"Weeding and Fertilizing" (Shuri koe)

The term "weeding and fertilizing"--sometimes shortened to "weeding"--is an agricultural metaphor for providing care, guidance, and training. We read in the Ofudesaki:

Even until now, everyone has known the moon and the sun, but there is no one who knows the true origin.

This time, I shall teach the truth of all matters and hasten to save you. To say when this will come: it will come as soon as the weeding of the rice fields is done.

Ofudesaki X:14-16

This metaphor is often paired with that of sowing seeds and may also appear alongside the metaphor of harvesting, as in the following two passages from the Divine Directions:

If you have a large piece of land but do not sow it with seeds, it is like a weedy hillside. A weedy hillside is only as valuable as a weedy hillside. Only if you sow the land is it worth weeding. Only because weeding was done have things become what they are today.

Osashizu, January 28, 1891

God was rushing around here and there trying to weed and fertilize, as it were. That was not easy. From now on, there will only be harvesting. How many persons are there at Jiba now?

Osashizu, October 31, 1900

The Scriptures use the term "weeding (and fertilizing)" in a range of contexts, which, however, can broadly be grouped under four headings.

First, the term may metaphorically refer to the way God has cared for humans in order to enable human development to proceed. Consider these verses:

Hereafter, however serious your illness may be, I assure you salvation in every case.

Though there should be nothing called illness in human beings, no one knows the beginning of this world.

Because of My desire to have you know this, I began doctors and medicine for weeding and fertilizing.

Ofudesaki IX:9-11

One of the things implied here is that humans have been able to find cures for illnesses because God trained them in wisdom.

Second, the term is used to refer to the sort of guidance and care that, prior to the founding of the Teaching, needed to be provided to help humans develop and grow to the point where it became viable for them to be taught the truth about the world through the Story of Creation. A similar idea in the context of the history of Tenrikyo is indicated in the following Divine Direction, among other passages:

It has been a long time; it has already been sixty years. . . . If little were done about the seeds sown, someone would be crestfallen there and someone crestfallen here. It would not do if little were done about the seeds sown. I, therefore, do weeding after sowing seeds.

Osashizu, October 10, 1896

Things that happened especially to Church Headquarters until the late 1890s and to the Tenrikyo community as a whole thereafter could be seen as "weeding" done by God.

Third, guidance and care provided by Church Headquarters for local churches and by those churches for their subordinate churches are also sometimes referred to as "weeding and fertilizing" based on the following Divine Direction, which was delivered in 1902 in response to a request for permission to institute ten Tenrikyo dioceses within Japan:

That, in a sense, is part of weeding and fertilizing. Weeding and fertilizing will continue to be required.

Osashizu, July 13, 1902

Lastly, the work of weeding and fertilizing, while important, can be counterproductive to the health of crops if done excessively or inappropriately. Likewise, guidance and care can prove disproportionate or misguided. Says a Divine Direction:

A worldly path is easy to follow, and an easy-to-follow path is for weeding and fertilizing. The fifty-year path is hard to follow, but the hard-to-follow path can be followed depending solely on the state of mind. As for the worldly path, settle its meaning in your mind. While following it, you must ponder deeply over the fifty-year path, apart from which no viable path exists for you.

Osashizu, April 28, 1888

This passage cautions that, although a worldly path can be useful as a means of weeding and fertilizing, those who use it must be careful not to get caught up in it to the extent of allowing the truths of the world to lead them away from the truth of the teachings. Another related issue addressed here is that weeding and fertilizing should encourage their beneficiaries to develop a mature independence, which is seen as extremely important.

(This article was first published in the April 2007 issue of TENRIKYO.)