learning

Below is a fictional story about a walk with Masanobou Fukuwoka written as a play. Embedded within the conversations are my concerns, doubts and insecurities of life and the cautious movement and reflection towards the ecological paradigm.

CAST

Masanobu Fukuoka

Japanese: 福岡 正信 (2 February 1913 – 16 August 2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures, from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly referred to as “natural farming” or “do-nothing farming”.

Fukuoka was the author of several Japanese books, scientific papers and other publications, and was featured in television documentaries and interviews from the 1970s onwards. His influences went beyond farming to inspire individuals within the natural food and lifestyle movements. He was an outspoken advocate of the value of observing nature’s principles.

Julian

A character loosely based on the author.

With a simultaneous sense of existential urgency and confusion, Julian walking with pace,  swivels, turning and hops adjacently off the cracked concrete path and sets down the historic beaten track. The junction of old ways and new is forgotten, all but partially concealed by dense bracken. 

As Julian leads down the winding smooth stone path; it narrows, twists and turns whilst the forest grows slowly in height. The morning light shines through the broadleaf canopy casting long shadows, stretching the oaks, chestnuts and birch westward. 

Julian sensing relief from the bustle of town life slows, almost forcibly due to the abundance of beauty. He softens and opens to nature. Whilst passing a hulking oak trunk he gently feels the micro terraces of the bark on its trunk, observing the sensations under his fingers.

JULIAN

(gently thinking out loud to himself under his breath whilst directing his vision onto a rotten acorn)

Why is there such vast contrast everywhere in this world?… Where does it come from?.. Does it have to be this way?… Has it always been this way?… Why is there so much pain and inequality in this world? 

… surely not….

It can’t be possible that the destructive footprint of humanity is just nature in motion?… Are we really separate from her? Or is that a choice? How do we really know?

Sensing almost a flicker of lightness in the air, Julian is mysteriously pulled down the path. After a few moments and unknowingly why, he follows slowly yet with no caution and surprisingly with each step feels calmer and more relaxed. 

Before even realising for himself, he is walking off the track, connecting and feeling the soft ground underfoot. Warmed by the sun, the cool spring forest air lifts from the ground, passing his exposed arms sending tingles down his spine. 

Almost magnetically he is pulled towards what seems like an edge within the forest; where the ground starts to drop away steeply, yet its walkable with care. As he approaches the edge, looking downwards, he is met with a purple haze of bluebells; some glowing in patches where the sun reaches them between the trees. A feeling of warmth rushes through his body as he is stunned by the view. 

JULIAN

—

Without realising, Julian finds himself emerging from a place untethered to temporal time and space. He slowly opens his eyes, realising he had closed them. Mysteriously he’s looking at the same view as when he had his eyes closed, seeing not with his eyes, but his heart; feeling the same warmth and expansion between the internal and external landscapes, seeing beauty in everything in its entirety as if for the first time. 

JULIAN

(with a soft mumble outward, as if a thought escapes through his breath) 

What really is nature?

Unbeknowingly, a light, airy being had been standing just a stone’s throw away from him, perched against a fallen chestnut tree that is still living. New shoots are growing skyward along the topside of the horizontal trunk that would all in time turn into new trunks. The being was a small man in his 90’s filled with quiet confidence. He stood tall within himself, barefoot, wearing a loose white kimono and trousers. His wispy presence had no distinct boundary between his body, spirit and landscape. 

FUKUOKA

(speaking very casually)

Did you not just find her?

JULIAN

(calmly yet with disbelief at what he’s looking at)

Fukuoka… it’s really you? I feel I did…

(looking downward with confusion, trying to grasp hold of a fleeting experience) 

But all the clarity is turning into confusion. (Rhetoric) Why am I always pulled between the extremes? The moment I feel I grasp life’s essence, I start to analyse it and it dissolves. What really is nature?

FUKUOKA

I cannot tell you what nature is as you already have formulated your own intellectual idea. I could only show you how to connect and feel it. 

JULIAN

(with a slow respectful bow, savouring the moment) 

Thank you. I definitely did but when I try to express it, I find I can’t. Those feelings and sensations I experienced transcend dualistic thought. Where am I going wrong? Why do I see this way?

