Learn Like a Monk - A Conversation with Shoukei Matsumoto

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

If you live in a worldview of separation, learning is about cultivating your ability to be superior to others. But in the worldview of interbeing, learning is cultivating flexibility to collaborate with other entities.

Hi and welcome back to the podcast. My name's Tim Logan and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. I've always been fascinated by questions of religion and spirituality and what they have to offer the educational conversation. Clearly, on the big questions of life generally, transformation, meaning, values, and purpose, they have a lot to say. But educationally, we can very quickly find ourselves in the territory of indoctrination. And surely indoctrination is the opposite of a good education. So this week I was so happy to chat with Shukei Matsumoto, a secular Buddhist monk who is doing amazing work bringing insights from Japanese Buddhist teaching and practices into leadership, economy, and organizational development. And in particular, his approach integrates a post-religious spirituality with practical methodologies for becoming good ancestors. Often mentoring corporate leaders around the world to create emotionally intelligent and sustainable workplaces. As well as a Buddhist monk, Shuke is an author and director of the Living Dharma Center in Vancouver, Canada. He simultaneously serves as the Professor of Practice in the Faculty of Wellbeing at Musashino University in Tokyo, and last year was appointed as a Makita Visiting Professor at the University of Bonn to research AI in the human context, as well as being part of the Vatican's Aurora Initiative. Shuke is also an active member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Leadership and an alumnus of the Young Global Leaders Program. He's the author of the international bestseller, A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind, which has been translated into over 20 languages. And his latest book, Work Like a Monk: How to Connect, Lead, and Grow in a Noisy World, was published last year. You can find lots more links to Shuke's amazing work in the show notes.

Well, thank you, Shuke. It's an absolute pleasure to meet you for the first time, and I'm deeply grateful for you to accept my invitation and come and join me to talk about some of these things on the podcast. I've found your work very, very interesting recently. Yeah. So thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you so much for discovering me and inviting me to your amazing program.

No, that's great. So perhaps, I mean, maybe it would be useful for people just to also discover you. If you could perhaps share a little bit about how have you come to, I mean, one of the things I found so interesting about your work is bringing different worlds somehow close to each other. World of being a Buddhist monk and spirituality, but with this, I saw you in Davos and connecting it with this idea of work and the economy and leadership and all of these different sets of ideas in a way that sometimes are kept quite separate, bringing them really interestingly into the same space. So yeah, perhaps you could just give a little bit of background for people. Where, how have you come towards this work of trying to kind of connect some of those worlds?

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I'm Japanese Buddhist monk and, you know, for those who are a little bit familiar with what Japanese Buddhism is, Japanese Buddhism is not that actually monastic. So in this sense, when I describe, recognize myself as a Buddhist monk, I somehow feel embarrassed because I'm not really a monk. I don't live in a monastery or I don't live monastic life. I have my own family, 2 children, 2 cats, and my life is not monastic at all. So I could say I am secular Buddhist monk, which might be appreciated in a secular country like France.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So broadly speaking, there are many different types of Buddhism across the world. And Japan culturally belongs to the circle of Mahayana Buddhist countries. And in Mahayana Buddhism, it's more for ordinary people, right? It's like a people's Buddhism. And even among Mahayana Buddhism, the tradition I belong to is one of the most secular kind of Buddhism for people in everyday life. So I am a practitioner and philosopher, thinker, author, speaker who interpret the ancient Buddhist teaching for the people living in today's world. And I myself live in a very secular world, learning and practicing from Buddhist wisdom.

Yeah, interesting. And can I ask you, what is it— this is almost an impossible question probably, but what is it specifically about Buddhist wisdom that you feel somehow called to bring into these other spaces. Like, as an example, I really appreciated that how you, in your book Work Like a Monk, you frame the whole thing as a dialogue. And I think that idea of dialogue between different traditions, maybe let's say, or, you know, different worlds seems to run through your work in an interesting way. And if what I hear you saying there is there's something that you can feel and benefit from in the Buddhist tradition that you're bringing into these other spaces? I mean, we'll get, hopefully, I'd love to get into some of the specifics of that, but how would you describe what you see there?

