Yamagishi Toyosato

Yamagishi Toyosato is the largest of the Yamagishikai (Yamagishi Association) communes. The Yamagishi movement was founded in Japan by Yamagishi Miyozou (1901–1961) in the mid-1950s. In his youth, he had envisioned an ideal society based on harmonization between humanity and nature—a oneness called ittai(literally “one body”). The Yamagishi movement was the realization of that vision.

In 1950, some eight years before the founding of the first Yamagishi commune, Yamagishi was known for his successful method of raising poultry. In line with the philosophy of ittai, Yamagishi paid special attention to the chickens—trying to perceive what they would tell him if they could speak. All his hens grew to be good layers and were manageable even by women and children. In 1953, Yamagishi started to let it be known that his goal was not to make a fortune but to create a new society.

In January 1956, he offered the first one-week course in his philosophy of oneness and held the first meeting for those who wanted to be part of the creation of the new society. Participants were inspired by Yamagishi's ideas; many reported feeling free from self-righteousness and anger, and full of love.

The ittai life was to be a communal life, with all goods and property held in common. The first commune was established in 1958 at Kasuga, in Japan's Mie Prefecture. Numerous other communes soon followed. Yamagishi Toyosato, at present the largest of all the Yamagishi communes, currently has more than one thousand members. It was established near the city of Tsu in Mie Prefecture in 1969. It markets a number of food products, including eggs, milk, and vegetables. The philosophy of ittai has led Yamagishi Toyosato to adopt an agriculture of natural circulation. Droppings from its poultry farm are used on its rice fields; straw from the rice fields feeds milk cows, and so on. Because connectedness with nature is essential for an ittai life, all members of the commune spend a couple of hours a day working in the communal gardens, even if their main daily work is not agricultural.

Other businesses run by members of the Yamagishi Toyosato commune include a computer systems business, a construction firm, a transport and distribution business, and a publishing company. Whatever money is made in these enterprises goes into a communal purse. Communal expenses are paid for from this communal purse; for personal needs, members are free to help themselves to clothing and other items from a communal storehouse.

Children at Yamagishi Toyosato are raised in common away from their parents, beginning at age three. The commune also has its own schools, which are attended by commune members, as well as children from the surrounding areas. There is no single leader at Yamagishi Toyosato. Rather, decisions are made by unanimous consent. At the larger communes, members are divided into groups whose representatives form decision-making bodies.

The future of Yamagishism is uncertain. Although there are currently Yamagishi communes in South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, Thailand, the United States, Brazil, and Australia, the Aum Shinrikyō subway nerve gas incident of 1995 made the public in Japan suspicious of any organization that was seen as cultlike, and for a while membership at Yamagishi Toyosato and other Japanese Yamagishi communes [Page 1490]declined. Although that decline appears to have now stopped, there is some talk of abandoning a communal lifestyle in favor of a more conventional living arrangement. Only time will tell whether that comes to pass and how the philosophy of ittai carries over in a noncommunal setting.

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