Thank you for coming.

I know some of you are actually on

holiday as of like a few days ago.

So, I appreciate you coming back to show

up to listen to a dear friend of mine,

family friend, Reverend Taka Kawakami,

who, I'll let him explain his background himself.

I'm Anna, I'm one of the General Managers and partners here

running the AI research in Bing Studio,

and we hold a monthly series called Fireside Chats.

This is our third series,

actually it's like 2.5.

It's like we've had two this month already.

I just want to welcome you all and say thank you for showing up,

and I'm going to hand it over to Taka now.

So, thank you.

>> Well, thank you so much. Will you give me a hug?

Well, thank you so much for another introduction,

but also give me this opportunity here.

So, I'm Taka.

Do I need to talk of my background anyway?

>> Yeah.

>> Okay. All right.

So, I am a Deputy Head Priest at Temple Shunkoin Temple.

I am actually wearing T-shirts for that one.

Actually, I'm priest, I'm Zen priest.

Normally when I'm working in Temple,

I wear this robe here.

I teach Zen Buddhism,

Philosophy, but also Mindfulness,

and recently working on the Innovation, something like that.

I work with many startup company in Shinjuku or Gotanda.

That spot in Tokyo,

there are many startup business there.

At first I was wearing a robe

when I started going there to

give a workshop, something like this.

Many people were wearing this logo t-shirts anyway,

so I started wearing this one too.

So, that's what I do.

Then maybe, the last few years,

especially teaching in some of universities in US,

like this February I was leading a workshop at Brown University,

and also MIT, something like that.

Probably some of you are from there too.

So, mostly that's what I do.

Then, today's case, I saw the topics there, the mindfulness too,

but actually many people,

probably already done the meditation mindfulness before.

All right, that's good, thanks.

Many people have done meditations,

probably, because mindfulness I think has faded,

especially this tech industry right now.

But issue there is they don't really

teach about philosophical part.

I think that's an issue,

because if you're practicing meditation just

for the stress reduction or a way to develop your performance,

in a way, in a way you're just using meditation as a pain killer.

In a way, the cosmetic drug.

As you know the pain killer doesn't actually treat wounds,

or disease, or anything, all right.

It doesn't heal your wounds,

disease, anything like that.

So, we need to go a step farther.

Then that's why I start

talking about actuality and reality, in a way.

I should use this one to search topics.

But anyone can tell the difference between actuality and reality.

Anyone up in there and Skype too,

that anyone can tell the difference.

actuality and reality.

I know that if you go to the dictionary, regular dictionary,

Webster, whatever, its synonyms.

But this one here actually quite important for this.

Just practicing mindfulness, well,

actually Zen Buddhism or Buddhism in general,

but also this is an important concept for the innovation too.

Actuality and reality.

Anyone? Don't be shy.

>> Perception.

>> Others say perception versus the moment.

>> That's right.

>> Like, actuality is perception,

and then reality is what's actually happened.

>> Actually it's opposite.

But, yeah, that's close enough in a way.

We have actually a good example later,

but actuality and reality.

Actuality is something actually exist,

but reality only exist here.

So, it's really about perception in a way that

reality based on what you perceive from actuality.

But we normally don't

differentiate because we have a naive realism in a way.

I want to try some game actually.

So, in a way we are going to talk about this one here,

but in order to

actually understand difference between reality and actuality,

we need to understand about our own patterns.

Belief that you created unconsciously,

or some embodied movement or pattern, something like this.

So, we're going to play this game.

Rock-Paper-Scissors, everybody knows.

I assume that you know this is a multinational company.

It's interesting. I teach this one in

my meditation class at my Temple.

I have actually, people coming from different countries.

This simple game here,

but everybody have different rules.

Well, as you see,

these are basic rules here. Lets see.

Don't be shy everybody, find your partner.

Let's make a group of two,

preferably somebody you don't normally talk.

Somebody you don't know. Somebody you've

never talked even you actually- I mean,

this is a huge company in a way.

I can see that many

of the people around here never talk, never seen that.

Okay, you can now find

a partner and maybe kind of partner. So, group of two.

Maybe we find a partner. All right.

So, first of all,

decide if you're going to be Person A and Person B.

