Roshi
The old farmer who teaches Adam how to plant seeds and grow new life.
Roshi does not look like a man who is about to change Adam's life.
That may be the first lesson he imparts.
Ancient, unhurried and deeply connected to the rhythms of Taoland, Roshi lives simply on his farm and ranch at a cottage, with pond and pagoda in front. There are crops to tend, animals to care for, and work that must be done – work that Adam discovers for the first time in his life.
To a young man carrying extraordinary knowledge and enormous ambition, Roshi’s humble peaceful plantation hardly seems like the place where greatness begins.
Roshi knows otherwise.
He becomes one of Adam's earliest teachers in Taoland – not by lecturing him about success, but by comparing life to working the land.
On his farm, Roshi launches learning lessons – teachings that no education in Novana or elsewhere could have taught Adam. Seeds cannot be bullied into growing faster. But ideas properly cared for will flourish.Crops fail. But fruit trees carefully tended-to will produce in abundance. The weather constantly changes. Folks must adapt to it throughout life. Other people may know how to do something better than you do. But everyone must discover and hone one's own talents. Patience matters. Flexibility matters. Honesty and integrity matter the most of all. And sometimes the wisest thing a leader can do is trust someone else to carry the load.
Life, Roshi teaches him, is a lot like farming.
Adam listens. And learns.
Sometimes.
The difficulty is that Roshi's lessons are easy to understand while standing in a field – but considerably harder to remember when Adam later finds himself surrounded by adversaries and tempted by money, recognition, and power.
Yet Roshi never tries to control him.
He watches Adam succeed spectacularly and stumble painfully. He welcomes him back without keeping score. As decades pass, the relationship between teacher and student deepens into something approaching father and son – an especially precious bond for a man who entered Taoland never having known a father at all.
And there is the Adam Tree, a key teaching tool of Roshi’s.
Planted as a team when Adam's new life is just beginning, it grows as he grows: taking root, surviving seasons, reaching upward. Over the years it becomes a quiet witness to the man Adam is becoming.
Roshi understands something Adam spends most of his life trying to discover.
Purpose is not necessarily found in becoming important.
Sometimes it is found in what we plant in other people.
Near the end of their long journey together, Roshi offers Adam one final lesson:
“Let your heart crumble into countless seeds of love . . . plant them in the hearts of everyone you meet.”
By then, the Adam Tree has grown – and produces for all.
And finally, so has Adam.