Learning the Value of Life
Rev. Nichiko Niwano
President of Rissho Kosei-kai

Raising Many Living Things

These days, when bullying in our schools has become a major social problem, programs have been launched in many parts of the country with the aim of helping children to appreciate the preciousness of life. For children who today have few opportunities in their daily lives to encounter the reality of birth, aging, sickness, and death because of the growth of the nuclear family, these programs teach the value of life and that learning about death teaches the importance of life.

The school I attended during my childhood had its own field, where we were able to plant, grow, and harvest crops. At home, it was the role of the children to feed the livestock that were raised. Through these experiences affection for all living things developed in us and we learned how precious all life is.

The writer Hiroyuki Itsuki tells us “At present we live in what is called an ‘information society’ (joho shakai). The character jo contains two meanings: heart or mind, and purity. It expresses the pure heart and mind with which we human beings are born. This means that we should not simply gain new knowledge, but we are able to meaningfully cultivate again such a pure heart and mind.”

Stuffing our heads with fact is not what is important. By raising flowers or vegetables at home, for example, parents and children together can learn the essential lesson of the wonder and preciousness of life and to nurture minds and hearts that treat all forms of life with the same care and affection.

Childhood Reading Practice

Kazuo Murakami, a professor emeritus at Tsukuba University who is known as a
leading authority on genetic engineering, wrote in a recent newspaper article ?titled “Why Life Is Precious”?“Human beings have continued to receive their inherited genes, without interruption, for 3.8 billion years. Being born into this world, in and of itself, is an exceptionally miraculous event. Just to be alive is so wonderful and fortunate that it is absolutely essential for us not kill ourselves or others. We should be grateful for being caused to live in this world.”

Professor Murakami went on to say, “Being grateful turns on the switch that sets our good genes in motion, and triggers unlimited possibilities.” Therefore I think that in order to facilitate the “awakening” of children’s good genes, it is helpful to have several days each week with no television and no computer games and instead for them to practice reading aloud while still young with unlimited possibilities ahead of them.

Although children may not understand the exact meaning of a sentence, being able to read it aloud instills confidence in them. Later, when they are able to read about the lives of great men and women, they will develop hearts and minds filled with worthwhile sentiments. Then, through the lessons of life passed down from long ago, they will come to appreciate the precious value of their own lives and the lives of others.

From “ Kosei” Mar. 2007 Translated by Kosei Publishing Co.

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