Editing SG32NNU-T (section)

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…society, the essence of religion may disappear, but agrarian society cannot be constructed through a scientific understanding of society alone. An agrarian society is a cultural society in which scientific civilization and spiritual culture blend harmoniously together within the womb of great nature. Put another way, it is a cultural return to nature, rather than the mere scientific conquest of nature.

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Do you know the “March Fifteenth Song” exalted by the communists?<ref>The “March Fifteenth Song” (「三・一五の歌」) was a communist song associated with the March 15, 1928 mass arrests under the Peace Preservation Law and subsequently with the joint workers-and-peasants memorial for Watanabe Masanosuke and Yamamoto Senji held on March 15, 1929. One surviving version begins, “March Fifteenth, day of bitterness / We pledge ourselves to you / To you, Watamasa, who fell for the Party,” closely matching Seno’o's quotation. “Watamasa” (渡政) was Watanabe Masanosuke (渡辺政之輔, 1899–1928), a leading member of the Japanese Communist Party who died in Taiwan; “Yamasen” (山宣) was Yamamoto Senji (山本宣治, 1889–1929), a left-wing politician assassinated by a right-wing nationalist. Seno’o invokes the song to argue that even avowed materialists express a quasi-religious devotion to persons of exemplary value.</ref>

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'''B:''' Sure. They sing it with blood and tears.

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'''A:''' A song is not a theory. It is the expression of a whole human life, and for that reason it is more genuine than theory. One line says, “We pledge ourselves to you, Comrade Watamasa, who fell for the Party.” But if you judged that scientifically, wouldn’t it be nonsense? “Watamasa” is dead and no longer exists. What could it mean to swear an oath to him, or to call out to “Yamasen”?

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'''B:''' Surely they don’t believe in the posthumous spirits of “Watamasa” and “Yamasen.”

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'''A:''' Of course there can be no individual soul surviving after death. Nevertheless, human beings cannot help crying out in that way. There is within us a spiritual demand that exceeds science.

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The lyrics themselves show this. For their comrades, “Watamasa” and “Yamasen” possess immense personal value, and it is precisely within this world of value that religion puts down its roots. Of course this does not escape material determination; but at the same time we must recognize the spiritual activity through which material things are invested with value.

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A worldview and conception of life that sublates and synthesizes matter and spirit is precisely Buddhism’s thought of the Middle Way.<ref>''Shiyō'' (止揚) is the standard Japanese philosophical rendering of the Hegelian ''Aufhebung'', usually translated as “sublation”: the simultaneous negation, preservation, and overcoming of opposed terms. Seno’o here applies explicitly dialectical vocabulary to the Buddhist Middle Way.</ref> And the agrarian communal society is the revival of an agrarian society that attempts social reconstruction on the basis of this Middle Way. Put differently, it is the reconstruction of society according to a vision of harmonious integration (''enyūkan'' 円融観).<ref>''En’yū'' (円融) is a traditional Buddhist term connoting harmonious integration or unobstructed interrelation. Seno’o immediately defines his “vision of harmonious integration” (''enyūkan'' 円融観) socially as “a social vision in which nature and human life are brought into warm harmony.”</ref>

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'''B:''' What do you mean by a “vision of harmonious integration”?

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'''A:''' A social vision in which nature and human life are brought into warm harmony.

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'''B:''' Harmonious integration! Yes, that’s a good expression. So will rural temples simply continue to exist as they are?

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'''A:''' A communal society is a society without exploitation, so temples based upon exploitative relationships such as those of today cannot possibly continue. The temple buildings may survive, but their contents will be completely liquidated, and they will be absorbed into Buddhist lay life. Temple compounds will be managed as communal facilities belonging to the entire village, opened not merely for funerals but for every…

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