Although natural farming - since it can teach people to cultivate a deep understanding of nature - may lead to spiritual insight, it's not strictly a spiritual practice.

Unless people can become natural people, there can be neither natural farming nor natural food.

Speaking biologically, fruit in a slightly shriveled state is holding its respiration and energy consumption down to the lowest possible level. It is like a person in meditation: his metabolism, respiration, and calorie consumption reach an extremely low level. Even if he fasts, the energy within the body will be conserved. In the same way, when mandarin oranges grow wrinkled, when fruit shrivels, when vegetables wilt, they are in the state that will preserve their food value for the longest possible time.

Left alone, the earth maintains its own fertility, in accordance with the orderly cycle of plant and animal life.

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.

Of course, I have made mistakes . . . just as every grower does. However, I never really think of them as mistakes!

The simple hearth of the small farm is the true center of our universe.