“The Myriads of People Are All One”: Andō Shōeki’s Self-with-Others

Japanese Edo period thinker Andō Shōeki 安藤昌益 (1703-1762) was one of the most mysterious figures in the intellectual landscape of his time. Very little is known about his life, and only fragments of his writings have survived to this day. His most important work, Shizen shin’eidō 自然真営 道, presents a vision of the world of nature which is completely nonanthropocentric, thus providing numerous clues and hints for environmental ethics and ecology.

In this short piece, I briefly introduce and translate four sections from Volume 25 of Shizen shin’eidō, which contain a philosophical debate between Shōeki and several of his disciples. I also include a short discussion of the notion of “direct cultivation,” and of the concept of “self-withothers,” which, in Shōeki’s philosophical system, represents the very basis for the existence of the human being and of humanity. These fragments are translated into English here for the first time.