Well, I hope Alex and Kevin don't have any flu, but flu A. Brian and I called the Sewatch County Health Department. What's it called? Something like that. Just to see what the process is if we want to get tested. Because they don't have a temperature, I guess, it sounds like nobody would test them. And also she mentioned that there's flu virus type A going around. So let's hope they have none of that alphabet, but, you know, okay. And you probably heard that Christian is coming back today. Okay. No? Oh, okay.

[01:01]

Well, he was in Munich yesterday, and I heard on the news that this incompetent clown of a president, announced that there would be no more flights or people coming to America from Europe. He was canceling all I guess Not the flights, but people coming in. It turned out later that he didn't include in this ban American citizens.

[02:07]

And then later it turned out he didn't include permanent American residents. And Christian is a green card resident. So at first it sounded like he couldn't get back into the country when he wanted to come. So I called him up and he was, of course, it was one in the morning or something, so he didn't, he turns his phone off. But he called me back when he woke up and we discussed the alternatives and he decided to cancel the seminar in Germany. uh... and uh... this prohibition went into effect on friday tomorrow so he could still find a flight and but in any case he was able to find a flight whatever reason and uh... according to sophie the last flight available or something anyway he got on a plane and he's uh... should be uh...

[03:20]

about now or soon in Denver. And he has a car at the airport, so he'll probably come back here this afternoon or this evening. And of course it led to the whole discussion. And I talked in the middle of the night with people at Johanneshof about whether Christian was there yet or was he still in Munich and should we cancel the seminar. They decided to cancel the seminar too. And some people had called in canceling the seminar. And it looks like the next two main seminars, one would have been or will be a session by Rev. Anderson. He called up and asked, he's from San Francisco Zen Center.

[04:23]

He called up and asked if he could do a session at Yonzo. So I said, fine. But his session and Russell Delman's program which trains a lot of people and uses Johanneshof as the center for that. If just those two seminars are canceled, it's going to cost Johanneshof about $70,000. And that's real serious, how to keep the place going if this coronavirus, as people cancel it, seminars and here too. So anyway, but so be it. So anyway, he should be coming back today, I think. Now, as I sometimes hinted or asked for feedback or suggestions for what I might speak about so I can have some kind of entry

[05:35]

what might be, you know. So anyway, I got some entries. One I got from Dennis, a word, motainai, which is usually translated by the environmental movement as don't waste things. And it's very interesting why we translate it as don't waste things. And then the other input was from Kevin, I guess, yesterday, who mentioned the Sapir-Whorf controversy. Sapir was the teacher of Benjamin Whorf, and Benjamin Whorf and Sapir were both big influences on me because I'm quite interested You know, my interest has always been what makes things happen.

[06:39]

So I studied history and I studied anthropology. And so Worf and Sapir are pioneering linguists. And one of Worf's theses was that the Hopis have a different sense of time than we do. They don't think of time in the same way we do. And then that became quite a controversy and afterwards people ridiculed... Whorf is not really a real linguist and so forth. But I think the... the analyses that kind of tore Worf's position apart really are based on Westerners who can't imagine another kind of time.

[07:43]

I mean, even, you know, it took Einstein to get us to think of time as something other than a fixed universe. So I think that much of the put-down of Worf is really about How can time be different than we experience it? But, in fact, it can be. So that led me to look at Japan more closely, too. And so I appreciated the comment of Kevin. And the other day, Nicole was speaking to me about... Well, first about... things that are happening at Yanisov, but then she mentioned she was studying the differences, the use of the words kore, sore, are, and dore, and yadore.

[08:48]

And I remember when I first became acquainted with those terms, it was kind of interesting, and her teachers at this school won't speak in English. So they will only speak in Japanese. And with something like this, it might be good that they only speak in Japanese. Because generally, Kore is translated as this and Sore is that. And once you hear it as this and that, it is almost impossible to get that out of your mind. But sore just means, actually, that I'm holding this. This is in my sphere, this sphere. And if I give it to you, then it's sore. So, but we would naturally translate as this staff, and now it's over there, it's that staff.

[10:02]

And that's using space as a reference point, and using space as distance as a reference point. And the critics of Worf couldn't, can't get themselves separated from time as understood by analogy of a relationship to space, so it's distance. There's a distance between here and that statue, and that distance is time, but that is the way Worf saw the Hopis thinking of it. And it isn't definitely. I'd have to go back and restudy the Hopi distinction to talk about it. But I know in the Japanese distinction, that distance is not the reference point for time. Did you want to say something, Dennis?

[11:06]

Oh, no. You're just leaning forward in excitement. It's nothing. Okay. Okay. So I think I'm using this as an example, obviously, but because it's such a simple example. But can we get the sense of it? So this is Kore. And if I give it to you, it's Sore. And if it's somewhere out there, it's Are. It's not in your space or my space. And if we don't know what it is, it's Dore. So this is very difficult. And let me just say in anticipation, this distinction destroyed Detroit's automobile industry. Such a small distinction.

[12:07]

OK, let me try to get you there or get myself there. So, so if always, if I have this, I say, kore wa, or I, sore wa, wa means that object, what is it? Wa doesn't mean a question, but it can be sore wa. But any case, it's, it's, When it's here, it's sore. When it's there, it's kore. I mean, when it's here, it's kore. When it's there, it's sore. And even if I give this to Dennis or to Brian, and you stand right beside me, it's still sore. In other words, if I'm holding it, sore, and if he's holding it, it's... If I'm holding it, it's kore, and if he's holding it, it's sore.

