Summer courses

In a past issue of these "Paths of dialogue", speaking about the activity of Shinmeizan for the formation to interreligious dialogue, we mentioned briefly the annual courses for students of the Kitakyushu University of Industrial Medicine. This initiative deserves to be dealt with more in detail.

Since 2001, upon request of Professor Fujino, who teaches anthropology and medical ethics at the above-mentioned university, every year Shinmeizan has held a brief summer course on the subject of religion in the life of individuals and of society as such. Given the fact of the plurality of religions in Japan, the issue has to be dealt with from the point of view of the main religious traditions known in this Country in the perspective of interreligious dialogue. 

Professor Fujino, in his courses, aims at giving his students, all of them future doctors, a high vision of the nature of human beings, on which to ground the recognition of their dignity and greatness. To this end he wishes to introduce in his courses the religious point of view on the meaning and value of human life and death. To deal with this issue not only with abstract ideas, but also with a certain experience of religion, he suggests to his students that they spend some days either at the Zen Buddhist Temple Shogo, on a mountain in the city of Kikuchi, or at Shinmeizan.During the last years the number of students wishing to come to Shinmeizan has increased considerably. 

Both last year (2012) and this year (2013) we welcomed about twenty students, making it necessary to hold the course twice. It is important to notice that most of these young students, as the large majority of young people in Japan, do not have any personal religious affiliation, and often have no personal religious faith.The program of the course includes an introduction to the meaning of religion and its relevance in human life both individually and socially. 

There follows a short presentation of the religious traditions most known in Japan (Shintoism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam...).

The last day the subject of interreligious dialogue, as the correct way to deal with the variety of religions, is taken up. 

It is always a pleasure, at the end of every course, to hear the comments of the students, and hear them express satisfaction and gratitude for the unexpected discovery of a way of looking at human beings and the value of their life, which emphasizes their greatness and sacredness in the light of their eternal destiny.