Alison Watts

Who planted this cherry tree?’

Somebody must’ve planted it.’

But as life passed by while shut up in here, I came to understand something. I realized that no matter how much we lost, or however badly we were treated, the fact is we are still human. All we can do is keep on going with our lives, even if we lose limbs, because this is not a fatal illness. In the midst of darkness and a struggle we had no hope of winning, I held on to this one thing – the fact of our humanity – and I was proud of it.

n I began to see everything differently. If I were not here, this full moon would not be here. Neither would the trees. Or the wind. If my view of the world disappears, then everything that I see disappears too. It’s as simple as that.

And then I thought, what if this didn’t apply to just me, what if there were no other human beings in this world? What about all the different forms of life that have the ability to be aware of the presence of others – what would happen if none of them existed either?

The answer is that this world in all its infinity would disappear.

You might think I’m deluded, but this idea changed me. I began to understand that we were born in order to see and listen to the world. And that’s all this world wants of us. It doesn’t matter that I was never a teacher or a member of the workforce, my life had meaning.

the idea that we have been nurtured by the universe to prove its existence. If there is no single conscious mind capable of doing this, the existence of the universe itself becomes unverifiable.

of doing this, the existence of the universe itself becomes unverifiable. It cannot exist. Over the aeons the universe has nurtured life forms whose very awareness makes them involved in its continued existence. Hence we are all alike in having materialized on this Earth because that was what the universe so desired. The ill, the bed-ridden, and children whose lives are over before they’ve barely begun; all are equal in their relationship to the universe. Anyone is capable of making a positive contribution to the world through simple observation, irrespective of circumstance.

‘You have to do it properly or else all the trouble you’ve gone to this far will be wasted.’

Unsure of what attitude he should adopt,

‘I don’t want to disappoint you, but Toku herself said at the time that she couldn’t actually hear the voices of beans. But if you live in the belief that they can be heard, then someday you might be able to hear them. She said that was the only way for us to live, to be like the poets. That’s what she said. If all you ever see is reality, you just want to die. The only way to get over barriers, she said, is to live in the spirit of already being over them.’

Yes. I couldn’t tell anything about the feelings of the person who made it.’