Mm-hmm. I see. So we are living in the age of AI where, you know, AI works as a karmic amplifier. That amplifies our collective knowledge that has been accumulated from ancient times with our ancestors. So I sometimes interpret AI as ancestral intelligence, you know, because AI operates based on the accumulated information and collective knowledge inherited from our ancestors, right? With lots of books and texts and papers and so on. Yeah. So we are living in the flood of information. And some of my friends describe this as infoxication, right? Yeah.

I love that.

Yeah. So we human beings have been Proud of our logos ability, you know, the rational thinking that enables us to develop this, you know, science and civilization. But ironically, we reached the point of our civilization where we can create AI that seem dominating the logos world. With information flood. So, you know, it's really a time to rethink who we are, right? So if we recognize ourselves as the machine of, you know, processing information, there is no room for us to exist anymore. But I think and believe We are beyond just a processing machine of information, right? So from this point of view, Buddhism has a lot of things we can learn because Buddhism has been emphasizing the importance of having a distance from our logos ability, or the realm of words and languages. For example, Buddhism is known for its practice around mindfulness. When it comes to mindfulness, you may imagine sitting in silence, right? So what is the effect of this practice? It enables you to calm your logos ability down so that you could be free from your thought or your monkey mind, right? In our mind, it's full of concepts and words. So one of the important practice in Buddhism is how we can reduce the level of activity in our brain, right? Processing information. So I think in the age of AI, where we need to rediscover the value to be human being, not as a processing machine of information, I think there is a big relevance in Buddhist teaching for us living in today's world.

Absolutely. Yeah, so interesting. And the other thing I was thinking there was that Obviously this podcast is about education and schooling and, and almost that the formal education systems that we live in now, and most people are educated and socialized by, were built in a way for the logos world.

Mm-hmm.

Right. So that there's something there about, John Verveke calls it propositional tyranny. It's like we get trapped in this, this world, this land of ideas and concepts and sentences and grammar and syntax and, to be smart, intelligent, successful, all of these words that hang around the education system often is about how you play in that world. Can you play quickly and smartly with these ideas and can you put them together in different ways and can you present them in a way that works in these different spaces like exams or job interviews, et cetera.

Yeah.

And a lot of that, and again, I really, really appreciated when you talk about this idea of treating young people as machines being optimized and this idea of software, right? So some, somehow, again, it's a little bit similar. I think that the, this digital world and this logos world, they map onto each other quite nicely, but both of them completely exclude this other huge part of what it means to be human, right? Something about, so maybe Anño is, is something we could talk about because I think that's part of what this podcast has really become to be about is how do we find other ways of framing and talking about and practicing these many other ways of being successful, smart, intelligent humans in the world that isn't just about, clearly it, it is partly about the logos world, but there's so much we miss when we just define success as residing there. Right? So, yeah, perhaps could you say a bit about this concept of An'yo?

Aha, An'yo. Yes. So these days, sometimes I have, you know, a chance to talk to young people, and I feel very sorry about, you know, they are feeling. Some of them who come to me talk about their anxiety. Am I okay to be here? Just being here without making any value or something like that. Yeah, I see. Right. So I always tell them, of course, without any condition, you are allowed to be here. As you are. But because of this very competitive society, I'm sorry that the culture of this world makes younger people feel that you have to make some value to be allowed to exist in this world. Right? So this is again around the game we are playing in our conceptual world. So if we are captured in the game in which we are playing our role in human society, this kind of anxiety that I mentioned with young people won't disappear. So let me say something about my recent discovery from a conversation with my philosopher friends. As I am a Buddhist thinker in Eastern philosophy, recently I observed that many Western philosophers come to me and show their interest in the animistic view to the world. So you live in France, so you must be a little bit familiar with Japan anime culture.

Absolutely.

Yeah, right. So do you know why Japan became the mass production factory of anime?

