Minakata Kumagusu—The Thinking of “Connection” Taught by Slime Molds

 

Minakata Kumagusu, a Meiji-era naturalist, arrived at astonishing insights while studying slime molds in the forests of Wakayama.

 

Slime molds are organisms that, though single-celled, behave as a collective, maintaining order without a centralized command center.

 

Kumagusu saw the true nature of the world in this ecology of slime molds.

 

 

 

His “Minakata Mandala” depicts all phenomena intricately intertwined by threads of causality, mutually influencing one another.

 

 

 

In contrast to modern science's tendency to understand things by breaking them down into parts, he believed truth resides at the “sui-ten”—the nodal points where diverse causal threads intersect.

 

 

 

When opposing the Meiji government's shrine consolidation decree, he did not merely cry out, “Don't cut down the trees!”

 

 

 

He pointed out the “chain of causal relationships”: the disappearance of forests would lead to the extinction of microorganisms, which in turn would cause the collapse of agriculture, people's health, and their spiritual identity.

 

 

 

This perspective anticipated modern systems thinking by over a century.

 

 

Kenji Miyazawa— “Until the world as a whole is happy”

 

Poet and children's story writer Kenji Miyazawa spoke thus:

 

 

 

“Until the world as a whole is happy, individual happiness is impossible.”

 

 

 

He resigned as a teacher at the agricultural school in Hanamaki, embraced farming life himself, and founded the “Rashiji Association,” aiming to reunite science, religion, art, and labor—fields fragmented by modernization.

 

 

 

Kenji's worldview was scientific yet animistic.

 

He listened to the voices of rocks, wind, and stars, depicting humans, animals, plants, and inorganic matter as equal partners in dialogue.

 

To him, we are “hypothetical organic alternating current lamps” flickering within the energy cycle of the entire universe.

 

 

 

This sense of a “fluid self” is the key to escaping anthropocentrism.

 

Yanagi Muneyoshi—The Aesthetics of Surrendering to “Other Power”

 

Yanagi Muneyoshi, who advocated the Mingei Movement, found true beauty not in famous artists' works but in the utilitarian objects made by nameless craftsmen for daily life.

 

At the core of his philosophy lies the Jodo Buddhism concept of “other power” (tariki).

 

 

 

True, peaceful, and wholesome beauty resides in crafts produced repeatedly within local traditions, following the nature of raw materials, and rejecting individual artifice (self-effort).

 

 

 

This is a process of “collaboration” where the producer does not dominate the material, but listens to its voice and utilizes its inherent properties.

 

 

 

This “attitude of not trying to control” is crucial in the way of life of the era of symbiosis.

 

 

 

Facing irresistible forces like climate change and disasters, it is an attitude of “adaptation”—not trying to forcefully subdue them, but conforming to nature's behavior and seeking a way for humans to live within it.

 

 

 

This can be seen as the modern practice of the “Way of Other Power” advocated by Yanagi.

 

 

Ryokan—Freedom Without Possession

 

Ryokan, a Zen monk of the late Edo period, was known by the name “Great Fool” and for playing handball with children.

 

 

 

His anecdotes embody the ethics of the era of symbiosis.

 

 

 

When a thief entered his thatched hut, he offered his futon, saying it would be pitiful if the thief had nothing to steal.

 

 

 

When a bamboo shoot threatened to burst through the floorboards, he opened a hole in the roof to let it grow.

 

These actions demonstrate thoroughgoing “non-violence,” “gift-giving,” and the “abolition of boundaries between humans and nature.”

 

By abandoning attachment to possessions, Ryōkan attained a state of freedom, free from hostility toward all beings.

 

 

 

“The wind brings enough fallen leaves to burn”

 

 

 

This attitude, symbolized in the poem, of finding contentment solely in nature's bounty, is the spiritual origin of modern concepts like “degrowth” and “voluntary simplicity.”

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