Sunday, March 14, 2010

It is priceless to be thus taken unawares by surprise, in a ritual of life repeated every year.

During the winter, all biological forms enter a kind of dormant phase. Human beings are no exceptions. While we go about busily along the streets, a part of our sensitivities are closed, becoming oblivious of the possibilities of existence. For example, we forget that there are such things as flowers.

Every year, from February to March, it therefore comes as a pleasant surprise to observe the arrival of spring ephemerals, in the form of plum blossoms. You know from experience that there are these tiny and lovely blooms in early spring. And yet, you have forgotten about it, and it is with a shock to observe the manifestations of life on the seemingly lifeless boughs of plum trees.
It is priceless to be thus taken unawares by surprise, in a ritual of life repeated every year, celebrating the continuation of the world as we know it.



Plum blossoms, red and white, in the Yugawara district. Beginning of March, 2010.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh Mogi, so beautiful photo! THX!

Junko said...

While walking I enjoyed watching plum blossoms which towarded to the end though.
Cherry trees have already prepared
to be appreciated by people.
Time flies.I would like to keep in mind every encounter.

SHINICHI IKEDA said...

I read the letters on Chuo Kouron between you and the honorary president of Soka Gakkai, Daisaku Ikeda. I appreciate your courage to try to break the status quo of the relationship between science and religion. If anything could be solved by science, then courage would be no use, since we could anticipate what to happen. Without any specific reason, I feel that the less courage I have, the more I am likely to be unhappy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a man of no courage is similar to a machine; both of them are passive and uncreative. On the relationship among science, religion, and poem, Shuichi Kato wrote that poem and religion might be annihilated by science, but not vice versa. If men got more information but courage with scientific and rational attitude toward the world and our being,that would not be the fault of science. Science and religious belief are neither right nor evil per se.

Yuzu said...

Dear:Mr.Mogi
How many times can you remind this season?
I will sleep with beautiful scent tonight.
Thank you very much.

You know,your picture with high school uniform is beautiful. I think your expression is like Einstein.

Anonymous said...

>a man of no courage is similar to a machine; both of them are passive and uncreative

My intuitive view through my personal experience is that there are those who do not take the risks for change not because they are less courageous, but merely because they are much happier and more comfortable maintaining the routine of what they have always done, whereby any changes made to their daily routine will be stressful and damaging for them. In short, I believe those who do not belong in this category "cry(in its broadest term of the word)" primarily because they want "change(in its broadest term of the word)". I am hopeful that someday the fundamentally polarized natures of people and their extreme perceptions towards the contrasts of "routine/status quo/conservatism vs change/innovation/liberalism" can be explained scientifically, eventually revealing what human nature as it concerns abstract conceptualizations such as love, religion, poetry, art etc is all about and why. My problem with many of us here in Japan is that we seem to be just "floating" in the meantime indifferent to any humanistic activities which are driven by such fundamental and universal contrasts seen elsewhere in the world, seemingly justifying ourselves with one singular subconsicous delusional conceptualization; that we are one people sailing together on the same ship, isolated from others.
SK

Anonymous said...

>a man of no courage is similar to a machine; both of them are passive and uncreative


May I ask .. how about woman ..? or the term man can simply be replaced by the word human?

SHINICHI IKEDA said...

I used the term "a man" to mean a human being, regardless male or female.