New Year’s Message
Let Us Achieve Happiness Together With
Nature
Rev. Masanobu Taniguchi,
President
Seicho-No-Ie
I would like to wish all
Seicho-No-Ie members a very Happy New Year.
I am very grateful to be able to
extend my New Year’s greetings to all of you from the Seicho-No-Ie “Office in
the Forest,” the completion of which was celebrated and where work began last
year. Both the inherent blessings and
severity that nature gives human beings are still found in abundance in this
region of Oizumi-cho, Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture. Through our lives, this region provides us
with reminders of what the primordial relationship between nature and human
beings was like; I am very grateful that you supported International
Headquarters’ move here.
Even by world standards, Japan is
a rare “green country” where close to 70% of the entire country is forest
land. In this land, the Japanese have,
since the ancient Jomon Period (14,000-300 BC.), revered and respected nature,
and along with receiving various blessings from her, found value in taking care
of and nurturing nature. On the other
hand, however, it is also a fact that they have promoted large scale
destruction of nature, particularly after the Meiji Era when they rode on the
waves of modernization and even more when they tried to stand at the forefront
of that modernization. While it may be
in different degrees, many countries overseas have also had inconsistent
attitudes towards nature similar to our country. However, in today’s global environment that
has been greatly disturbed by human activity, it is clear which of these two
contradictory ways of life we should adopt.
Humankind must stop destroying
nature and shift to a life that prospers and develops with nature. By no means does this mean a return to life
in the Jomon Period.
Last fall, with the goal of
demonstrating how human beings can live a modern-day life within nature while keeping
the least-fettered functions of the natural forest, incorporating Japan’s
cutting edge environmental technology, Seicho-No-Ie built a Zero Energy
Building (ZEB) that does not emit any carbon dioxide and operates only on
renewable natural energy and began its Headquarters’ work there. The employees who work there are also
striving to mainly use natural energy and changing to a lifestyle that finds
more joy in interaction with nature, including growing crops, than in the
consumption of material things.
That is by no means a boring
life. Human beings are in essence a part
of nature and in their interaction and relationship with organisms such as
fungi, animals and plants, they feel joy, realize what life really is and their
creative desires and ambitions are aroused by listening to the sounds of the
running river, the wind traveling through the forest, and the chirping of the
birds.
Last fall I was moved to discover
many varieties of edible mushrooms growing on the Office grounds. The reason I was so moved is because it was
evidence that the forest environment where the fungi can grow was not destroyed
even by the construction work. The staff
enjoyed and had a wonderful time going into the forest on the office grounds
and picking the mushrooms. They saw deer
running through the forest, were able to remember and learned to recognize
their cries, and savored the happiness of commuting to work and working in the
brilliant reds and yellows, much like a magnificent picture scroll, of the fall
foliage. If human beings do not destroy
it with their selfish desires, nature gives all of this to us absolutely free. There are many other paths besides that of
economic development that human beings can take to find happiness.
Seicho-No-Ie is a teaching that
realizes happiness through reconciliation with “the whole universe.” There is no doubt that “the whole universe”
includes the world of nature. It is my
sincere hope that you will by all means make this basic of our teachings your
creed for this year and along with further advancing, in your family life as
well as your social life, the way of life that “grows together with nature” and
attaining true happiness, share the message with as many people as possible
that nature and human beings are in reality not to conflict but to be in
harmony in the True Image of God’s creation.
Thank you very much for your
continued support again this year.
