One day the Zen master Setsugen said to his student Jijo:
“If for seven days and seven nights you devote yourself completely to meditation, but do not achieve awakening, then you can cut off my head and make a ladle out of my skull to remove sewage.”
Soon after this, Jijo fell ill with dysentery. Taking the bucket with him, he went to a place where no one could see him, sat down on the bucket and completely concentrated his attention.
After seven days, the whole world suddenly seemed to him like a snow-covered plain shimmering in the moonlight, and he felt that the Universe had become too small to contain him.
He remained in this state for a long time, until some sound brought him to his senses. He found sweat flowing all over his body and his illness was gone.
After this, Jijo wrote the following poem:
"Dazzling, spiritual - what is it?
Blink and you've already lost it.
The sewage ladle sparkles with light;
And all this time it was just me"
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru