Masanobu Fukuoka

Weeds Masanobu Fukuoka

There is no good or bad among the life-forms on earth. Each has its role, is nec­es­sary, and has equal value.

It seems log­i­cal for peo­ple to choose some­thing spe­cial from na­ture and use it for the ben­e­fit of hu­man be­ings, but when they do this, they make a big mis­take. Tak­ing one el­e­ment from na­ture, in the name of cre­at­ing some­thing valu­able eco­nom­i­cally (cash crops, for ex­am­ple), gives that el­e­ment spe­cial value. It also im­plies that other el­e­ments have a lesser value. When hu­man be­ings plant only “use­ful” trees with high cash value in the desert, and cut down the un­der­growth re­fer­ring to those plants as “weeds,” many plant species are lost. Of­ten they are the very plants that are en­rich­ing and hold­ing the soil to­gether.
 There is no good or bad among the life-forms on earth. Each has its role, is nec­es­sary, and has equal value. This idea may seem sim­plis­tic and un­sci­en­tific, but it is the ba­sis for my plan to re­gen­er­ate land­scapes all over the world.
Masanobu Fukuoka, Sawing Seeds in the Desert

The Second Genesis Masanobu Fukuoka

We can­not sim­ply put things back the way they once were. Too much has hap­pened. Con­di­tions are far dif­fer­ent to­day from what they were just one hun­dred years ago. Soil has eroded and be­come drier due to agri­cul­ture, over­graz­ing, and cut­ting too many trees. Plant com­mu­ni­ties and the bal­ance of micro­organ­isms have been al­tered be­yond recog­ni­tion by plow­ing and agri­cul­tural chem­i­cals. An­i­mals and plants are be­com­ing ex­tinct from the elim­i­na­tion of their habi­tat. The seas are be­com­ing more acidic, and even the cli­mate is chang­ing. Even if we did go to the trou­ble of putting back the plants that were na­tive to a cer­tain place, there is no guar­an­tee that they would thrive there any­more.
 My idea is en­tirely dif­fer­ent. I think we should mix all the species to­gether and scat­ter them world­wide 1)↓, com­pletely do­ing away with their un­even dis­tri­bu­tion. This would give na­ture a full pal­ette to work with as it es­tab­lishes a new bal­ance given the cur­rent con­di­tions. I call this the Sec­ond Gen­e­sis.
Masanobu Fukuoka, “Sawing Seeds in the Desert”

fuku_mount

Here, peo­ple are car­ry­ing out var­i­ous forms of hu­man ac­tiv­ity with the idea that they are ac­com­plish­ing some­thing. The last line refers to the fig­ure on the left who is on his own mis­sion to re­pair the dam­age of that ac­tiv­ity.

Orig­i­nally there was no east
west, high
low, slow
fast, easy
hard, love
hate.
This per­son is sow­ing seeds in the desert.

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1. making seeds pellets as rich as possible, and sawing them in the desert – przyp. Amin

In Europe Masanobu Fukuoka

Later that year, I was shown around Eu­rope by a Greek gen­tle­man and a young Ital­ian woman who had stayed in one of my hill­side huts. The Eu­ro­pean coun­tries are, for the most part, very care­ful about pro­tect­ing the nat­u­ral en­vi­ron­ment and main­tain­ing the lovely veg­e­ta­tion. At first glance the en­tire area looks like a nat­u­ral park, but it is only the beauty of a pic­ture post­card. If you look closely, you will find that there are very few va­ri­eties of trees. The soil is thin, hard, and un­fer­tile. It ap­peared to me that the earth in Eu­rope had been dam­aged by an agri­cul­ture made up of mis­man­aged pas­tures used to pro­duce meat for roy­alty, and vine­yards to pro­duce wine for church use 1)↓.
 Gen­er­ally speak­ing, the far­ther south you go from the Nether­lands, up the Rhine, and to­ward Italy, the more the num­ber of trees de­creases and the green color fades. In ad­di­tion, much of the Alps are com­posed of lime­stone and have few large trees. The far­ther south you go, the higher the soil tem­per­a­ture, and the drier the cli­mate. The soil be­comes thin­ner and in­creas­ingly less fer­tile. My im­pres­sion was that in Eu­rope, the soil was dry and de­pleted just be­low the sur­face.
Masanobu Fukuoka, “Sawing Seeds in the Desert”

fuku_narr

There is no wide or nar­row on the earth
there is no fast or slow in the sky.

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1. not only for church :-) – przyp. Amin

Capra at Fukuoka’s hut from "Sawing Seeds in the Desert"

It’s true that I have writ­ten sev­eral books,” I re­sponded, “but you seem to have writ­ten your books be­liev­ing they would be use­ful to other peo­ple. I’ve writ­ten mine with the idea that books are not use­ful at all.