FUKUOKA

I could never possibly say for sure, but what I can say is that the world is completely interconnected, flowing, unfolding all in the present moment. The experience you talk about has no intrinsic values… It simply just is. People in their minds try to organise what they perceive, and by doing so they create division… 

(Fukuoka turns to his left and points to the entirety of what his vision can see and points to the things that he talks about)

First things are given names… tree’s, minerals, sky, ground etc. Then things are broken down even further… Branches, leaves, cells… Then concepts are given to things… up, down, contraction, expansion etc. And then there are values like strong, weak, good, bad, beautiful…

JULIAN

Ahhhh, I seeee. It’s in this division that we separate ourselves from Nature. But don’t we need the all this information about the things we see to make sense of it all?

FUKUOKA

Words are useful in the world of discrimination because they describe a reality that has already been agreed upon. They are not however adequate for describing a world as seen without discrimination. 

JULIAN

I feel like i’m starting to get it. We create a false separation between ourselves, a part of nature, and all the connections to ‘nature’ as a whole. As in a counterfeit whole. Nature’s guiding principle in creation is not based on the intellect or thought, but cognition as a whole. Cognition is life’s way of manifesting the unmanifested. 

FUKUOKA

Yes in a way. The separation is only due to defining concepts, like the crest and trough of a wave seen in isolation are only parts of the wave, but they still are made of the same wave.

(a few moments pass, and then Fukuoka suggests, gesturing with his hands towards a small dirt path that leads down through the bluebells)

Life is constantly in motion, why not explore a little. 

Julian and Fukuoka slowly and carefully make their way down the slope into the blue bells, stopping from time to time to smell and touch the delicate flowers. The path eventually widens and the two go on meandering side by side. 

JULIAN 

Why is it we think this way? Is it possible to say that the root of all problems stems from this, how can people not have empathy for each other and the world? Could our tools of communication hinder our understanding and further the separation?

FUKUOKA

Modern society has no fixed standard of perceiving experience, we gave that up when we decided to separate ourselves from nature and chose to live in the relative world of our own ideas… Life, death, spirit and soul do not escape the realm of relative thought, they are still concepts of the human mind.  As soon as someone thinks of themself as permanent they remove themself from the world of constant change. Human language has become diluted from its true essence over time as the use of language has emerged from the ideas and concepts of the system that it serves. Human standards are conditioned through home, education or perceived self interest like nationalism, existentialism, hedonism, science, libertarianism, or religious doctrine. When there are too many conflicting viewpoints and no way of evaluating them with certainty, people are left confused and are unlikely to take action. We can never separate ourselves from the biological world but when we no longer feel connected with nature, we come to believe that natural law no longer applies to us. This may be the reason for so much unnecessary suffering in the world caused by selfishness and the freedom people think they have to act in the world any way they like. 

What about the pure mind that transcends the mind of ‘I’. The awareness people have before they become aware of themselves. Like the awareness of a child. “An empty mind that mirrors the world, puts the world inside us”. “It is only through nature that we can see this original mind”. (Korn, L, 2015, pages 13, 45).

JULIAN

That makes a lot of sense… but surely there is some good that can come from even the language that we currently use. When language first emerged in much simpler form, it was surely to express, celebrate and resonate to the feelings within, the connection we have to others and the essence of life… A more natural mind, deeper connected and non-dual. Modern language resonates confusion but language must still have its place and act as a tool to point towards experiencing through other ways of knowing like sensing, feeling and intuition. 

I believe we can’t experience true nature connection through the intellect alone and it is futile to even try, yet we do so and it brings great confusion. I can’t believe we let things get this bad collectively. People have lost connection with Gaia.

FUKUOKA

Even in the structure of language, human beings are taught to set themselves apart from nature. When a child first becomes aware of the moon, that child is simply filled with wonder. Then after a period of time the child is taught to discriminate between a subject “I”,  and an object, “the moon”. The child comes to know the thing called the moon as “other”. These are the signs of the intimate and harmonious relationship that once existed between people and nature, which we can still see in children’s instinctive wonderment. This lays fact that we can still reconnect and that the bond is still there, just hidden by memory and conditioning.  

Humans may be the children of mother nature, but they are no longer able to see the true form of their mother… if someone doesn’t know his mother, he does not know whos child he is. He is like a monkey raised in a zoo by humans who is convinced that the zookeeper is his mother”. (Fukuoka, M, 2012)

JULIAN

Ha! Its like humans are raised by the system of perception they are born into. It’s like neoliberalism and consumerism are our surrogate mothers?! And at what cause, the endless desire for more of everything… more things… more knowledge… to take with us where?

I’m pretty sure you are right trying to keep things as simple as possible, Fukuoka Sensei. But what can be done about the problems we all face collectively? They are wickedly complex.

