Contents

Introduction, xi Editors Notes, xxix About the Illustrations, xxxiii 1: The Call to Natural Farming, 1
My Return to Farming, 4 Challenges During Wartime, 6 The True Meaning of Nature, 8 The Errors of Human Thought, 9 No God or Buddha Will Rescue the Human Race, 13 The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah, 14 A Life of Natural Culture, 15

2: Reconsidering Human Knowledge, 21 The Birth of Discriminating Knowledge, 21 Darwins Theory of Natural Selection, 23 Understanding True Time and Space, 25 The Rising and Sinking of Genes, 27 An Alternative View of Evolution, 29 Naturally Occurring Hybrids in My Rice Fields, 31 Abandoning What We Think We Know, 34 3: Healing a World In Crisis, 41 Restoring the Earth and Its People, 42 In Nature, There Are No Beneficial or Harmful Insects, 43

Eastern and Western Medicine, 44 The Fear of Death, 47 The Question of Spirit, 49 The Money-Sucking Octopus Economy, 50 The Illusion of the Law of Causality, 56 The Current Approach of Desertification Countermeasures, 60

4: Global Desertification, 69 Lessons from the Landscapes of Europe and the United States, 70 The Tragedy of Africa, 75 Sowing Seeds in an African Refugee Camp, 79 5: Revegetating the Earth Through Natural Methods, 85
Agricultural Production Is Actually Deduction, 88 Commercial Feedlots Will Destroy the Land, Cultured Fish the Sea, 90 Sowing Seeds in the Desert, 92 Creating Greenbelts, 95 The Revegetation of India, 99 Notes from an International Environmental Summit, 113

6: Travels on the West Coast of the United States, 121 Farmers Markets, 124 Urban Natural Farms, 128 People Sow and Birds Sow, 129 Rice Growing in the Sacramento Valley, 134 From Organic Farming to Natural Farming, 136 Two International Conferences, 141 Japanese Cedars at the Zen Center, 145

Appendices Appendix A: Creating a Natural Farm in Temperate and Subtropical Zones, 151 Appendix B: Making Clay Seed Pellets for Use in Revegetation, 161 Appendix C: Producing an All-Around Natural Culture Medium, 166