2010 Seicho-No-Ie Special Conference
Mrs.Junko Taniguchi Lectures, Now is the Time for A Child of God's Way of Life that is in harmony with Nature
Let's Spread from the Forest the Way of Life, "Man is a Child of God"
Mrs. Junko Taniguchi, President of Seicho-No-Ie White Dove Association, lectured for about 30 minutes from 3:30 p.m. on the first day of the Special Conference (July 10).
Rev. Taniguchi began her lecture by saying that she would like to share with the attendees her current understanding about the Headquarters’ plan to “move to the Forest.” As she wrote in her essay entitled “I Will Move to the Forest,” which was carried in the March 2010 issue of the Shirohato, the idea of living anywhere else but Tokyo was unthinkable to her when the “Office in the Forest” plan was first proposed in 2003.
Mrs. Taniguchi’s understanding was that one of the biggest reasons for moving to the forest was to realize Carbon Zero, but she could not come to terms with a question lingering in her mind that Tokyo may be a better place to promote this movement. So she read many books and studied.
She read two novels: “Kamusari Nahnah Nichijo (Carefree Life, by Shion Miura, published by Tokuma Shoten), which depicts a young man, who goes to work in the forestry industry after graduating from high school and goes through many ordeals in the back mountains in Mie Prefecture; and Futatsu no Kawa (Two Rivers by Yonematsu Shono, published by Mumyosha), which depicts the conflict between nature preservationists including charcoal makers and those who try to build an electric power generator. After reading these books, which were based on some facts, Mrs. Taniguchi came to understand about the Japanese people’s view of nature: they live with appreciation for nature’s blessings and in awe of nature at the same time.
Mrs. Taniguchi next pointed out that Japan, once a poor county, achieved great economic growth through the use of fossil fuel and progress of scientific technology since 1955, and it now has more food than we could ever eat and consumes 10 percent of the world’s food resources, and we live by depriving the world and emitting a large amount of CO2. She spoke of her concern that although Japan’s self-sufficiency rate of grain is low, there is no sense of crisis among Japanese, who seem to believe that they can buy anything with money. She said that it can be said that Tokyo is a city where desires are concentrated.
Mrs. Taniguchi next touched upon a population decrease in Japan’s rural areas. As the expression, “villages on the brink,” suggests, residents are aging rapidly, putting many areas at risk of disappearance and there is a possibility that culture and arts which are unique to these communities will disappear altogether.
Looking again at Tokyo, people appear to be living a trendy, convenient, rich and exciting life. However, they now feel stressed and there are problems, such as eating alone, bullying, shutting oneself in his room and depression. Mrs. Taniguchi said that this is the current state of affairs in Japan.
Mrs. Taniguchi said that although human beings still retain their innate sensibility from the time when they were living with nature, since theirs was not based on awareness nor was it established on a theoretical ground, that sensibility may have been buried amid scientific technology and fossil fuel civilization.
After studying the differences between the city and rural area, Mrs. Taniguchi felt that modern people are moving in the direction of enjoying their rich and comfortable life before their eyes, when their houses are on fire and the roofs are about to burn down, as in the parable of the three carts and the burning house. Mrs. Taniguchi said that although the President said that moving to the forest may be “like throwing a stone in the wide ocean” (Inochi no Wa Magazine, Vol. 3), she is hopeful that many people will come to share “this way of life,” upon seeing the waves which the stone makes in the sea.
At the end of her lecture, Mrs. Taniguchi said that by moving to the forest and living with nature, we can disseminate to many people the “man, a child of God” way of life, in which man and nature are sustained by God and man protects nature and gives life to everything. She asked that whether from the Headquarters or the localities, we join hands in promoting the “Movement that Grows with Nature.”