ABOUT MUDITĀ
Cultivating Harmony through Education
"Muditā (मुदिता), a joy that comes from delighting in other people's joy”
If people around the world shared the spirit of “Muditā”, what a harmonious place this world could be? This is one of the many questions we pondered upon during our experiences abroad.
A highly competitive and demanding environments in work and education place immense restrictions on the lives of young people in Japan. They go out into the world with few opportunities to think about how they want to live or how they can live meaningfully, and without the time to think about how they want to live and where they can find meaning. This excessively competitive society defines success with parameters bound by wealth and achievement; unfufilling and lacking in the most important aspects of life. This exacerbates issues, such as decreasing marriage rates and "kodokushi" (lonely death) as a symptom of a culture suffering from psychological isolation.
Muditā aims to plant and cultivate the seeds of empathy in modern Japanese society through the beauty of art. We provide the environment and opportunity to realize the joy and importance of living in a community with others through music, visual arts, architecture, scripture, literature, and theater. As a nonprofit organization, Muditā strives to be a bridge between people to pursue a meaningful life by delivering the power of art.
Our three major missions are 1) to create and increase opportunity for young Japanese people to experience art, 2) to promote the importance of art education in Japan, and 3) to develop artistic information delivery system in Japan. Art demands from us a willingness to be vulnerable, and through these transcending experiences, Muditā aims to help us connect with one another on a deeper, more personal level... realizing the beauty of human life and sympathy in each other.
We strive for the embodiment of the new style of delivering art and art education.
EMPATHETIC EXPERIENCE
Empathy through Artistic Experience
Art can transform people.
The definition of human “happiness” has been a topic of discussions in many types of research in psychology, sociology, and anthropology. “Happiness” is like the wind, it comes and goes. People can be happy at one point in their lives, but then it is gone the next moment, and they find themselves waiting for the next one. So what can give people satisfaction in their lives?
It is no exaggeration to say that the biggest enemy in people’s lives is loneliness in our current society. A lot of Japanese young people who are living in an excessively competitive society put their definition of success in wealth and achievement. This becomes the biggest reason for the increases in the isolation rate of young people, the low marriage rate, and the rise of ”Kodokushi” (lonely death) in Japan.
“Empathetic Experience” is the conceptualized experience that was originally devised by Muditā in order to defeat this enemy (loneliness) in the most humane way. The opposite of “loneliness” is “solidarity.” The meaning of “solidarity” is a sense of unity to share actions, feelings, empathies, and responsibilities with others. To beat loneliness, it is important to be able to realize you are living with somebody, recognized by somebody, belonging to a group, valued by somebody, and loved by somebody. This is the way of living in solidarity, and is what makes it clear why “I” exist and what “I” am living for. This is what allows people to realize that they have a meaning in life. “Empathetic Experience” has a possibility to generate this “solidarity.”
Art can deliver “Empathetic Experience” to human beings.
Empathy occurs in the moments when people experience empathy and understanding for others. These moments can be felt through the transcending experience of art. This experience can lead people to feel a sense of belonging, purpose, and solidarity which all create meaning in one’s life.
There are several important steps to go through to receive a full “Empathetic Experience” through art. These steps may vary depending on what types of art. Here, we will talk about the experience that is provided in the live concert of classical music.
１、To Be Vulnerable
Observe all the sounds you hear from the performance. Expose yourself to the sound and let the sound control you. Trust the sound, eliminate everything from you, but the sound. Even if the sound might harm you, commit to the sound completely and be sincere to the sound.
２、Aesthetic Experience
Many prominent philosophers have been defining the aesthetic experience like the experience you have when you lose yourself into something. When you become vulnerable, the subject (“I”) and the object (the sound) cancel out each other out, and only consciousness is left in space. In order words, the aesthetic experience is achieved when you lose yourself to the sound, you forget yourself, and you devote yourself to the sound, “you” merge with other things that are not you.
３、Poetic Expression
It is not too much to say that music is metaphoric science. It reaches beyond physics to explain the “why” and “how” of the essence of music, which all the past musicians and philosophers have struggled to define. By poetic expression, the listeners are able to receive music in a less restricted way, and more freely. By avoiding to accept it intellectually, any work by artists with poetic expression transforms from an “object” into something that shows soul, life, and energy. Additionally, as it is almost impossible to describe all of the human’s emotion by words, such as “happy” and “sad,” poetic expression enhances expression by adding a truly humane quality. This also strengthens solidarity between the artists who are no longer in this world and artists who are active today.
４、Empathetic Experience with Artworks and Composers
By experiencing the poetic experience and the aesthetic experience, music enables people to have solidarity with composers who made music, sometimes it allows people to be sympathetic and empathetic to a composer through sorrowful expression. (the realization of a strong bond and understanding to music and composers). Depending on its poetic expression. (for example, to the piece of music that expresses somebody’s death, it allows people to experience empathetic to composer’s grief, and it also leads them to take a position of a composer to feel grief through a state of vulnerability). This is “Empathetic Experience” with music and composers.
５、Empathetic Experience with Performers
If the performance is authentic, in other words, the performance is through a live sound and a live acoustic, and the performers themselves are vulnerable to the music, and the listeners receive a deeper appreciation though “Empathetic Experience” between the audience and performers. (The appreciation that comes with “Empathetic Experience” is created via humane communication through art: “we feel extreme gratitude for the artists who dedicate themselves to music and composers who try their best to deliver the art to us. They have sacrificed thousands of hours into practice to create their best performance and experience for us”) This appreciation and empathy to the performers create solidarity between them.
６、Empathetic Experience with People who are with
There is a sense of unity among people around you who are there to have the same experience. They are the people who were also vulnerable to the same experience, experience the poetic expression and sympathetic connection with the same music and the same composers, and who found solidarity with the same performers. This emotional experience allows people to have a sense of bonging and connection with others that is like a family. To fulfill this experience, the audience shared the journey of being vulnerable and having a sublime experience together.
Next, why is art “education” important?
It is quite simple.
Imagine that you go to a Disney theme park. You forget yourself, lose yourself into the world of Disney. Then, you find sympathy and empathy within Walt Disney’s vision “if you can dream it you can do it,” find solidarity with Disney characters and cast members who create the world, and a feel a sense of harmony with the people who shared the same experience in the park.
There is something that supports people to have a similar “Empathetic Experience” to classical music in Disney parks. It is the knowledge of and the experience with Disney movies, stories of the movies, and who Mickey Mouse is. In other words, people have background information and experience that provide them with a sense of what Disney is.
If you know what kind of human Beethoven was and what kind of life he lived, if you know how to play the piano or the violin, and how much of practice it takes to be able to play, and if you know how to connect with the sound and music, then this knowledge will help you to have “Empathetic Experience.” Especially, art education plays a significant role in the process of arriving to the step 1 and 2 explained above (“I am interested in this music or compose and purchased the ticket to the concert). This idea can be universal in any art genre.
By having knowledge and experience with art, it is possible to receive “Empathetic Experience.”
By receiving “Empathetic Experience,” it is possible to find solidarity with others.
By finding solidarity with others, it is possible to defeat the biggest enemy, loneliness.
By defeating loneliness, it is possible to have meaning in life.
Therefore, art education should be a core in Japan’s future educational system.