The following note is from an email from Sanford Goldstein in Japan.
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August l9
Dear Denis—

. . . I thought I would let you know. On p. 111 of Four Decades on My Tanka Road, I introduce At the Hut of the Small Mind.  In today's Japan Times I learned that Masanobu Fukuoka, the pioneer of natural farming in Japan, died on August 16. I had gone to interview him in July l982 and stayed at the farm four nights and three days. I did not say anything negative about the Zen farmer in my tanka poems, but I had gone to interview him with about 28 questions and we never got past the first one, which he said would take a lifetime to answer. At any rate, my friend and I SAID the Buddhist prayer for him—"Namu Amida Butsu"—Amida is the Buddhist goddess of light, which contains several meanings including compassion. ONE has to travel through l,000 trillion countries to reach the Western Paradise. Each of these countries is larger than the universe itself. But by saying the 7 syllables in NAMU AMIDA BUTSU, one gets to the Western Paradise in a second. I met the Zen master farmer only that one time, but his death at 95 from natural causes saddens me. Natural farming kept him healthy all these years.

Fondly, Sanford

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posted by Denis Garrison