FUKUOKA

Hmmmm… with increased knowledge, there comes an increased desire for more knowledge, and then people want to invent machines to help them achieve even greater knowledge. If proof is found then only more questions will rise from that so-called ‘proof’. Desire for more becomes endless, and we soon forget our place as nature in this life. “I believe there is a limit to knowing nature through our human knowledge… In the end, it will require some courage and perhaps a leap of faith for people to abandon what they think they know”. (Fukuoka, M, 2012). It seems people have given up so much to become possessed by the material things they own. It’s not that material things have no intrinsic value. It simply appears that they have value because people have created the conditions in which they seem to be valuable. Change the conditions and the value is lost. 

There is no need to trouble ourselves trying to figure out the purpose or precise meaning of life, instead we should just accept our gift and do so with gratitude. In simpler times there was no need to intellectualise life and all of this. It has become a paradox of our age. 

As Fukuoka and Julian slowly make their way along the path, heavily engaged in each others company, they both pause and recognise the route ahead will lead them next to a recently plowed field. The sweet birdsong is drowned out under the plangent sounds of tractors. 

I definitely found peace in seeking the simplest solutions for my farm. “I simply emptied my mind and tried to absorb what I could from nature”. (Korn, L, 2015). Trying to adopt ‘natures mind’ I gained insight that was almost the opposite of thinking at the time. “The usual way to go about developing a method is to ask ‘how about trying this?’ or ‘how about trying that?.’ This is modern agriculture and it only results in making the farmer busier. My way was just the opposite. I was aiming at a pleasant, and natural way of farming which results in making the work easier instead of harder. ‘How about not doing this?’, ‘How about not doing that? And that was my way of thinking. I ultimately reached the conclusion that there was no need to plow, no need to apply fertiliser, no need to make compost, no need to use insecticide. When you get right down to it, there are few agricultural practices that are really necessary.” (Fukuoka, M, 1978).

“The more people do and 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”. (Korn, L, 2015). 

The pair come to an opening in the trees and look out as brown fields stretch as far as the eyes can see. The forest suddenly stops stark against the ploughed field. An earthy scent lingers, but something smells amiss. The fields are eerie and life in them is scarce. They are alien to this landscape. In the distance tractors regimentally trug across leaving behind a trail of dark smoke. Life and joy on this farm can’t be found.  

JULIAN

(with a tone of dismay)

What a sorry sight. It looks like the machine is back at it again.

FUKUOKA

Here is a great example of humans making more work for themselves by maximising efficiency within the parts. I don’t see why humans have to intervene so drastically with their environment. Modern Science has told us we will only understand how the world works if we break reality into pieces, study them and put them back together again. With this logic and perception we believe we can stimulate nature to better serve humanity. In the fight for maximising efficiency hectares upon hectares of the same crop are planted. This can’t be anticipated therefore unexpected conditions emerge. The crops become less resilient and are prone to disease and pests, but luckily the scientific method is on hand to address the symptoms with chemical sprays and fertilisers. Aside from the externalised costs and damages to people, animals and the environment, these second generational problems go onto requiring third generational solutions due to further unexpected outcomes that are increasingly complex and difficult to solve. Soon the food production is causing damage to the health of people the other side of the world due to the demand of cheaper food. Fruits and vegetables at this point are certainly not natures own and more a watery chemical concoction of nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, and pesticide residues. All fueled by the systems demand for more, for less. Nature provides more than enough to satisfy everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed. 

JULIAN

It saddens me how quickly these unsolved problems get out of control, and these generational problems happen all the way across society. Trying to solve each problem seems to just create more leading to complexity spiralling out of control. And in the long run, to whose benefit? No ones. It seems that one of the only things that can be done is to make changes from the bottom up, through education and creating regenerative cultures. Does this seem like it would be too slow though?

FUKUOKA

All fundamental changes will be slow, unfortunately, especially to ensure that we are solving the right problems. This will require us to ask the right questions with correct ethics and to live within the planetary boundaries. Indigenous people lived within biological limits, they took only what they needed and lived harmoniously with the land. This is a far cry from the mindset of the so called developing world, and there is much work to be done to get to that stage. It will take a long time to reconnect people with nature and then to pass that connection on from one generation to the next. There is essentially no way to know the best solution but we can try to get as close as possible to natures method. There will need to be a radical shift in education so that it’s possible to cultivate nature connection. Teaching these things in the current educational system is futile as it is focused on developing the intellectual aspects of a child to participate in a human-centred world. There will need to be a focus on cultivating the other ways of knowing that are more resonant with nature for a new paradigm.

