Shōgun: Part Two (Asian Saga, #2)

by James Clavell

I’ll become Christian if that’s what you want but I can’t believe it—it’s all manure

Now sleep. Karma is karma. Be thou of Zen. Remember, in tranquillity, that the Absolute, the Tao, is within thee, that no priest or cult or dogma or book or saying or teaching or teacher stands between Thou and It. Know that Good and Evil are irrelevant, I and Thou irrelevant, Inside and Outside irrelevant as are Life and Death. Enter into the Sphere where there is no fear of death nor hope of afterlife, where thou art free of the impediments of life or the needs of salvation. Thou art thyself the Tao. Be thou, now, a rock against which the waves of life rush in vain . . .

“Please tell her we’re taught to be ashamed of our bodies and pillowing and nakedness and . . . and all sorts of stupidities. It’s only being here that’s made me realize it. Now that I’m a little civilized I know better.”

do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening . . . soon

“Me cago en la leche, che cabron! ”

“When I die, don’t burn me, don’t bury me, just throw my body on a field to fatten some empty-bellied dog.”

Filthy peasants don’t know their place anymore!”

“You mean priests don’t sweat?” A few laughed and someone held a flare closer. “Why should they sweat?” the rough man said. “All they do is sleep all day and pillow all night—nuns, boys, dogs, themselves, anything they can get—and all the time stuff themselves with food they’ve never labored for. Priests are parasites, like fleas.”

“Virtuous men throughout history have always decried bawdy houses and Pillow Places, but men aren’t virtuous and if a leader outlaws houses and pillowing he’s a fool because greater evils will soon erupt like a plague of boils.”