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"Do you want to quit? Do you want to quit being a potter?” The voice tormented me.
We may be satisfied with our lives both financially and materially, but seeking material satisfaction alone can take away our very reason for existing. The choice is this: self-affirmation or self-denial? Do I stay true to myself or not? The voice forced me to answer this question.
Pottery that is made to please others, pieces made purely for the sake of novelty, pieces that are made to show off one’s technical expertise…. The world of ceramic art is overflowing with such things, it has become a world focused on quantity. This should not have happened. But it has happened because we are living according to short-sighted calculation, and living for our own self-interest. This way of living harms both ourselves and others.
Here in Japan our long fascination with Western Civilization, dating back to the Meiji Restoration, and our struggle to join it has produced undeniable benefits. But as we have worked to compete with the West, we seem to have forgotten some very profound truths.
I grew up and was educated during the “time of confusion” following the Second World War. I graduated from college and entered society just as Japan was emerging from the aftermath of the Second World War and experiencing rapid change. Japan was becoming wealthy, both economically and materially. This was the time that I decided to become a potter, a ceramic artist.
While others were enjoying their material blessings, my mendicant-like life began under the dim light of an oil lamp in a tin hut that I built myself. It was a struggle to feed myself. It was only in 1976 that my workshop was finally connected to the electricity supply.
During this life of mendicancy (when I sometimes depended on the kindness of others), some people abandoned me and others helped me. It would seem that the latter should be appreciated and the former not, but the truth is that without the former the latter is meaningless, and vice versa. Bipolar opposites exist in the phenomenal world but they are, in essence, one.
I have written a great deal about my encounters with many people, both in my previous book, Honoo no Koe; Tsuchi no Koe (“The Voice of Fire, The Voice of Clay”) and in this book. Because of these encounters, I can create pottery, or to put it another way: “I have become what I am now.” I am greatly indebted to all these people for their kindness to me. Above all, I have wonderful parents, and a wonderful wife and daughter. I was born in a pottery town called Shigaraki, and have the karma of Buddha. Karma reaches back to the past and stretches to all places, it covers everything. Once I realized this, my sense of pride and the sense that I had accomplished success through my own efforts disappeared.
I live now as a result of my encounters with many people and by the grace of The Infinite, the infinite world. I live my life aware of the Infinite, which is the root and source of life. So, I live in gratitude, in total devotion to the root of life. I have no other way to live. To make oneself live in this way is to enable others to live. And when I am living my life to the full, I can create my own ceramics. Everyone has his/her own task, and each has a responsibility to fulfill that task—no one else can fulfill it. Likewise, I have a particular task of my own: to create my own ceramics, pieces that cannot be made by anyone else.
The world of self-interest versus the world of the Infinite. Either we live in confusion, rushing to and fro, misguided by short-sighted calculation and self-seeking, or we become fully ourselves and openly live our lives in the freedom of our essential inner natures. I choose the latter, or at least I try.
“Do you want to quit?” I no longer hear this voice.
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