That is a great question. I know it is, but I've never understood why. No.

So my hypothesis is because the worldview in Japan is really connected to animism, where you find anima in any corner of this space. So in this room, I find me— I could find many, you know, different animas, right? And once you put— so take your mug cup, and once you put two black dots and one red dot on the mug, on your mug cup, you could animate, right? So this is a kind of culture in Japan. So anime, anima, animism. You could animate anything once you find anima in it, in a sense. And, you know, and I think this is why Western philosophers today is more interested in the worldview in Japan. Animistic worldview where you could find anima in any corner of this universe. Because we human beings used to boast our logos ability over other species, you know, we human beings are on top of the world. We are the ruler of this world, right? And eventually we created this civilization, we developed science and we thrive on this planet.

Apparently, yeah.

But yeah, ironically, we created AI, which seems dominating the logos ability, which we used to be proud of as the foundation to be unique on this planet, you know, on top of all the species. But Now we need to differentiate ourselves from AI, not from other species, but from AI, right? Not from animals or plants, but from AI we need to differentiate ourselves. What could be the new foundation to be unique compared to AI? So today we have a big motivation to differentiate ourselves from AI. This is why we, we see a lot of you know, news around or conversations around what's the uniqueness of human being compared to AI, right? And Western thinkers are discovering the new foundation to be unique as a human being, which is we are animals in the first place. So, you know, then my point is we used to differentiate ourselves, human beings, from animals. But today, to differentiate ourselves from AI, we categorize ourselves in the realm of animals. In the first place, we are animals. We have soul, we have emotion, we have memory, we have family, and so on. We have 5 senses and so on. And in this trend, In philosophers, animism, where you acknowledge your uniqueness as an animal, the value of animism is getting rediscovered. So, you know, what's the point to be animal? I have a philosopher friend, Marcus Gabriel, in Germany, who wrote about this kind of things. You know, one of his book title is "Human Animal." So we human beings are human animal in the first place. Have you ever quit being animal, Tim Logan?

I have not.

Not, right? So as an animal, I have to occupy a certain place on this planet at that time. With this physical body. I'm sitting on a chair now, and unlike AI, I cannot emerge multiple different places at a time, right? ChatGPT could emerge on my device and on Tim Logan's device at the same time, but I cannot. Yeah, so, so sorry, long, long discussion too short. We are animal in the first place, and as an animal, I have physical body and I have my own habitat. Right? So my point is taking care of your habitat is one of the very fundamental practice to live sanely in today's world.

And two questions come from that for me. How widely are you defining habitat? Does your, your own body comprise part of that habitat? Is that part, or is it, because I remember, for example, Wakani Hoffman, who I know is a friend of yours, she talks also about habitat as an alternative to the word community, right? Right. So, so we have our habitat is also the place we are, but the other people we are surrounded by. So we are in relation with our surroundings and with ourselves and our own body, as you said. So yeah, how widely do you define habitat? And then the other question is, what does care mean in that context? You said taking care of, maybe could you say a bit more about that idea of, I remember hearing you talking about sweeping and keeping keeping a place tidy. And that seems maybe insignificant to some people as a small detail, but I think for you it's quite fundamental. It's part of this taking care, right?

Yeah. So actually, I talked to Wakani about this concept, habitat. So let me invite my great teacher to this conversation. My great teacher is cat. You know, for cat, community doesn't make sense, but habitat makes sense.

Right?

Right. Community and habitat could be similar. But, you know, as a human being with Logos ability, easily conceptualize the meaning of community, the realm of community. So, for example, for example, let's imagine Tim and me watching football game, the French team and Japan team. So the French team is at least maybe, I guess, you feel closer to you, right?

Yeah.

And I'm on Japan side, right? So it's natural. But actually, in watching this football game, we are extending the notion of community to, you know, conceptual level, because I've never met in person the football players from Japan team.

Right. Yeah.

Right. So just watching a monitor screen, I feel some connection with Japan side. Right. But for cats, it doesn't make sense. Right.

