The Great Joy of Reading

SGI President Ikeda shares his thoughts on the great joy of reading, and provides valuable pointers on how we can cultivate appreciation for books.

Encountering a good book is like encountering a great teacher. Reading is a privilege only human beings are endowed with; no other living creature on this planet has the same capacity. Through reading, we are able to come into contact with hundreds and thousands of lives other than our own, and to commune with sages and philosophers who lived as long as two millennia ago.

Reading is like going on a journey. You can travel east, west, north and south, and become acquainted with new people and new places. Reading transcends time. It gives you the opportunity to go on expedition with Alexander the Great, or become friends with people like Socrates and Victor Hugo and hold dialogues with them.

Almost without exception one finds that great people had a book which they held dear during their youth - a book that served as their guide and source of encouragement, as a close friend and mentor.

Books introduce you to fragrant flowers of life, running rivers, roads and adventure. You can find stars and light, feel delight and indignation. You are set adrift on a vast sea of emotion, in a ship of reason, moved by the infinite breeze of poetry. Dreams and dramas evolve and the whole world comes alive.

It’s important to remember that to gain true satisfaction and pleasure from anything requires some kind of practice, training and effort. You can’t fully enjoy skiing without working at it. The same goes for playing the piano or using a computer. Similarly, it takes effort, perseverance and patience to appreciate the pleasures of reading. Those who have tasted this joy, those who look on books as friends, are strong.

In any case, reading gives you free and unlimited access to the treasures of the human spirit from all ages and all parts of the world. One who knows this possesses unsurpassed wealth. It’s like owning countless banks from which you can make unlimited withdrawals.

How should one go about cultivating an appreciation for books?

The first step is to get into the habit of reading. Those who have done so, one finds, will utilise every spare moment to read, whether it be while commuting by train or before going to bed.

As a youth, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda had a job which required that he transport goods on a large cart. Reminiscing about that time, he once said, "I would finish my work as quickly as possible and hurry to an open field nearby where I would toss the cart aside, lie down on the grass and read."

According to the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-62), people are ‘thinking reeds.’1 Basically, reading is essential to thinking. Perhaps we can even say that reading is one sign of our humanity.

How have you found the time to read as much as you have, despite your busy schedule?

The foundation for everything in my life was forged during my youth. I would devote every spare minute of my time to reading.

One summer I even occasionally went down to the Zoshigaya Cemetery [in Tokyo’s Toshima Ward] to read. Sitting outside on a straw mat under the moonlight, I would position my flashlight and read such books as Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. It was cool and quiet there. We had no air-conditioning in those days, you see. The mosquitoes were quite a nuisance, though!

I was a voracious reader. I devoured every book I could get my hands on.

From a young age, probably because I was rather sickly, books were my greatest treasure. During the Second World War, there were times when I would take them into the air-raid shelter to shield them from the bombings.

The war eventually ended. I was seventeen years old. As far as the eye could see, Tokyo was in ruins. The only serenity to be found among the destruction and rubble-filled streets of the defeated land was the sprawling clear blue sky overhead. I still remember vividly the colour of that sky.

Though we had nothing, lacking even basic necessities such as food and clothing, I had boundless hope. Peace had finally been restored. Now, I could study as much as I wanted. I could read at last, and books were a wonderful feast.

It was around this time that twenty or so of us youth living in the same neighbourhood formed a reading group. We would meet to discuss books like Dante’s The Divine Comedy and topics such as the German economy.

Japan’s defeat in the war completely shattered everything we had believed in. Young people were desperately searching for the truth, the real meaning of life and an understanding of the world. Books were our only reliable guide.

Whenever I had a spare moment, I would browse through the second-hand bookshops in Tokyo’s Kanda area as though I were in my own personal library, thinking to myself, "I wonder if there are any good books today?" and "I hope they still have that one I had my eye on." Often I would rush down there with money I had saved from my meagre wages. I can still clearly remember the exhilaration I felt when I had been finally able to purchase a book I had long hankered after and which the store still had when I got there.

People often complain that they just don’t have time to read

It’s a matter of setting your mind to it. Those who claim they have no time haven’t really tried. If the desire to read is there, there is no way you can’t find ten or twenty minutes to do so.

You don’t have to be sitting down at a desk to read. An old saying goes that there are three places suitable for writers to mull over their ideas: in bed, on horseback and in the bathroom. The same can be said about reading if we substitute the train today for horseback.

