Scatological Ontology

	night soil ^a night water ^b you shithead! ^c a lesson in ritual ^d zen and the art of . . .^e aah, there's nothing like camping out ^f the most important principle ^g too many toilets ^h yamada's shitstick ⁱ blue cliff shit ^j citations
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Little white maggots
In fermenting night soil
Steam with Buddahood.

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My urine turns to
cloud mountains
on the ground

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Lin-chi took the high seat and said, "On your lumps of red flesh, there is a person of no rank going in and out of your faces. If you beginners have not yet proved that on -- look! Look!"

A monk steped forward and asked, "What is the true person of no rank?"

Lin-chi descended from the high seat and seized him. the monk hesitated. Lin-chi pushed him away and said, "The true person of no rank -- what a dried shitstick!"

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Soen would tell a story about a zen master in northern Japan who was famous for his sense of precision and ceremony. Seems that one day in the coldest part of winter the master's attendant was cleaning up in the master's outhouse and happended to peer down the hole. He saw this most excellent sculpture of shit. A frozen column. A single sheet of toilet paper. A frozen column. A single sheet of toilet paper. Each movement precisly on top of the next. A wonderous teaching - the true nature of ceremony and ritual.

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The Zen of Bowel Movements:

A Spiritual Approach to Constipation

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Shoju sat all night in the graveyard
among wolves who sniffed his Adam's apple.
First light moving in the air
he arose, peed, and ate breakfast.

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Once a monk begged Chao-chou to tell him the most important principle in Zen. Chao-chou excused himself, saying, "I have to go now and make water. Just think, even such a trifling thing, I have to do in person."

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I went to Tucson and it gave
me a headache. I don't know how.
Everyone's a cousin in this world.
I drove down a road of enormous houses
that encompass many toilets. Down hallways,
leaping left or right, you can crap at will.
A mile away a dead Mexican child slept
out in the desert on the wrong side of a mattress.

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Kanshiketsu! A dried shit-stick! In the secular world, a dried shit-stick is a dirty thing. No one would ever bring it into the living room! But Unmon's kanshiketsu isn't dirty. Neither is it discolored or smelly. Someone has said, "As this monk is attached to the conceptual holiness of Buddha, Unmon takes up the shit-stick to deprive him of the concept." Kanshiketsu has no odor, no concept, no ideas attached to it. It is Mu! It is . . . Whack! . . . It is three pounds of flax.

Kanshiketsu! This one voice is just like a flash of lightning or sparks from an iron flint. It disappears in an instant. If you try to see it or try to think about it even for a brief period, it passes away. You can't grasp it. If you want to realize it -- kanshiketsu! That's it!

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The whole great earth is in the single eye of a monk.

Where will you people go to defecate?

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see reading list for complete citations

a poem from a zen wave pg146
b poem from endless vow pg102
c lin-chi excerpt from the gateless barrier pg 139
d soen nakagawa story adapted from the mind of clover pg 126
e noted in the introduction to the roaring stream
f . 6 . from after ikkyu and other poems
g chao-chou excerpt from zen for beginners pg 101
h . I6 . from after ikkyu and other poems
i case 21 teisho excerpts from gateless gate
j from the commentary on case 5 blue cliff record