opera to Japan.
Unknown:One of the great achievements of Min-on is to have brought La Scala of Milan, the whole Scala like 500 people personnel, with trucks of costumes, to tour all over Japan. And the director of the la Scala at the time, made a famous declaration in a newspaper and he said Min-on was able to bring the entire la Scala, except for the building. Wow. So yes, it started with with Western classical music you can imagine in 1963 in Japan, if you want to do something for world peace, understanding and being friends with with the West was definitely a major step forward. But very quickly, because the the idea behind Min-on that was proposed by Ikeda is how can we really ensure that people can learn about each other can connect with each other? Through music and the arts? Let's establish a concert association. So that's the basic intention. So very quickly, you realize that interconnectedness of all things and people it's not just Western classical music, of course. So then Min-on started to invite the Beijing opera, for example, or drumming, drumming troops from from Africa, traditional music from Korea from all over the world from so it's this if you want a early decolonial thinking that this idea that there is a an evolution of music. That we started with something very simple to come to the very, very sophisticated, multi tonal western music. I personally am totally against that kind of idea. I think music is in is in the here and now and that all types of music have something to offer. And I mean, if you want to compete with the intricacies of African drumming, or Latin American drumming, and compare that to western classical drumming, you know, good luck. Right?
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:Yeah, that whole road of comparison is not helpful.
Unknown:No, it's not. It's not it's, you know, how we connect with each other through music in the moment.
Olivier Urbain:So interconnectedness of all human beings and all living beings doesn't really have a center. You have to be very careful about that. It's not a certain superior skin color type of people who decide how to interconnect the world. The centers are everywhere. Everybody is the center of the entire interconnectedness of the world. Which means your history, your village, your town, your music, your background, is the most important thing that we need to preserve and honor. So that's why we have we have videos now about all types of music by all types of people. But of course, from the angle of how could this be contributing to a better world more peaceful, more harmonious, more respectful, more, more, yeah, more in in harmony with nature and the biosphere? Maybe that's the only thing that we consciously push forward is this idea of music and peacebuilding.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:In the introduction to the book, hope and joy in education, engaging Daisaku Ikeda across curriculum and context, Jason Goulah writes about hope, joy, interdependence, and continual processes of being and becoming, he writes, human education, quote, "calls on us to encourage the individual right in front of us to believe in everyone's unique and unlimited potential, to never give up on anyone no matter what. But it is also equally, an approach that demands that we awaken to the full scope, and possibility of our own humanity, and humaneness." An awakening to the fullness of interdependence is one that collapses dualisms, quote, "and views humanities as inherently interdependent with all phenomena." As he quotes Ikeda, Goulah notes that this perspective taking requires a movement from the egoistic less herself to the infinite or greater self, inspired by Goulah's writing, and Olivier's language of interconnectedness. I asked about imaginations of connectedness with Kevin and Anri of the Ikeda Center,
Unknown:our focus is really on, on cultivating rather than saying this is this is a specific approach, or this is a path to how you engage in dialogue, really cultivating an ethos and a greater ethos or, or philosophy of, how do we live with a vision towards how deeply connected we all are, and how the, you know, Mr. Ikeda often talks about how the happiness of others is deeply connected to our our own happiness, but the suffering of others is as well. So we really live with that sort of ethos in mind. It's transformational, both ourselves and others. And so I love that that approach that you're talking about, and that idea of imagination, I mean, again, I invoked her name earlier, but Elise Boulding. And I often talk about if we want to, you know, we live in a culture of war, if we want to envision we want to have a culture of peace, we need to envision what that would look like. It can't be just sort of an abstract idea. And so starting with that vision, and then working backwards, what are the steps needed to take to get towards that? I think the idea of imagination is so key.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:One thing I would reflect to is that as I've been sitting with the Ikeda, one of the things that's really come to the forefront for me that I think I've experienced before is that this this power of interconnectedness, I mean, in many ways, it's a it's a faculty of the imagination or maybe it starts that way that you have to understand you know, the, where does this shirt come from the all the things that surround me in my life and how it.. how my life is so intertwined with others and our capacity to imagine into the interconnectedness, maybe is a capacity to connect.
Unknown:Wow. And that, like helps us understand our connection to the environment too, right. You know, like, with the climate activists, you know, talking about how if we can understand, like, like you said, where your shirt comes from and who's involved in, you know, creating the food, or growing the food from the land and getting it to our table, and really not being able to treat the earth poorly, if we understand that, this is the food that nourishes our body, and this is what we give to the Earth is what comes back to us, you know, in that cyclical connection. And I feel like, when we separate that, it becomes so easy to think that we'll have resources forever, or what I do doesn't impact anybody else. Yet, in his Harvard in the 93, Harvard lecture, he talks about so interdependence is that is the sort of the third key approach to peace building for him. And he says that in that talk, he says that nothing and no one exists in isolation. And all things are mutually supporting an interrelated, forming a living Cosmos, and sort of that grander vision of what interdependence might mean, Jason Goulah was a scholar, advisor to the center, but a scholar on Ikeda's work, he often talks about Ikeda's idea of Kyosei, the Japanese, the Japanese term for interdependence, one of the ways that it's translated, which I think you might appreciate, is creative coexistence. So it's not just that we're our lives, that we're just connected in a way that, you know, homes that are very close together, connected, but that we, this idea that, that we coexist, we co-arise through creativity through engagement with each other and how it's a living, breathing, ongoing process of, of living together. I love that image of it, rather than just coincidental just the connection, but rather it's mutually supporting and thriving.
Kevin Shorner-Johnson:That's so cool yeah, I'm always fascinated by the ways in which language illuminates deeper understandings of concepts that are sometimes shallow in other languages. So yeah, it seems beautiful. In from the ashes, Ikeda writes"I believe that dialogue holds the key to any lasting solution. Now, more than ever, we must reach out in a further effort to understand each other and engage in genuine dialogue. Words spoken from the heart, have the power to change a person's life. They can even melt the ice walls of mistrust that separate peoples and nations. We must expand our efforts to promote dialogue between and among civilizations." A poem I wrote, inspired by the language of Ikeda and others in this podcast, may we bring out the best in ourselves by bringing out the best in others, melting ice walls, where rain falls upon wastelands of intolerance, germinating seeds of trust, empathy, courage, wisdom, compassion, building imaginations of interconnection, that hold nothing more, but the impossibility of our separation. Friends, this brings to a close season three of the music and peacebuilding podcast, one that has journeyed through language of belonging, agency, entrainment, embodiment, hospitality, compassion and our care for place. I have been forever changed by the voices across this season, and have felt your listening presence on this journey. If you value this music and peacebuilding podcast, please leave a review such that others can find this space. In a few months, we will be back to launch a new journey of discovery. Olivier Urbain's books "Daisaku Ikeda's philosophy of peace" and"music and conflict transformation" are published by IB Taurus press an imprint of Bloomsbury publishing. The website of the Min on concert Association and the Min on Research Institute can be found at WWW dot men hyphen en.org. Special thanks to Min on for permissions to use recordings across these podcasts. The Ikeda center for peace learning and dialogue can be found at WWW dot Ikeda center.org The book cited in this podcast hope and joy and education engaging Daisaku Ikeda across curriculum and context is edited by Isabel Nunez and Jason Goulah and available from the Ikeda Center. I recommend exploring their books and publications as well as their podcast titled The dialogue studio. This is the music and peacebuilding podcast hosted by Kevin Shorner-Johnson. At Elizabeth town College, we host a master of music education with an emphasis in peacebuilding. thinking deeply we reclaim space for connection and care. Join us at music peace building.com