Chapter 135
WARNING – SOME READERS MAY FIND SOME TERMINOLOGY OFFENSIVE, BUT PLEASE DON’T!
Okay lovely readers, let’s talk shit this month. Some of you may think I talk shit every month, but this month is different, I’m talking about excrement and the process of evacuating the bowels. (What’s The Scoop On Poop?) I had a great conversation recently, discussing the benefits of water and squatting as they relate to the process of evacuating the bowels.
In my wide-ranging travels and education, I have long understood that hanging out at ground level, ie squatting, is good for you. This practice ensures that your body retains strength and flexibility throughout your lifetime. By squatting daily, both as a sitting position to have a chat with friends, and more importantly, as your posture for the great bowel evacuation, this is a fundamental aspect of healthy living.
The digestive system of the human animal is not designed for us to sit on a throne in order to take a pee or a poop. When we do this, we are effectively putting a kink in the pipe! When your hosepipe gets folded over, the water flow stops or sputters… That’s what sitting on a toilet does for your digestive system.
In our ‘modern’ world where humans have lost the ability to be natural animals, there are now products on sale to enable us to get back to the natural squatting posture. If like most north Americans, your hips/knees/back/ overall weight will not allow you to perch atop a ceramic toilet bowl with any degree of confidence that you are not about to plunge to an untimely and possibly quite stinky end… you can buy yourself a “squatty potty” or similar. Just an angled, U-shaped step that will fit around the toilet when not in use. There are a few out there… basically they provide a shelf on which to place your feet, raising your knees and bringing your body into a more natural position for evacuation. You can try it out using a pile of old books or magazines on which to place your feet, just to see what it does for ya. Heheheh.
One of the more entertaining facets of travelling the world with my Hippie Honcho Fantuzzi is that almost all our friends and hosts are of similar mind. Walking in on someone in the bathroom is highly amusing when they are perched over the toilet like some tentative bird on a nest.
I recall my first adventure in North Carolina many, many years ago. I was a camp counsellor…at the tender age of 21, I was flabbergasted when I had to literally demonstrate to American teenager girls how to take a pee in the woods. So many of the global population are now born, grow up and live within the parameters of controlled city environments, they have lost their innate connection to the land and natural habits that have sustained us for centuries.
Are you, gentle reader, one of the very many who have suffered from or currently suffers from constipation or hemorrhoids? These two persistent malaise are endemic and can be largely avoided given the simple practice of squatting, not sitting! Less straining is involved, the body is in the correct position and nature will take its course without stress. Enjoy it.
The great Buddhist teachers will always tell us to focus on what we are doing right here, right now, this is the essence of mindfulness or mindful meditation which may sound elusive, but is available to all of us, all the time, all that is required is focus. I remember a quote, I believe from Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetian Book Of Living And Dying, who told an inquiring mind “When you are eating, eat. When you are shitting, shit.” Straightforward stuff that our modern lives are eliminating as we add in more and more stimulation – I am so guilty of this! – try and do one thing at a time. If you do any reading on the Buddha’s teachings, you will eventually come across the topic of urination and defecation and bringing attention to what you are doing.
Oooh, here’s some pretty revolting facts:
“In 2012, a full 75% of Americans admitted to using their phone while on the toilet. Nearly a fifth owned up to dropping their phones in the toilet, according to CNET. Nearly a third of men and 20 percent of women won’t even go to the lavatory without one. As a result, the University of London found 1 in 6 phones to have “fecal matter bacteria” on them.”
Yuk. I won’t be using someone else’s phone any time soon.
Then again, a 2016 study of over 100,000 people in Europe found that 62% of men and 40% of women sometimes skip hand-washing after going to the bathroom. Lovely. That may be quite different these days with the recent emphasis on hand-washing among other things.
Our desire to distract ourselves from basic bodily functions is pretty amusing when you sit down (pun intended) and think about it. Go back a century or so and communal latrines were far more common. In India farmers would designate a particular area that all families would use – meeting your neighbours over steaming pongy pits each morning must have been a tad different to a macchiato at the Cinnamon Spoon.
Western social conditioning encourages us to be repulsed by fecal matters, to hide it, to be ashamed of it, to ignore it, to avoid talking about it in polite discussion, to keep it separate from the rest of our lives. The Buddha tried to change this reaction by changing the normal context in which we view the byproduct of our last delicious meal: the Dalai Lama told a London audience
“The Buddha said that although excrement is dirty in the town, it is helpful when used as fertilizer in a field.”
Eliminating the distinction between temple (spiritual matters) and toilet (practical matters) is part of the experience at Ittoen, a commune near Kyoto, where toilet cleaning is considered a critical aspect of the path to self-knowledge. In her book, author Louise Rafkin describes the moment of Zen she felt after mopping the communal latrines: “In my heart, I saw a big tree, with everything in its branches. You, me, air, birds, flowers. I knew everything was related. That was my realization after cleaning that toilet.”
Interesting. I have had a life-long love of horses. One of the most satisfying practices for me over many decades has been that of mucking out stables. It’s eminently satisfying. I love the feeling of clarity looking around a gleaming clean barn or stable, the smell of horse, dirt and fresh air, it all combines in such a natural and complete fashion. I love it.
Remember the toilet paper frenzy last year? In Asia every toilet has a bowl or tub or hose or some form of water supply for cleaning yourself after pooping. I’m pretty sure that there was no toilet paper drama over there. When I come back to the west from Asia this is a culture-shock challenge I’d rather not address.
What I find challenging with all the house- dog-cat-sitting that I’m doing these days is the lack of water. What? I hear you ask, we have running water here in the West. In my own home I’ve installed a hose at the toilet so that I can easily be clean. What a novel idea. How many of you would consider a piece of poop wiped off the floor/counter with a piece of toilet paper as cleaned away? I prefer to wash & then dry rather than rub it around.
Don’t forget, there are other benefits to squatting – like playing with dogs and kids at ground level. Oodles of fun to be had.
Okay, enough of this poop. I hope that gives you something to smile about.
Until the next time. Don’t hold it. If you gotta go, you gotta go!
With gratitude and love,
Kat Dancer
bodymudra@gmail.com
403-931-3866 (h)
+1 415 525 2630 (c)
