We are taught that our bodies are things lent by God the Parent, things we borrowed from God, and only the mind is ours.

In creating us human beings, God the Parent gave us the freedom of the mind, thereby allowing us to use the mind freely. This is why we can use the mind freely, in any way we like.

God the Parent created us and the world because God desired to see all of us help one another to live joyously and spiritedly and share in our joy. This means that human beings are meant to live in relationship with one another. God created us human beings with the parental desire that we would serve and help one another in order for all of us to live in joy and in high spirits.

Contrary to God's expectation, however, not knowing the Parent or the Parent's desire, each of us has been using the mind in a mistaken way and has been living in a self-serving manner, often seeking nice things only for oneself and one's own happiness even at others' expense. Far from a world of the Joyous Life where all people live in joyful harmony, this only brings about a world of suffering where one hurts others, which in turn invites suffering upon oneself.

God the Parent, who is anxious about our wellbeing, uses the metaphor of "dust" to explain the use of the mind that does not accord with God's intention and thus hinders the Joyous Life of all people, and tells us to sweep our heart by constantly removing the dust of the mind each day. The sweeping of our heart can be accomplished only by using God the Parent's teachings as the broom. The teaching of the dust of the mind, in particular, is intended to serve as a means to help us sweep our heart clean.

(The above is a translation--first published in the May 1995 issue of TENRIKYO--of an article excerpted from Omichi-no-kotoba by Yoshikazu Fukaya, published by Doyusha Publishing Company.)