WOOD LIFE MAGAZINE
Special Issue: BACK TO BASICS
Bringing Nature Into Daily Life
Deep inside his heart, cherishing the teaching of Nature which he
learned from the Native Americans, Tom Matsuda, a third generation Japanese
American (Sansei), continues carving the statues of Buddha in a remote Japanese
village. When Japan was an agricultural country, people were not against
Nature's law and lived in harmony with Nature. Not many people are aware that,
despite the fact that (today) this is an economically giant country, there are
quite a few people who choose to live, not just by going back to the age of
things of Nature. They are living in
the present with the earth, pondering with anxiety the future of the World.
They are not typical farmers, but also include quite a number of former urban
dwellers. With the Southern Alps as its background, in an isolated lonely
village. The life style
of one of them, Tom Matsuda (31 years old), reminds us of the revival of our
lost rich spiritual happiness, despite being fortunate in achieving material
wealth. While living in a plain wood house eighty years or so old, built on a
steep hillside, he cultivates the fields and carves Buddhas daily. If one
hears just as much, his life may sound like an apprentice's pilgrimage at a
struggling stage, but to the contrary, he seems only to be enjoying this with a
song of happy melody. Why? Because, when he speaks about Buddha, his face
shines with the happiest smile.
Judging from his name, he is an American-Japanese born in the
State of Connecticut, a third generation sansei. He graduated from Art
College, then continued to work on his art interests, mainly printmaking and painting
in New York City in his twenties. The meeting with Native Americans was the
beginning of his coming to this remote village, not even known to ordinary
Japanese. In 1978, while visiting Boulder, Colorado, he met a Japanese from
whom he learned of the Lakota Native Americans and thereby had an opportunity
to meet them. By chance he was able to participate in their "Sweat
Lodge" ceremony. Into a dome big enough to accommodate six or seven grown
men and built of branches of Willow, they put red hot stones, pour water on the
stones to produce hot steam, and with their bare bodies offer prayers and
traditional songs to the Great Spirit and Mother Earth. "I felt
Nature". "I realized Human Beings are not strong".
"Nature and Man are the same". "The interior of the Sweat Lodge
is terribly hot, pitch dark, and while praying, you understand not with your
head (thinking), but with your body". Slowly, slowly thus he spoke in
Japanese. "inside the Sweat Lodge it so hot, the suffering nearly makes
one faint". This is similar to a ceremony which is conducted in Animism,
when you reach beyond "thinking" you reach to the "Spirit",
and for the first time you experience bodily feeling. Through this experience
his life philosophy changed completely. Thereafter he visited the State of
Arizona, visiting the Navaho Tribe and Hopi Tribe, and then he spent a half
year with the Navaho tribe.
He participated in the Peace March between Los Angeles and New
York. Then five years ago, he came to this remote village. "Because my
roots are in Japan" he said. Actually he is an activist. He prays for
the country which experienced the Atom Bomb, and following the prophecy of the
Hopi tribe he came to warn countries that posses the Atomic Bomb. The carving
of Buddha Statues seems part of his action which are his prayers. It is very
natural to him that he wants to live in this place. In spite of being brought
up in the American culture which is based on the value of materialism, after he
learned from the Native Americans about reality and its soaring heights, no one
can imagine he would ever go back to city life again. From this humble
mountain house, he will gaze at the world. |
