EcoSangha Perspectives: Mottainai and Children

My favorite children’s story is long out of print. Published in 1968, it was probably long out of print in 1989 when I checked it out of the library to read to my two young sons.  

I was so captivated by the story I photocopied the book to use with my Campfire Karuna Award class at the temple. Years went by and I used the story several more times, twice with adults, but mostly I set the story aside.  

Then came the internet and online book sales. Initially, I never thought I would find a copy of a children’s book 40 years after it was published.  Now, I own five copies of it, two in mint condition, plus two I’ve given to my grandchildren!

The book is “A Good Morning’s Work” by Nathan Zimelman who, according to the internet, is presently 104 years old and living in San Francisco.  He came to writing children’s books in middle age — after helping with the family business in Sacramento — and eventually published 51 books in his long career.  Living in Sacramento most of his life, I feel he must have come in contact and been influenced by the Sacramento Betsuin and Buddhism because of the gentle and charming flavor of the story.

The story tells of a young boy, Mitsuo Yamada, who is tasked by his father to clear the vegetable garden for spring planting. As he goes about his task, he discovers the beauties and wonders of nature in his backyard and says: “How can I destroy the spider’s web shining with a thousand suns?”  “How can I destroy the little pool and its tiny frog?” and the butterfly and bees and flowers and bird’s nest?

Mitsuo’s father calls from time to time, “Are you clearing the weeds?”  

Mitsuo replies, “Yes, father,” but to himself, he says, “If I did not eat carrots every Tuesday, we would not need to plant so many.”   

And, later, in lines reminiscent of the haiku poet Issa’s talking with animals, Mitsuo says, “Frog, sir, you are in the Yamada vegetable garden. If you stay in your water, from where will come the Yamada vegetables when summer is here?  Well, I suppose I can always give up spinach on Wednesdays.”

At the end of the morning as he goes off to lunch, Mitsuo looks back on all the weeds he has cleared.  He worked twice as hard and fast to make up for all the creatures he had spared and in order to provide enough vegetables for the Yamada table.  

He says to himself, “It was a good morning’s work, a good morning’s work indeed!”  As it says in “The Golden Chain,” “I will be kind and gentle to every living thing and protect all who are weaker than myself.” Isn’t this the impulse we try to instill in our children?

As gentle and charming a story as this is, life is not so simple, which is why so many ministers have issues with “The Golden Chain.” When I have used this story with adults, I ask them to identify with Mitsuo and then I ask them what they would do when encountering gophers, aphids, slugs (we grow them big in Seattle), snails, etc. — even beautiful cabbage butterflies that lay eggs on my kale. What about the invasion of ants in our kitchen, the spider in the bathtub or even the sewer rat that came up in one of our member’s bathroom (guess from where)?

We take life even though we say that all life is sacred — all life has Buddha-Nature and is worthy of compassion: mottainai.  

I catch this spider in a cup and toss him (or her) out into the garden. I wash that spider down the bathtub drain. This beautiful snail lives and that equally beautiful snail dies. To paraphrase Issa, “Troublesome snail, become a Buddha by my foot.”  

As Shinran says in chapter four of the “Tannisho” (Unno translation): “In this life no matter how much pity and sympathy we may have for others, it is impossible to help another as we truly wish; thus our compassion is inconsistent and limited. Only the saying of nembutsu manifests the complete and never ending compassion which is true, real, and sincere.”

Our inability to “be kind and gentle to every living thing” is the reason many ministers have issues with “The Golden Chain.” However, “The Golden Chain,” while expressing a problematic sentiment for humans, is mostly expressing the essence of the Primal Vow of Dharmakara Bodhisattva to bring all beings to enlightenment. “The Golden Chain” sensitizes our children to the sacredness of all life.

Here, to bring home my point, I must make a humbling confession. As a child, I used to catch small butterflies and cast them into a spider’s web to watch the spider catch and eat them. 

It was the brutish action of a desensitized child divorced from the well-being of other forms of life. Since I was raised Christian and taught that animals don’t have souls, I really had no sense of a reverence for life.  

I needed Buddhism to teach me about the oneness of all life; how to see myself in others and others in myself. As stated in chapter 10 of the Dhammapada, “All (beings) love life and all fear death. Knowing this, see others as yourself and do not kill or cause others to kill.”

The difference between my brutish killing of butterflies as a child and my crushing of a garden snail is the feeling of mottainai. Just like Mitsuo, I say to the snail, “If I let all you snails live, from where will come the Castro vegetables when summer is here?”  

I believe the best we can hope for and teach for in our children is a sensitivity to the feelings of others and the sacredness of all life.  May they have, like Mitsuo, an impulse toward kindness and gentleness to every living thing.  If they must kill, may they have a feeling of regret and mottainai.  This is why our Hongwanji tradition admonishes its members not to hunt or fish for sport.