WEBVTT

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During the 10 years
that I lived in Kyoto,

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besides doing my studies
in Chinese and Japanese

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and Buddhist
history and thought,

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I took up the study
of biology and ecology

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in primarily in English
language because, you know,

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Japan is a very
sophisticated place.

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And there was a--

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the Maruzen bookstores, which
you will find some places

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in this country like in
Manhattan and in San Francisco,

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there's six or seven Maruzen
in bookstores in Japan,

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they have--

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they had anyway, better stocks
of English language books

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than you'll find most of
the time in this country,

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including big shelves of
scientific works as well.

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So I got some very good
books there in the early days

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of ecology when ecology
meant a science and not

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just the outdoors.

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So working through that and
conceptualizing, working out

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my own thoughts of concepts
like the food chain, the food

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pyramid, and so
forth, it finally

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dawned on me that
the ecology that

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was being taught
at that time was

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all about things eating each
other and, in particular,

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about how energy
got passed along

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in and out of organic and
inorganic matter also.

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Working with that,
I wrote a poem

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called "The Soul of the
Taste" about the food

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that we human beings eat.

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"Eating the living
germs of grasses,

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eating the ova of large birds,
eating the fleshy sweetness

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packed around the sperm
of swaying trees--

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apples-- the muscles of
the flanks and thighs

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of soft-voiced cows, the
mounts in the lambs leap,

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the swish in the ox's tail,
eating roots grown swole

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inside the soil, drawing
on life of living.

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Clustered points
of light spun out

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of space hidden in the grape.

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Eating each other's
seed, eating each other.

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Kissing the lover in
the mouth of bread--

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the tulip.

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So that's really about
the sacrament in a way.

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The sacrament understood
as deeply ancient

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and more involved in
the life of the flesh

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than the later church would
allow, moving from metaphor

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almost to the literal.

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And it turns out that that's
probably the case actually.

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