Just read a very thought provoking chapter in Shunryu Suzuki’s Not Always So, and thought I would mention a bit. Let’s start with a quote (from page 42 if you want to follow along):

“What is your practice? What is Buddha?” somone asked [Zen master Ummon]. He answered … “Something to wipe yourself with in the rest room.” That is what he said. And since then many Zen masters are thinking about it, practicing with the koan: What is toilet paper?

And like most good Zen koan’s, they go right over my head. But once Suzuki explained it, it got me chewing (not that there will be greater hope for my attempt at understanding another koan) …

In our everyday life, we eat many things, good and bad, fancy and simple, tasty and not so tasty. Later we need to go to the rest room. Similarly after filling our mind, we practice zazen. Otherwise our thinking will eventually become very unhealthy. It is necesasry for us to make our mind clear before we study something. It is like drawing something on white paper; if you do not use clean white paper, you cannot draw what you want. So it is necessary to go back to your original state where you have nothing to see and nothing to think about. Then you will understand what you are doing.

Clearly meditation is not the goal or purpose … but simply a tool to get you to a point where you can see clearly.

He also makes an allusion to bowel ellimination … er, sorry for the clinical term … to poopin’ and attachment. He says, “Each one of us knows how to go to the rest room without attaching to something we have in our bodies.” So … maybe our thoughts are like food … they come in, we digest them, and then we need to poop them out without any attachment. But thoughts are clingy and we need a little meditation to wipe with.

Yes, you are correct … I am amazed that I could write a “spiritual” posting where the major theme is poop.