11. Next Civilization and Spirituality

This chapter describes several encounters of the West with the East, represented by Zen Buddhism which flourished in Kyoto and Shintoism across Japan, as the onset of alternative pathways to escape from our impasse of the global socio-economy. Over history, some Western visionaries have found seeds in Japanese Buddhism and Shintoism to overcome the dualism of Western thought—spirit and matter, visible and invisible, rational and irrational, life and death—which have been imposed on the current civilization to its peril. There is a history of dialogues between the East and West not only in humanities and social sciences but also in natural sciences. These dialogues have been instructive but remain very necessary. In this regard, Kyoto must remain an important node in the East in order to foresee the next civilization, which is indispensable for our future survival.