The One-Straw Revolution_ An Introduction to Natural Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka [45]
Living is no more than the result of being born. Whatever it is people eat to live, whatever people think they must eat to live, is nothing more than something they have thought up. The world exists in such a way that if people will set aside their human will and be guided instead by nature there is no reason to expect to starve.
"There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmer to write a poem or compose a song."
Just to live here and now—this is the true basis of human life. When a naive scientific knowledge becomes the basis of living, people come to live as if they are dependent only on starch, fats, and protein, and plants on nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash.
And the scientists, no matter how much they investigate nature, no matter how far they research, they only come to realize in the end how perfect and mysterious nature really is. To believe that by research and invention humanity can create something better than nature is an illusion. I think that people are struggling for no other reason than to come to know what you might call the vast incomprehensibility of nature.
So for the farmer in his work: serve nature and all is well. Farming used to be sacred work. When humanity fell away from this ideal, modern commercial agriculture rose. When the farmer began to grow crops to make money, he forgot the real principles of agriculture.
Of course the merchant has a role to play in society, but glorification of merchant activities tends to draw people away from a recognition of the true source of life. Farming, as an occupation which is within nature, lies close to this source. Many farmers are unaware of nature even while living and working in natural surroundings, but it seems to me that farming offers many opportunities for greater awareness.
"Whether autumn will bring wind or rain, I cannot know, but today I will be working in the fields." Those are the words of an old country song. They express the truth of farming as a way of life. No matter how the harvest will turn out, whether or not there will be enough food to eat, in simply sowing seed and caring tenderly for plants under nature's guidance there is joy.
* The path of spiritual awareness which involves attentiveness to and care for the ordinary activities of daily life.
Various Schools of Natural Farming
I do not particularly like the word "work." Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think this is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life.
For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.
To move things in this direction is my goal. It is also the goal of the seven or eight young people who live communally in the huts on the mountain and help out with the farming chores. These young people want to become farmers, to establish new villages and communities, and to give this sort of life a try. They come to my farm to learn the practical skills of farming that