Based on his countless visits to Kyoto, the author identifies the beauty of even the smallest public toilets as symbolic of the Japanese spirit of cleanliness and order. From the disciplined life of the samurai to the contrast with overcrowded classrooms in China, he argues that harmony forms the very foundation of Japanese creativity and public life. He further links this spirit of harmony to Steve Jobs’s design sensibility and declares that harmony is the true essence of Japanese civilization.

I am convinced that here, too, lies the secret of the Japanese.
2017-01-30
〈Inspiration brought by Mr. Matsubara’s argument in the previous chapter.〉

As previously stated, I treat Kyoto as the garden of my own home.
I am probably a person who has visited Kyoto more times than anyone else in the world.
As a result, one of the things I have come to strongly reaffirm is the beauty of toilets.
It would be no exaggeration at all to say that toilets in every conceivable place are beautiful.
Even the toilets in small parks within the city.
There is no need for comparison whatsoever; this is a fact found nowhere else in the world.
I am convinced that here, too, lies the secret of the Japanese.
The Japanese simply cannot tolerate their surroundings being in disorder.
Even the samurai—indeed, precisely because they lived with the mindset of always being on the battlefield and with the resolve to face death at any moment—made the entire four-and-a-half-tatami-mat room, down to the placement of writing utensils on the desk, a matter of strict conduct.
You can see this for yourself by visiting the Togudō at Ginkaku-ji when it is open to the public.
The other day, I watched a scene of a classroom in rural China on an NHK special program.
The students were seated in conditions resembling people packed tightly into a box.
For the Japanese, in such spacing, one would feel suffocated.
No inspiration would arise.
The cleanliness of the Japanese.
Their orderliness.
Is it not this that lies at the very core of Japanese creativity?
That is why I once wrote that Steve Jobs, who frequently visited the gardens of Kyoto, was able to create that ultimate form—the rectangular iPod.
I am convinced that Mr. Matsubara must also have read my essay.
The Japanese require a properly maintained public realm.
Ever since the days of Prince Shōtoku, harmony—wa—has been essential.
At the very core of Japanese invention lies the spirit of harmony.
That, I declare here and now to the world today, is the very best in the world.
As the reincarnation of Kūkai and of Oda Nobunaga, I proclaim it to the world in a loud voice.
O world, what truly matters is “harmony.”
To fulfill the role of the intellect bestowed by God—yes, to set the world right.