JULIAN

With respect, Fukuoka. You almost seem to have a clear cut black and white vision of what it is required, is there no middle ground, no middle way?  

FUKUOKA

To reconnect is to make the world of two, one and to return to the natural mind from which dualism emerged. The natural mind is essentially the center of the dualistic pendulum – greater than the sum of the parts. “To the extent that people separate themselves from nature, they spin out further and further from the center. At the same time, a centripetal effect asserts itself and the desire to return to nature arises. But if people merely become caught up in reacting, moving to the left or to the right, depending on the conditions, the result is only more activity. The non-moving point of origin, which lies outside the realm of relativity, is passed over, unnoticed. I believe that even “returning-to-nature” and anti-pollution activities, no matter how commendable, are not moving toward a genuine solution if they are carried out solely in reaction to the overdevelopment of the present age.” (Fukuoka, M, 1985). Society has come so far and the machine is well oiled, so I agree it may not be realistic or even practical for everyone to awaken to nature at once, but that is the fundamentally what is required. We have come so far with the intellect and it will definitely require some backtracking. 

JULIAN

I can see that but practically speaking I sense there will need to be a long transition period so that life remains stable for the majority of people… where we shift from a predominantly intellect based mindset, to a cognition focused on using all ways of knowing. 

FUKUOKA 

Yes, practically speaking that makes sense but it will be difficult to not create more problems with unknown consequences in the process. I see that the more people awaken and foster this connection with the earth by working with her, the faster things will spread.

The pair walk off and turn back into the woods. Subtly feeling sensations of relaxation pulsing over their bodies as they re-enter the canopy. They follow a path along a contour through dense vegetation. Sycamore and ash emerge from stands of hazel and holly, with bracken interspersed between brambles. Nettles, plantain and wild garlic show up wherever they get a chance to.  

JULIAN

I see reconciling the damages we create as the greatest challenge we face collectively as humanity. There is so much conditioning that needs to be released for positive changes to happen, and the momentum has been building slowly for over half a century. I am confident this momentum has the ability to build exponentially until we reach a turning point and there is a rapid shift in consciousness. I see there will need to be a dance between emerging ‘natural-minded’ cultures and ‘human-minded’ cultures and that the ‘human’ world will need to be a catalyst for transforming the systems of the world. Surely society has got to this point due to a lack of decentralised design and creativity. Understandably in reflection I can say this due to the immense privilege I’ve had in my life, but I feel that it is important to design systems, ways of living, opportunities that enable people to shift their mindsets through participating in them. Moving away from the conditioned human mindset of scarcity to a deeply connected mindset of abundance. Designing systems based on the laws of nature, like bioclimatic design, biomimicry and permaculture are surely a step in the right direction? 

FUKUOKA

These practices definitely have their place, however they are still imposing nature onto herself. Over time they may iterate and move into closer alignment, yet the design is largely based on the designers perception… projecting their subjective view, meaning and understanding of nature based on the values of modern culture.

The guiding fundamental principle will be whether these design tools will be used to further the efficiency of the current paradigm or as a basis of creating new localised cultures that are focused on living with a deeper connection to nature, a completely different culture. 

JULIAN

(holding his head as he narrowly avoids being pulled into the rabbit holes of dualistic thoughts) 

That does make sense. What if we design systems that allow for the emergence of self-realisation. There is a massive potential of untapped creative minds on the planet. I believe through enabling as many people as possible to access and flex their creative potential whilst connecting to nature, we will be able to collectively create a huge diversity of ways of expressing the essences of life from which a more ‘natural’ regenerative culture can emerge. 

FUKUOKA

There is definitely much to learn from the deeper realms of connection to being with life. By spending more time there we will be able to dissolve more of that experience into our lives which will manifest in our realities. 

(Pointing to a sprouting acorn nestled under some loose soil)

Take this plant for example. It simply just is. It’s wholeheartedly expressing the creative guiding principles of life, and is life itself. We have so much to learn from simply just being.

Julian kneels down to the plant and is awestruck by the emergence of life from the seed. Time is suspended as he is absorbed by the experience of being with the plant. The surroundings in his vision blur as his senses sharpen to the details as his heart opens to the awe of what lies before him. Pure clarity emerges from confusion, once again completing the cycle. 

The spirit of Fukuoka becomes lighter and the essence of his being expands throughout the landscape, encompassing and merging with all that it touches until the division between spirit and matter become one.