The Meaning of Words in Modern "Ego" Society and Hunter-Gatherer Societies: "The Forest People Who Need Neither 'Thank You' Nor 'I'm Sorry'" 🌳Part 3 Final Episode🌳
In the previous second part, titled "People Who Do Not Reflect," I introduced the loose collective ego of the Penan, who have no "I'm sorry."
In this final episode, I would like to think about what it means that there is no "thank you," which is so important and precious in Japanese society!
Let's go to the forest🌳🌳🌳
Possession.
Material desire.
Is this something humans inherently possess?
In the distant Jomon period, did people live by sharing without the concept of "mine"?
The Penan people of Indonesia live to eat.
Food obtained from nature through hunting and gathering in forests and rivers is distributed so that it reaches the villagers. Even in modern Penan society, this basic way of life has not changed. Let us quote again from "The Forest People Who Need Neither 'Thank You' Nor 'I'm Sorry'."
For the Penan, being generous is important. The Penan are always expected to unsparingly share what they have received with someone else. Watches, pouches, and bags that Mr. Okuno brings as souvenirs for the family of the man who always takes care of him when he visits twice a year are immediately passed on to someone else who asks for them. Furthermore, they are passed on to yet another person.
Is sharing received gifts with others a virtue that the Penan are born with? No, it does not seem so. When Mr. Okuno visits the Penan settlement, the host family tells him never to show the souvenirs in front of everyone. This is because they fear that nothing will remain in their hands. Their true intention is to keep things for themselves, and sharing things unsparingly is practiced as a "social custom."
There was a time when Mr. Okuno gave a few candies to a young child, and she tried to keep them all to herself. The children around her looked like they wanted them, but the child pulled the candies close to her and would not let go. Her mother saw this and urged her to share them with the children nearby. At first, she looked puzzled, but following her mother's teaching, the child began to distribute the candies to the other children. The Penan have spread the norm of sharing what is given to them throughout their society after birth. The generous spirit of distributing things unsparingly is by no means something they are born with. In Penan society, the buds of stinginess are crushed immediately.
Among the Penan people, the desire for possession seems to be corrected from an early age.
From a cultural anthropological perspective, it is said that one can see the spirit of gifts in various indigenous peoples around the world. It is an energy called the "spirit of the gift," known as mana or hau, which moves along with the gift when it moves from the giver.
According to cultural anthropologist Shinichi Nakazawa, Indians were not allowed to make gifts their own; gifts had to keep moving. The spirit of the gift is passed on to others along with the gift. The spirit of the gift must be returned along with a gift in a different form or passed on to other people to keep it moving. Shinichi Nakazawa says that when the spirit of the gift moves and flows, the world becomes materially richer and people's hearts become lively.
In ancient times, I think that perhaps this was originally done in a natural form. However, eventually, the capitalist material world flows into hunter-gatherer societies like that of the Penan. Along with cultural anthropologists. Or along with travelers. Or perhaps they go to town themselves now.
In Penan society, the person who most frequently practices the act of immediately sharing what they have been given with others with a generous heart is the most respected. Such a person is usually the most frugal and, in some cases, looks shabbier than anyone else. This is because he himself possesses almost nothing. Not only does he give when asked, but he also takes the initiative to share. In inverse proportion to having nothing, he comes to gain respect and is called a "Big Man" by the people, becoming the leader of the community. People gather around him, and his words become the driving force that moves people. When words are spoken from the mouth of a Big Man, people go out to hunt, and arguments are settled.
There must have been an era when many such people became leaders in a natural form, but now, correction is required in childhood to protect their traditional life. Wait, isn't this the same thing as the society that sends children to kindergarten, elementary, junior high, and high school to create people who fit into modern society? It seems that modern society has a modern social "superego," and the Penan have the "superego" of Penan society. (Superego is a norm or moral perspective of how one should be or what one should do, socially or familially.)
Even if the social forms are different, isn't this the same thing?
In the Penan language, there is no expression like "thank you" to convey feelings of gratitude to the other party when one receives something or has something done for them. The receiver says nothing to the giver on the spot. As a phrase equivalent to thank you, there is the expression "good intention." It is a word that praises the giver's spirituality. It is not being thanked, but the spirit of sharing that is praised.
In modern Japan, isn't there no word more emphasized than the word "thank you"?
