The One-Straw Revolution_ An Introduction to Natural Farming - Masanobu Fukuoka [58]
"What kind of person should be chosen for prime minister?"
"A dumb log," I replied. "There's nobody better than daruma-san,* " I replied. "He is such a relaxed fellow he can sit for years in meditation without saying a word. If you give him a shove he rolls over, but with the persistence of non-resistance he always sits back up. Daruma-san doesn't just sit idly by, keeping his hands and feet folded. Knowing that you should keep them folded, he scowls silently at the people who want to stick theirs out."
"If you did nothing at all the world could not keep running. What would the world be without development?"
"Why do you have to develop? If economic growth rises from 5% to 10%, is happiness going to double? What's wrong with a growth rate of 0%? Isn't this a rather stable kind of economics? Could there be anything better than living simply and taking it easy?"
People find something out, learn how it works, and put nature to use, thinking this will be for the good of humankind. The result of all this, up to now, is that the planet has become polluted, people have become confused, and we have invited in the chaos of modern times.
At this farm we practice "do-nothing" farming and eat wholesome and delicious grains, vegetables, and citrus. There is meaning and basic satisfaction just in living close to the source of things. Life is song and poetry.
"We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a 'movement' not to bring anything about."
The farmer became too busy when people began to investigate the world and decided that it would be "good" if we did this or did that. All my research has been in the direction of not doing this or that. These thirty years have taught me that farmers would have been better off doing almost nothing at all.
The more people do, the more society develops, the more problems arise. The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something. Originally there was no reason to progress, and nothing that had to be done. We have come to the point at which there is no other way than to bring about a "movement" not to bring anything about.
* Daruma-san is a popular Japanese children's toy. It is a big balloon, weighted at the bottom, in the shape of a monk seated in meditation.
I Was Born to Go to Nursery School
A young man with a small bag over his shoulder walked leisurely up to where we were working in the fields.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Over there."
"How did you get here?"
"I walked."
"What did you come here for?"
"I don't know."
Most of those who come here are in no hurry to reveal their names or the story of their past. They do not make their purpose very clear either. Since many of them do not know why they come, but just come, this is only natural.
From the first, man does not know where he comes from or where he is going. To say that you are born from your mother's womb and return to the earth is a biological explanation, but no one really knows what exists before birth or what kind of world is waiting after death.
Born without knowing the reason only to close one's eyes and depart for the infinite unknown—the human being is indeed a tragic creature.
The other day, I had found a woven sedge hat left by a group of pilgrims who were visiting the temples of Shikoku. On it were written the words, "Originally no east or west/ Ten infinite directions." Now, holding the hat in my hands, I asked the youth again where he had come from, and he said that he was the son of a temple priest in Kanazawa, and since it was just foolishness to read scriptures to the dead all day, he wanted to become a farmer.
There is no east or west. The sun comes up in the east, sets in the west, but this is merely an astronomical