[13:14]

And it's not about distance, it's about agency. That he's making use of it, or I'm making use of it. So... Okay. It's about agency. In other words, motenai... is translated as no waste but actually it comes from Buddhism and it means the simultaneous interdependence and dependence of everything. Interdependence and impermanence rather of everything. So this stick is interdependent made from a and it's very clearly made a curve to articulate the grain of the wood, but in contrast to the grain of the wood. So it's a piece of wood that would not very, very, very unlikely you'd find this in nature.

[14:22]

So if you found that, you'd say, hmm, I think there's a agency involved. Someone made this. And of course, it's then based on a backscratcher. Originally, you know, you're sitting up there and nobody bathes in the old days. In Japan, they bathed more than in Europe. But you're rather stinky and itchy and so you scratch your back. And because it can reach anywhere, it's a teaching staff because the teaching staff is to reach anywhere. Okay, so hidden in this object is first of all the concept of a piece of wood which has the curved grain, but then the curved grain is brought to the fore by this kind of articulation and then the little twirl. And then the string, and a string is always this can be this way or this way, but this is always this way.

[15:28]

So this is a kind of permanence because gravity will always move it to like this. So that's why you have tassels. Tassels show you that it's in the world of gravity, but when you move it, it's... And then it's also a backscratcher. Okay. Okay. So if this stick is impermanent and interdependent, it's kind of alive because its hiddenness is its relationship to somebody who made it, that it was a back scratcher and all that stuff. So now I'm trying to give you a feel for yoga culture in Japan and in Buddhism.

[16:32]

So this is interdependent. You don't see its interdependence, but its interdependence is there. And that very interdependence is impermanent and it's fragile. So the word motanai, motanai, really means respect for the interdependence and impermanence of things. Now that gets translated into Western environmentalism as don't waste things. So there's a difference between respect for impermanence and interdependence and that respect meaning, oh, we should take care of it. So it's the we should take care of it that comes out of Buddhism and not that don't waste anything. But it's okay. This is the way it is. All right. So if sore, core, are, and dore, sounds like the quadruplets, a singing group or something.

[17:33]

If the quadruplets here, what do they do? They establish a context. In other words, if he has the stick, or I have the stick, it's not that the stick It's not, what the stit does is establish context. In other words, if I use, if I say I do things with two hands, glass of water, something like that, I'm using my, the glass of water, or salt and pepper shaker, or whatever, allows me to use the object to establish a context, in most cases a context in which the chakras are present, and that context is then established in relation to another person, so you pass the object from this chakra field to your chakra field.

[18:36]

Okay. So the point I'm making here is... I hope you can follow this. It seems so slippery. It's totally clear to me, but it seems slippery. So what is being established is not that it's either here or there. What's being established is a context. So it's not about here or there. It's about context. So if you're a person in a yoga culture, See, an object, it's not about... The object is used to establish a context. So if I put a lamp on a table, I'm not putting a lamp on the table because the table's over there. I'm putting a lamp on the table to establish a context.

[19:41]

Okay, if what's established is a context and not space as a container, if I'm establishing a context with the lamp, then I'm part of the context. Because as soon as I walk around, I'm part of the context. So I'm using the lamp to establish a context. I'm using my body to establish a context. So in other words, if you come into this endo, you're not coming into a space, you're coming into a context which you're establishing. so that it belongs to you. It belongs to you because you're part of it. So everything is alive because it's all a kind of agency on its own. So the Zendo has a kind of agency in the sense that it is a living being, a kind of living being, which is impermanent and interdependent. Even though you don't see the interdependence, And you don't usually see the impermanence, so I can see the little things on here that's happened over the years.

[20:46]

This was given to me by Sukyoshi. So you're in a field which is invisible, but it's interdependent and impermanent, and it's a living part of a context. Okay, now back to Detroit. What destroyed the American car industry for some decades? Everyone was driving, particularly in California, Japanese cars. You had to live in Michigan to be loyal to General Motors to drive a Western car, an American car. Because American cars were conceived of as objects to get you from point A to point B. And that was the point. Point. But Japanese cars were designed to make it a pleasure to go between point A and point B. I mean, basically, Japanese cars didn't care about point A and point B. They cared about everything in between.

[21:56]

So they made it interesting. They made the dashboard more user-friendly and so forth. And so everyone bought Japanese cars. But what were they really doing? The car was a context. So they established the car as a context and they sold the context of the car, not the car as status or as a big engine or able to go fast or slow, but rather as a and then maybe you could develop it so it went faster, etc. So in other words, the Japanese saw the car as a cultural object, not a mechanical object. And as a cultural object, it was a context. I hope I didn't lose you all with this back and forth. Probably didn't. Bo, I think I didn't lose you.

[22:58]

No. So the reference point for time and space is not distance. The reference point for time and space is context. So time is a function of context, so it's about succession of the context and not about distance. So you actually have, in yoga cultures, a very different sense of time and space because you always are also the context, so you are invariably also the space and the time. Okay. That's the end of that.

[24:01]

I mean, I could say more, but I think that's enough. And if it's hard to sort out, I suppose you can listen to it on a tape. Or maybe it's completely clear. I don't know. I always find that if I say things with slight with big differences in meaning, but in language, they're only slightly different. They sound only slightly different here, there, sore, core. The mind can grasp such distinctions only two or three a day. And if you have 10 of them in the lecture, Yeah. So what Nicole is noticing studying Japanese is the

[25:27]

first thing the language establishes is not content, but context. And then once it's established context, then it will look in what's the content of the context. But that's a real, and in our practice, And if you look at koans, etc., the first thing to notice is what context are they establishing. And until you get the context, there's no way you're going to get an understanding of the koan. Okay, that's enough. Thank you very much. May our intention equally penetrate every being.

[26:22]

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