When you’re head over heels for someone, for instance, you want to see that person whenever and wherever you can, even if it’s only a brief glance or just for five minutes, right? That should be our attitude toward reading.

If you make the time - for example, ten minutes in the morning, ten in the afternoon and ten at night – you’ll be able to read for a total of thirty minutes each day. You’ll often find that you read with much greater concentration in those precious moments of time set aside amid a busy schedule. It usually leaves a much deeper impression than reading done at a more leisurely pace.

Do you have any advice for people who’d like to read, but don’t know what kind of books to begin with?

Rather than worry about what to read, it’s probably best just to read even one page of something. Indecision will get you nowhere. At least if you read one page, you’ll have made that much progress.

Just as there are good people and bad people, there are good books and bad books.

All of us live in an intricate web of interrelationships. If we associate with good people, our lives will be positively affected, whereas if we hang out with disreputable people, our lives will be negatively affected. Even a person who is essentially good stands a twenty to thirty percent chance of being corrupted if they spend enough time in a dishonest environment.

Reading good books cultivates and nourishes one’s life. A good classic never grows old; it is always refreshing and new. Its message will be just as valid in the twenty-first century. Encountering such a work is truly a lifelong treasure.

There is an incident involving the British playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) that I’d like to share. Upon discovering that he was unfamiliar with a certain popular novel at the time, an acquaintance said to him, "Mr Shaw, this book has been a best-seller for five years! How can you not know it?" To which he calmly replied, "Madame, Dante’s The Divine Comedy has been a best-seller throughout the world for more than five-hundred years. Have you read it?"

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82) said that a book that’s been in print for less than a year isn’t even worth reading. Basically, a book that is still read decades or centuries after it’s been published is a masterpiece and as such can be considered a "good book."

Life is short. So, we should make a point of reading good books. The only way to find the time to do so is simply to stop reading bad books. In terms of Buddhism, "bad books" are those that bring forth the lower of the Ten Worlds - the life-states of Hell, Hunger, Animality and Anger. They are like poison or drugs that produce misery. On the other hand, "good books" direct one’s life toward happiness, wisdom and creativity; they possess a sound substance that enables the reader to think and grow as a person.

In the same way that a healthy body needs nourishing food, a healthy mind gets its sustenance from reading. You will become ill if all you eat are sweets and soft foods that don’t require much chewing. And it is unhealthy to turn one’s nose up at nutritious food or just eat the same foods all the time. Likewise, we shouldn’t avoid good books that enrich our minds. Someone once described bad books as "messengers of degeneracy, guides to delinquency, traps to misery and an insidious poison."

Good books, on the other hand, are as wonderful as an amazing teacher, a trusted confidant or a parent. They contain a wellspring of wisdom, a fountain of life, bright illumination and human goodness.

In one sense, reading is like mountain climbing. There are high mountains and there are low mountains. Ascending a steep summit is quite difficult, but how great is your exhilaration when you’ve successfully conquered it. Vast vistas lie stretching before you. From your vantage point, you can see how low the other hills and mountains are.

The greater the struggle, the more enriching the experience is for one’s life. That said, however, if you immediately set out to climb a high peak without any preparation, the challenge could be beyond you. You may be forced to abandon your ascent, lose your way or suffer from altitude sickness! It might be better to first attempt a goal more suited to your level.

You could perhaps start with a book about something that interests you. Once you’ve mastered the basics and develop some degree of confidence in your reading ability, then you can go on to bigger challenges, heftier books.

Are there any other pointers you could give us about reading?

We must read in a way that nourishes and cultivates us. Food will not nourish us or contribute to healthy bone and muscle growth if it is not digested and absorbed properly. In the same way, digesting what we read requires serious reflection and contemplation on our part.

First Soka Gakkai President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi said, "Don’t read carelessly. You must ponder over everything you read. It seems that many young people read but fail to think about the content. Thinking about what you read makes it a part of you."

Mr Toda offered a more specific advice, saying, "There are many ways to read a book. One is to read only for pleasure, simply following the plot, but this is a very shallow way to read. Another is to think about the author’s motivation for writing the book, its historical backdrop, the societal elements of the time, the characters in the story, and the ideas and intention that the author is trying to express. And yet another way is to try to understand through reading the work what kind of person the author is or was, their true character, their views on life, the world and the universe, and their ideals and beliefs. If you don’t take it this far, it can’t be called reading."

[ Courtesy October 2007 Cosmic]