Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.
Interpretation
The act of nurturing both the emotional and physical aspects of life is interconnected.
In this quote, Masanobu Fukuoka reflects on the profound connection between cultivating one's inner emotional landscape and improving the external environment. He suggests that just as one nurtures the physical desert into a thriving ecosystem, the same care and attention are necessary for healing and enriching the human heart, highlighting the symbiotic relationship between personal development and environmental stewardship.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, you might reference this quote to emphasize the importance of emotional well-being in sustainability efforts.
When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate as the world as well.
The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
Modern research divides nature into tiny pieces and conducts tests that conform neither with natural law nor with practical experience. The results are arranged for the convenience of research, not according to the needs of the farmer.
Life on a small farm might seem primitive, but by living such a life we become able to discover the Great Path. I believe that one who deeply respects his neighborhood and everyday world in which he lives will be shown the greatest of all worlds.
The increasing desolation of nature, the exhaustion of resources, the uneasiness and disintegration of the human spirit, all have been brought about by humanity's trying to accomplish something.
Sentient beings, self and others, enemies and dear ones-all are made by thoughts. It is like seeing a rope and mistaking it for a snake. When we think that the rope is a snake, we are scared, but once we see that we are looking at a rope, our fear dissipates. We have been deluded by our thoughts. Likewise, mentally fabricating self and others, we generate attachment and aversion.
Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.
Life is life - whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man's own advantage.
Fraud is the ready minister of injustice.
A poet or philosopher should have no fault to find with his age if it only permits him to do his work undisturbed in his own corner; nor with his fate if the corner granted him allows of his following his vocation without having to think about other people.
Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.
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