Some years ago, Fritjof Capra, a pro­fes­sor of the­o­ret­i­cal physics at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia who also lec­tures on sci­ence as a holis­tic dis­ci­pline, vis­ited my hill­side hut. He was trou­bled that the cur­rent the­o­ries of sub­atomic par­ti­cles ap­peared to be in­com­plete. There ought to be some fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple, Capra said, and he wanted to ex­press it math­e­mat­i­cally.
 In search­ing for this elu­sive fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple, he had found a hint in the Taoist con­cept of yin and yang. He called it the sci­ence of the Tao, but he added that this alone did not solve the puz­zle.
 He had likened the lively dance of sub­atomic par­ti­cles to the dance of the In­dian god Shiva 1)↓, but it was dif­fi­cult to know what the steps of the dance were, or the melody of the flute. I had learned about the con­cept of sub­atomic par­ti­cles from him, so of course I had no words that could di­rectly dis­pel his frus­tra­tion.
 It is one thing to think that within the con­stant changes of all things and phe­nom­ena there must be some cor­re­spond­ing fixed laws, but hu­mans can­not seem to be sat­is­fied un­til they have ex­pressed these laws math­e­mat­i­cally. I be­lieve there is a limit to our abil­ity to know na­ture with hu­man knowl­edge. When I men­tioned this might be the source of his prob­lem, Capra coun­tered, say­ing, “I’ve writ­ten more than ten books, but haven’t you writ­ten books, too, think­ing knowl­edge was use­ful?”
 “It’s true that I have writ­ten sev­eral books,” I re­sponded, “but you seem to have writ­ten your books be­liev­ing they would be use­ful to other peo­ple. I’ve writ­ten mine with the idea that books are not use­ful at all. It ap­pears that both of us, from the West and the East, are in­ves­ti­gat­ing na­ture and yearn­ing for a re­turn to na­ture, so we are able to sit to­gether and have a meet­ing of the minds. But on the point of af­firm­ing or negat­ing hu­man knowl­edge, we seem to be mov­ing in op­po­site di­rec­tions, so we prob­a­bly will not ar­rive at the same place in the end.”
 In the end, it will re­quire some courage and per­haps a leap of faith for peo­ple to aban­don what they think they know.
Masanobu Fukuoka, “Sawing Seeds in the Desert”

fuku_cave

This draw­ing shows the “cave of the in­tel­lect,” which is de­scribed below.
Continua a leggere

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1. A ma­jor Hindu de­ity, Shiva is of­ten de­picted as danc­ing on Apas­mara, the de­mon of ig­no­rance.

Dharma Wheel Masanobu Fukuoka

All things were de­signed so that one is many, the in­di­vid­ual is the whole, the whole is per­fect, there is no waste, noth­ing is use­less, and all things per­form their best ser­vice.

I would like to pro­pose a dharma wheel the­ory of bi­o­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment as an al­ter­na­tive to Dar­win’s flat, sin­gle-plane the­ory of nat­u­ral se­lec­tion. I will call it the Dharma Wheel The­ory of Flux in All Things. The dharma wheel can be seen as a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of nat­u­ral law. Na­ture ex­pands in all di­rec­tions, three-di­men­sion­ally, and at the same time, as it de­vel­ops, it con­verges and con­tracts. We can see these changes of ex­pan­sion and con­trac­tion as a kind of wheel. It is like the uni­verse—three-di­men­sional, al­ways ex­pand­ing and con­tract­ing, spin­ning in space, and head­ing in an un­known di­rec­tion.
 At the cre­ation, along with the birth of the rest of the uni­verse, the earth and all the liv­ing things on it were born as a sin­gle, uni­fied body with a com­mon fate. Ev­ery­thing re­gard­ing the roles, the aims, and the work of each of them orig­i­nated and was con­cluded in the same in­stant. All things were de­signed so that one is many, the in­di­vid­ual is the whole, the whole is per­fect, there is no waste, noth­ing is use­less, and all things per­form their best ser­vice.
 There is an­other as­pect to this dy­namic, spin­ning, ex­pand­ing, and con­tract­ing three-di­men­sional and mul­ti­fac­eted dharma wheel. Its cen­ter, the hub, is for­ever mo­tion­less and for­ever one. In­stead of see­ing the dis­tinc­tions among the things of this world, if we look at the base, it is all one, and the pur­pose of all things is the same.
Masanobu Fukuoka, “Sawing Seeds in the Desert”

fuku_two

Two peo­ple are sit­ting by the fire in­side an earth­en­ware jar. The jar rep­re­sents the world cre­ated by hu­man thoughts. The three char­ac­ters around the peo­ple are wind, light, fire. The char­ac­ter in the smoke that has man­aged to rise out of the jar is mu, or empti­ness. The third per­son, who is not in­side the jar, is re­lax­ing and en­joy­ing him­self.

The hearth is the uni­verse
the uni­verse is also a mid-day dream.