(These were the opening remarks that I delivered on the occasion of a workshop jointly organized by Wonkwang University in South Korea and the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies-SBCS)
Good morning to everyone there in Korea. Good evening
to those joining us here in North America. I am Prof. Julius-Kei Kato,
president of the Society of Buddhist-Christian Studies (or SBCS) based here in
North America.
Today's topic is crucially important and very urgent, especially for us who are involved in various ways in the teaching, research, and learning of religion. It is about the Future of Religious Education, focusing particularly on the pivotal roles of values and spirituality in higher education. We are very blessed to have esteemed panelists who will help us through their reflections and insights on the religious spirit and founding philosophies that have guided higher religious education in the places where we work.
Personally speaking, throughout my life, I have been privileged to have lived and worked in places and institutions where the founders and their founding spirit and philosophy are given much importance. That continues to be true about my present university of affiliation, King's University College here in London, Canada, where the Catholic intellectual tradition broadly speaking is the clear founding spirit and vision of our university. This is brought to bear on the institution's present-day vision and day-to-day operations. Hence, I am very familiar with this theme and consider it of utmost importance.
When I reflect on the theme of religious spirit and founding philosophy, several concrete images come to mind. The first one is that of a construction site. It is said that when a building is about to be constructed, if you want to know how tall the building will be, look very well at how deep they are digging, in order to lay the foundation of the building. The deeper the foundation is, the taller the building will be. I'd like to highlight two key words from this image: depth and height. These two ideas are deeply linked to our theme today.
There is another insightful image I'd like to offer at this
point. It originally comes from a scholar of world religions I much respect,
the late Huston Smith.
I'm sure all of you have seen majestic mountains. I used to
live in Japan years ago, a very mountainous
country when I was in my 20s and
30s. I loved going mountain hiking on various occasions. I know that Korea as
well has many beautiful mountains. In Canada where I live at present, we have
the famous "Canadian Rockies," a mountain chain found mainly in our
Western provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and which extends down south
into the United States.
Last summer, my family and I fulfilled our dream of visiting Alberta, mainly to see its majestic mountains and lakes. We were blessed with good, sunny weather and blue skies every single day of our vacation and, so, we were able to have an incomparable experience of Alberta's beautiful mountains, sparkling lakes, meandering hiking trails, and other parts of its truly awe-inspiring nature. I was most impressed by the majestic mountains. Actually, my favourite sites were mountains with lakes, particularly, Lake Louis and Moraine Lake located in Banff, Alberta.
I'm sure that all of you have seen the combination of mountains and lakes. If you go to a mountain that's beside a lake on a sunny day, you will catch a clear reflection of the mountain on the lake. Of course, the mountain begins as a big mass sitting solidly on the ground and rises upward, becoming narrower as it goes higher toward the sky. However, if you look at its reflection on the lake, the image on the lake is like an inverted triangle. The inverted image reflects the wide base of the mountain on top and, as you go down, the image becomes narrower and narrower. This is the reverse of what you see in the real mountain.
Here again are the images of height and depth: the real mountain goes higher and higher. The inverted image of the mountain on the lake goes deeper and deeper. Here once again is the principle I want to express: the higher the real mountain is, the deeper the reflection on the water goes: Height and Depth.
Why am I emphasizing height and depth, first in a building and its foundation, and then, in a mountain and its reflection? I see here the relationship between the educational institution on the one hand, and its founding spirit and philosophy, on the other hand. The educational institution is the one we see up front. It's like the building and the real mountain that goes high up into the sky. However, the founding spirit and philosophy is like the foundation of the building or the inverted image of the mountain on the lake. It goes deep.
In this light, I've come up with this slogan: The way up is down! Do you want the quality of your education, the quality of your programs to go up? Then, you have to go down; you have to dig deep down to rediscover the founding spirit and philosophy of your educational institution.
This does not refer only to educational institutions but also to the relationship between life and spirituality. Do you want to “up” (or raise) the quality of your life? Do you want to feel more at peace? Do you want to be happier, mentally healthier, and more whole? To reach that high goal (going upward), many wisdom teachers throughout the ages have recommended that you should first go “down” to the depths of your inner self where there is a whole fascinating interior universe that few of us dare to explore. In short, you should cultivate a deep spirituality.
There is a reciprocal and parallel relationship between "up" and "down", between height and depth that we can apply to education, to spirituality, to life in general. The way up is down!
In this workshop, we will strive to dig deep and rediscover precious insights about our various institutions' founding spirit and philosophies. This is our effort to build a deep foundation, one that will hopefully support the raising up of the levels of religious education and spirituality in the institutions where we work and spend a significant amount of our time and energy.
Thank you and I wish everyone a great workshop experience!
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