Weeds play an important part in building soil fertility and in balancing the biological community . . .

Giving up your ego is the shortest way to unification with nature.

As far as my planting program goes, I simply broadcast rye and barley seed on separate fields in the fall . . . while the rice in those areas is still standing. A few weeks after that I harvest the rice, and then spread its straw back over the fields as mulch.

If a farmer does abandon his or her "tame" fields completely to nature, mistakes and destruction are inevitable.

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.

The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.

We must find our way back to true nature. We must set ourselves to the task of revitalizing the earth. Regreening the earth, sowing seeds in the desert--that is the path society must follow.