This diagram shows how three principles are related. In every shrine, offerings to the kami on the sambo, offering stand, include certain items apart from sake, vegetables and fruits - namely salt, rice and water. The offerings, called shinsen, represent the basis of life. For the Japanese, life has been based on rice, and rice requires water for growth. The ancient Japanese knew the power of water to make rice grow, and they knew its force and energy.
People today seem to have lost the sense of water as a source of life.
From the age of the Yayoi, the prehistoric Japanese, our people have known the secrets of nature which enabled the cultivation of rice. They discovered how to harness the power of water to make rice grow. Water in a bottle can be passive and obedient but uncontained, water can be a torrent tearing down trees and destroying walls. Water can fertilize and stimulate growth. If people could live like creative water, they would find life less tiring.