Yeah.

For cats, the meaning of habitat is really tangible, right? So my cat identify me as maybe, you know, carer or as someone who takes care of them and give them food. Right. And when my friend visit my home, they run away from my friend because they, you know, my friend is total stranger to them. But he or she spends some time with me and they come to, you know, familiar with this stranger and makes friends with him. So there is no concept for cats, just an animal feeling. So yeah, my suggestion is if we appreciate being human animal, In the age of AI, we have a lot of things to learn from cats. Yeah. Or dogs.

And potentially, would you say nature more generally?

Yeah. Nature more generally without any concept.

Right.

Yeah. Trusting on your tangible connection.

Yeah.

With the physical body.

But that's an interesting word, right? Trusting. Because I feel we are taught not to trust. We are almost actively taught not to trust. I say we, but certainly in the West, in Western traditions, we're taught to be mistrustful of intuition, emotion, many of these aspects which are more embodied, coming from feelings, et cetera. For example, I think there's a lot of literature and teaching around why you shouldn't trust those things, which I find really an interesting dissonance for people like, for example, the Western philosophers you're talking about. Maybe a lot of that dissonance is—

Yeah.

Yeah. Is coming, is inside them because they've been taught that actually you shouldn't trust your feelings and your embodied connection.

Yeah. Yeah. Because trusting your sense, is an, you know, animal act.

Exactly.

So to be human beings, which is very different from animals and other species, we need to behave as if we are not animal, right?

So exactly, yeah.

So, so in this culture, we have been alienating ourselves from animal nature, so that we, we can differentiate ourselves from other species like animals or plants. Maybe this is related to monoistic God culture or Abrahamic God culture. In my understanding, you know, in Western way of thinking, human beings has been in a special position under the name of God. So human beings has a special relationship with God, right? So human beings recognized themselves as a steward of this nature and including animals, plants, so on. But in Japan, we have totally different view. The human beings is just part of the universe. Human, animal, plant, and even mountain, river. So everything is interbeing, interconnected, interdependent. So human beings is not a special thing, but just part of the world. So in this worldview, AI is not enemy. Because there is no supremacy. So there is no notion, you know, like, you know, this is, this species is superior to that species, or, and so on. There is no such thinking. So in this world, AI is also just a newcomer in this whole family of beings.

Yeah. So can I ask you, it's fascinating because that then makes me think of cause it definitely resonates what you are saying about this kind of, this more Abrahamic, you know, there's definitely a proper hierarchy built into that kind of worldview, right? If you don't have that proper hierarchy and you actually are just a part of this web of life, let's say, then what does that do for learning? So in the sense, like, my feeling there is that somehow you can learn from and with everything. There is learning possibility everywhere in your interactions with everything, not just with, for example, your, your teacher, because your teacher knows more than you. You can actually learn from obviously other people around you, but also other beings and other persons, other anima everywhere in your world. So yeah, how do you, how do you hold that idea of learning in relation to that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good question. So maybe if you live in a worldview of separation, learning is about cultivating your ability to be superior to others. Right? Roughly speaking. I'm sorry. But in the worldview of interbeing, learning is cultivating your flexibility and adaptability to collaborate better with other entities.

Beautiful. I love that. And it, it's interesting again, what you've just said there, how resonant that is with a lot of the language being used now about how education needs to shift to bring, to enable more adaptability. Resilience, responsibility, these kinds of words, because, you know, as we, as parents and teachers and every— we recognize how fast things are moving and how challenging and complex and unpredictable and uncertain the world is for young people. We then say, okay, well, we're not quite sure what they need, but maybe what— maybe a good bet for what they need is adaptability. Responsiveness. So there's a lot of the similar kinds of language that you've used there. But I feel personally, sometimes what that language is missing is a deeper grounding on which to say those things, because it's trying to build that idea of adaptability on top of often quite hierarchical or quite Western ontologies, let's say.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And interestingly, as I mentioned, collaborating better. So what's the meaning to collaborate in a better way? So the direction in Buddhism is interesting. In Buddhist scripture, we don't see much about happiness. Yeah. So Buddhism is less about happiness. But more about suffering. So the purpose of collaborating better is not achieving happiness, but reducing suffering. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because once you say we achieve happiness, you conceptualize happiness as a kind of static state. But in Buddhist worldview, there is a fundamental concept: everything is changing. There is no static thing. So because everything is dynamically changing, once you imagine some sort of perfection, perfect state of happiness, you actually miss the core concept of happiness. So Buddhism talks more about reducing suffering, reducing suffering. In other words, reducing attachment to static concept based on the worldview where everything is changing.