Let's say thank you, let's say thank you 100 times a day. I often see such articles on social media and this Note.
The fact that there is no "thank you" is quite a shock.
Instead, there is the phrase "good intention." It is not a word to thank for receiving, but a word to praise for giving.
In modern Japanese society, the word "thank you" makes human relationships smooth, and I try to use it often, but there are many scenes where the other person smiles when I say "thank you."
If I used "you had a good intention" instead of thank you in Japan, people would surely think, "What is wrong with this guy?"
This is because we take it for granted that we will be thanked when we do something for others or receive something.
In a society where things circulate with spirits, there might originally be no "thank you" and no praise like "good intention." This is because it is natural for things to circulate.
Words exist along with social conventions.
It seems to exist as communication between egos that have been imposed and created.
Therefore
Modern thank yous and
Penan's "you did a good thing"
are words that fill from the outside.
are words that wrap from the outside.
I believe there is a way to use words that causes something to well up from within.
Something that wells up from the soul side. Words that well up.
If we could live by that,
I think people would be able to transform this society.
Stripping away, stripping away what has been imposed upon us,
I want to let words from the soul rise up.
Having written this far, I was reminded of the Eight Limbs of Yoga that I work on in my daily life. As I have introduced in previous articles, the Eight Limbs of Yoga include teachings on what not to do and how to live, known as Yama and Niyama. They are didactic. If you attend a class, a yoga teacher might mention them from time to time.
However, I believe these are not things that come first,
but rather things that well up from within and manifest in action when the goal of yoga, Samadhi, is achieved.
Even if one cannot reach Samadhi, they are things that naturally appear when the inner self becomes enriched.
In the end, I settle on the same conclusion as the previous article.
To enrich the forest of the heart.
I have settled in a place different from the conclusion I had initially intended when I thought about writing this article. I thought my thinking would lead to the idea that the Punan way of life is wonderful and that, originally, words like "thank you" are unnecessary, but the conclusion arrived at a place that is neither modern society nor the Punan. This is the fun of writing and the fun of thinking.
I cannot live a Punan-like hunter-gatherer life, and it shouldn't be that I must remain in modern society as it is.
I want to incorporate the differences between the modern way of life and the hunter-gatherer way of life into myself, and while keeping those differences as they are, I want to discover and create a way of living for the future right here where I am living now.
Part 1 🌳
Part 2 🌳
While eating a Purple Sweet Potato Shiro-Noir (•ө•)♡
Reading and writing.
Autumn of appetite 🍂
Reference Blog
On the Eight Limbs of Yoga
《The Inverted Teaching》
The Misunderstood Patanjali: From an article by Hiroko Igarashi.
When the truth that the foundation of enlightenment is a state of transcendence (being) became obscured, the words spoken by sages about the goal began to be misunderstood as the path to achieving that goal. The founder of Yoga philosophy, Patanjali, was also misinterpreted, and the order of the eight paths he taught was reversed. Yoga practice should begin with Samadhi (absorption), but it came to be understood that one should start with moral actions such as Yama (restraints) and Niyama (observances). Samadhi is not something gained through practices like Yama and Niyama; rather, it is by repeatedly experiencing Samadhi that morality is enhanced. In other words, these are not eight stages, but eight limbs that evolve simultaneously. There are two types of Samadhi: temporary Samadhi and permanent Samadhi. Temporary Samadhi is transcendence. Permanent Samadhi is the state of enlightenment. Furthermore, interpretations of Yama, Niyama, and so on have also drifted away from their essence. In this way, every domain has been misunderstood and misinterpreted over the past several centuries.
very difficult and sometimes dangerous. If words come first, might they
actually harden the ego that meditation and yoga exercises are meant to soften?
Related Articles of Mine
Matter and Spirit 💫💫💫
Human Consciousness and Social Transformation: What is Anti-Centralization!? 2 《Let's Have the Courage to Stand in the Gray Zone Between Two Worlds》
This article is interesting↑🌟
Thank you for reading!
I also wanted to introduce the Punan's child-rearing methods, but as usual, it got too long, so I hope to do so another time if the opportunity arises.
Alternatively, I recommend reading "What an Anthropologist Thought After Living with the Forest People Who Need Neither Thank You Nor Sorry."
It is a very readable and thought-provoking book.
That is all!
Namaste✨