Decide if you're going to be Person A and Person B.

Can you decide it? All right.

Then Person A just plays the game as usual, the normal rule,

but Person B you need to throw

the hand second after the Person A throw their hand.

So, you can see what kind of hand your partner throw.

Then you see it, but you have to purposely lose.

You have to lose purposely.

So, you confirm their hand,

then you throw your hand and you lose.

But not too long, okay?

Not too long. I mean,

like just a second later, all right?

Then play this one five times each,

and then I'm going to ask you after everybody play this game,

I'm going to ask you how many times you could lose,

you can lose, okay?

>> Because if you think about [inaudible].

>> Okay. You got the rule?

>> Yeah.

>> Everything clear?

>> Yeah.

>> All right. So.

All right. You have

to loose, you can not win.

Okay? So, five times eight,

all right? Five times eight.

How was it? Tricky, right?

Challenging. All right, everybody finished or not yet?

Do you a couple of minutes?

Couple more minutes, are you done?

>> That was hard.

>> So, first of all,

anyone who loose five times? That's amazing.

Four times? Three times?

Twice? Once? Zero? So, how was it?

>> It's was hard.

>> It's hard isn't it? It's just slight change.

You just need to,

is that my voice echoing or somebody is talking?

Okay. So, anyway, it's

easy game that just on one change, just losing, right.

>> For all of you that are remote,

can you please mute your sites. Thank you.

>> Okay. Thank you. But anyway,

so it's just a really easy game

that it's really hard to lose in a way because,

it's not like you actually practice this one so many time,

in a way, you just need to play this game again and again.

So, you actually know that,

you program yourself to win this game.

But, you try to change approach and it's really hard.

This is a silly game that

many things in your life probably find that it's similar where

you actually learn to

do something and you can still embody the skills or patterns.

You develop certain patterns.

But, when I ask you to change it's really hard.

So, then this one here.

So, this one here,

when you actually make these patterns,

normally we call this one belief, right?

When we create the belief,

first of all, let me ask you this one.

How many people think that you are more rational than people who

lived before late 18th century?

Define that time, we reason why it's

late 18th century normally

defined as the beginning of the modern science.

So, that's why I'm asking you,

how many people think that you are more rational than people

before the late 18th century?

Why?

Why do you think you are more rational?

>> They didn't second get themselves with science.

>> Science? I want to talk

about that one today. That's my topic today.

Science, right. Then, what is science?

You need more logic?

>> It's a method for understanding things that are in this.

>> Okay. But, what do you think,

how about people before the modern science was established?

What they used to understand what's going on around them?

>> Observation.

>> Observation.

>> Mythology.

>> Mythology.

>> Traditions.

>> Right.

>> Story.

>> Story.

>> Guess.

>> Guess, that's good.

But, we still use a guess.

But anyway, so this one here for instance,

how we develop our belief that belief it's

not part of faith or religion, I mean,

everyday in life too, you do

certain thing and you have belief that that's happened,

if you do A certainly B happen, that's a belief.

You have a certain routines or things that you do in everyday.

That's also a belief.

But normally, the reason why I ask you this one here

is why do you think you are more

rational than people who lived before.

Then, this case here,

which one comes first?

Reasoning or judgment, which one comes first?

You say rational, right?

You're more rational than people who

lived before the modern science was established.

So, people will say that you are more rational,

which one comes first? Reasoning or judgment?

>> Judgment.

>> Judgment. But in that case,

it's not really irrational, isn't it?

What do you think? If your judgment

comes first and then reasoning second,

doesn't sound rational to me.

>> You question.

>> Then normally sometime people say,

"Oh, reasoning comes first then judgment comes second."

But, what do you see here?

So, intuition, so judgment, right? The reasoning.

But, this reasoning here is not you're being a scientist in a way.

So, you've been just about lawyer to yourself.

You see the difference? Lawyer and the scientist difference.

So, lawyers case, they try to defend the client, right?

Scientists case, they try to find truth.

Then this kind of reasoning here,

this path here you have a judgment intuition this happened.

Reasoning here is normally we try to

justify our intuitional judgment.

Then, if this one here

to justify by your reasoning, then you have belief.