And that feels to me like what the alternative to doing that, trying to fix on the achievement traps you back in this optimizing, you know, the, the machinic thing that you were talking about at the beginning, right? Because we're, we're constantly trying to optimize for this end state, this place we're trying to get to. And also this idea of which I loved the idea of kuyo, which you talk about with, because we are obsessed with knowing, mastering certain things, optimizing, knowing, mastering. How do we allow ourselves to accept or embrace, you say, you know, embrace the unknown. And that can sound sometimes like a cliché, embrace the unknown, but there's something that feels like to me, particularly for education, embrace the unknown. That's a really difficult thing to do, to ask teachers and students to embrace the unknown because the whole point, in inverted commas, of education in a mastery kind of education, like Vanessa Andriotti talks about, the whole point of education there is to know more, is to achieve more and to optimize more, right? So there's this really interesting challenge for educators to accept and embrace the unknown because it feels almost the opposite of education somehow.

Yeah, but you know, the more you know, the more you understand, you have many unknown things.

Right, exactly.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so fascinating. I mean, the thing that I find so interesting sitting here as a Western person who's grown up in the UK in a Christian family, now living in France, as we said, a very secular society. Mm-hmm. In France, education and religion are so far away from each other. It's a really interesting question for me. Well, everything we've just been talking about, and this is part of why I'm so curious and interested in your work and the, the broader questions, is how do these ideas of spirituality and religion speak to education? Like, have something to say to education, because I feel often too often we assume that religion is about indoctrination, which again is kind of the opposite of education. Sometimes it's seen as, it's seen as, yeah, yeah, the antithesis of what we're trying to do in education, developing critical minds, et cetera. But by doing that, we, we cut off some of the deepest questions of what it means to be human.

Mm-hmm.

And part of the cosmos, et cetera. It's almost like you can't even talk about those in an educational context because they seem to be somehow related to indoctrination. Like, give you as an example, you talked about mindfulness. I was working on bringing mindfulness— this is about 15 years ago— bringing mindfulness into the school I was working in. And very quickly it was seen to have connotations of Buddhism related to it. So, so it was seen to be better to talk about something like attention training.

Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

Because this is a better, a more acceptable phrase in, this was in France.

Yeah.

Paris.

Uh-huh.

A more acceptable phrase is attention training rather than mindfulness because mindfulness sounds like Buddhism, which sounds like indoctrination.

Mm-hmm.

So very quickly you get into a conversation that is very challenging. Yeah. In schools and in education. So I just wanted to reflect on that. I don't know what, how you, you feel about that or, or whether that speaks to you.

But yeah, I completely agree with the way of French thinking. So yeah, I myself don't like indoctrination. Yeah, in that sense, I don't like institutionalized religion because it's full of doctrine. But in this sense, it is interesting that Buddhism The original Buddha's teaching is about how we can avoid being cult.

Okay.

Right.

Interesting.

Yeah. So in this view, Buddhism is even like an antidote for religion.

Interesting.

Yeah. And this is why I keep certain distance from institutionalized religion, religious organization, and so on. I keep myself independent from, you know, Buddhist organization and so on. So, yeah.

No, thank you, Shuke. This is just so interesting, such an interesting conversation. And I, yeah, there's so many resonances for education audiences. So I know I just so appreciate your time.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, Tim Logan.

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