
Part of an occasional series in which we post excerpts of reviews from around the web. This excerpt comes from the blog of a Unitarian Universalist minister who writes about sustainable farming at The Reverent Eater.
After reading [Fukuoka's] chapter on "Do-Nothing Farming," I think finally
understand better the 29th chapter of the Tao Te Ching, which I've read
translated by Peter Merel as:
Those who wish to change the world
According to their desire
Cannot succeed.
The world is shaped by the Way.
It cannot be shaped by self.
Trying to change it, you damage it;
Trying to possess it, you lose it.
My favorite translator of the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell, has interpreted the same passage to read:
Do you want to improve the world?
I don't think it can be done.
The world is sacred.
It can't be improved.
If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it.
If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.
His interpretation of the chapter continues:
The Master sees things as they are
without trying to control them.
She lets them go their own way.
And resides at the center of the circle.
Ironically, despite my interest in farming and the natural world, in
the past, I've always understood this portion of the Tao as a reference
to the world's social problems. I've usually interpreted it to mean,
rather pessimistically, that we ought not bother trying to change those
things that are troublesome about the world, such as the poverty, the
racism, the human rights violations, and even climate change. As such,
I've really wrestled with this passage.
But perhaps when Lao Tse said "the world," he really did mean "the
earth" - "the natural world," rather than the society that humans have
created, complete with all of its problems. What is climate change,
after all, but the world thrown out of balance by human intervention?
To not address it, Fukuoka would say, would be abandonment. He might
recall the time when, as a young man, he was handed charge of his
father's orchards and, eager to put his new way of thinking into
action, he too suddenly allowed the trees to take care of themselves
without first doing what he could to ease them back into a place of
natural balance with their surroundings. As a result of his inaction,
the trees withered and failed to produce fruit. There is an immense
difference between "Do-Nothing Farming" and neglect, he learned, just
as there is a difference between wu wei (non-doing), and not doing
anything at all.
[read the entire post here]
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