The lists of English words in this file are taken from an article published in 1910 in the American Journal of Insanity: “A study of association in insanity,” by G. H. Kent and A. J. Rosanoff. In each series of three, the first word is the stimulus induced by the conductor of the experiment that the article reports, the second belongs to “case 4752” and the third to “case 5183.” The voices are Lucy, Peter and Graham, from Natural Voices. | Las listas de palabras inglesas en este archivo están tomadas de cierto artículo publicado en 1910 en el American Journal of Insanity: “A study of association in insanity”, de G. H. Kent y A. J. Rosanoff. En cada serie de tres, la primera palabra es el estímulo inducido por quien conduce el experimento, la segunda le pertenece al “caso 4752” y la tercera al “caso 5183”. Las voces son de Lucy, Peter y Graham, de Natural Voices.

Stimulus

Table dark music sickness man deep soft eating mountain house black mutton comfort hand short fruit butterfly smooth command chair sweet whistle woman cold slow wish river white beautiful window rough citizen foot spider needle red sleep anger carpet girl hich working sour earth trouble soldier cabbage hard

Case 4752

Meadow black sweet dead mansion near sooner formble gair temble benched ranched bumble semble simber narrow Ben gum bramble low temper bensid hummery gunst bemper tip gumper Andes gimper hummer geep humper zuper gumper himper gumper moop rumble slamper hinker humper gumpip imper gumper humper guipper phar her

Case 5183

Muss gone caffa monk buy lesson ness pie Gus muss court beef ness koy ness dalb flack mess cork ness Bess toy girl cork mass vell mouth cast ness crow ratter zide malloy straw cast Roman scack gois noise call hort Kaffir romerscotters bell tramine gas cor kalbas

This is from a book called Eat Sleep Sit: My Year at Japan’s Most Rigorous Zen Temple, written by Kaoru Nonomura and translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter. Nonomura has been suffering through the first week of training at Eiheiji Monastery; he comments on the dressing codes at the place, and particularly on the use of “the mantle or kesa, which derives from an everyday sari-like garment of ancient India that was transformed into something sacred”. This is the story behind the mantle:

“During his stay in China, Dogen saw monks place their mantles on their heads and hold their palms together in reverence. He wrote that this holy sight filled him with such irrepresible joy that he wept until the collar of his robe was soaked with tears.

Concerning the material for the mantle, he specified that it should be made from pure materials, and decreed that the following ten types of discarded cloth are especially pure:

Cloth chewed by an ox.
Cloth gnawed by rats.
Cloth scorched by fire.
Cloth soiled with menstruation.
Cloth soiled by childbirth.
Cloth discarded at a shrine.
Cloth discarded at a graveyard.
Cloth discarded in petitions to the gods.
Cloth discarded by king’s ministers.
Cloth laid over the dead.

Monks would gather scraps of such discarded cloth and patch them together. Dogen expounded further on the meaning of such rags, known as funzoe (literally “excrement-sweeping cloth”);

When collecting discarded bits of cloth, some will be silk and some will be cotton. But once they are used to make a mantle, they are neither silk nor cotton but funzoe. Cloth that is funzoe is not silk, nor is cotton.

If a human being should become funzoe, that person would be no longer a living creature, but funzoe; and if a pine or a chrysanthemum should become funzoe, it would no longer be vegetation but would indeed be funzoe.

Only by grasping the principle that funzoe is neither silk nor cotton nor jewels can one understand funzoe and come face to face with it. Those who are not convinced that a mantle is silk or cotton cannot begin to understand funzoe. Even if someone wore a mantle of rough cloth all his life in a spirit of humility, as long as he was distracted by the material and appearance of the cloth, faithful transmission of Buddha’s teachings would never be possible.”