Opinions!

[firecat]

I did this on Usenet once and got some interesting answers. If I can find the thread in Gooja I will post it in a couple of days.
ETA: I made a comment in this post about what happened on Usenet.

I have had the following in my quote file for a long time. I don't know whether it is an accurate quote or not, but I like it.

Joshu is my favorite Zen Master. It is said that a monk once asked him, To be holy -- what is it like?" Joshu replied, "To dump a mountain of shit on a clean plain." -- Dick Sutphen

What do you think Joshu means?

(X-posted to buddhists)

Comments

[kmd.livejournal.com]

Hmmm ... my sense is that the mountain of shit is the concept of a person being "holy," i.e. the minute a person starts to aim for or consider themselves "holy" they are dumping a mountain of shit on what might otherwise have been the fairly clean plain of their life and relationships.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

this.

though i also think of shit as fertilizer, ergo not just as a bad thing. hm. need to ponder more.

[kmd.livejournal.com]

LOL. Fertilizer -- yeah. There's more than one lens here, I think.