The One-Straw Revolution - Multiworld India

in the hills. Though he was called a poor peasant, he still had this kind offreedom. The New Year's holiday lasted about three months. Graduallythis vacation came to be shortened to two months, one month, and nowNew Year's has come to be a three-day holiday.The dwindling of the New Year's holiday indicates how busy thefarmer has become and how he has lost his easy-going physical andspiritual well- being. There is no time in modern agriculture for a farmerto write a poem or compose a song.The other day I was surprised to notice, while I was cleaning thelittle village shrine, that there were some plaques hanging on the wall.Brushing off the dust and looking at the dim and faded letters, I couldmake out dozens of haiku poems. Even in a little village such as this,twenty or thirty people had composed haiku and presented them asofferings. That is how much open space people had in their lives in theold days. Some of the verses must have been several centuries old. Sinceit was that long ago they were probably poor farmers, but they still hadleisure to write haiku.Now there is no one in this village with enough time to write poetry.During the cold winter months, only a few villagers can find the time tosneak out for a day or two to go after rabbits. For leisure, now, thetelevision is the center of attention, and there is no time at all for thesimple pastimes which brought richness to the farmer's daily life. This iswhat I mean when I say that agriculture has become poor and weakspiritually; it is concerning itself only with material development.Lao Tzu, the Taoist sage, says that a whole and decent life can belived in a small village. Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, spent nineyears living in a cave without bustling about. To be worried about111