Parts 1 – 5: The Double-ended Bag

Bag of Bones is the title of a novel by Stephen King. The title evokes what one would expect from King, whose forte is writing detailed accounts of all things bloody and creepy. The phrase “bag of bones,” of course, didn’t begin with King. It’s been around a long time as a useful means of describing an emaciated person or animal or just someone old and creaky.

Thinking of the body as a bag goes back at least to the Buddha, who sometimes described it as a double-ended sack made of skin and filled with all manner of things, not just bones. He compared the body to an ordinary bag with two ends filled with various grains and beans. Pouring out the contents, a knowledgeable person would be able to distinguish this  grain from that bean. In the same way, a contemplative person would recognize his or her own body as being a collection of things, useful to the whole but undesirable in and of themselves. The Buddha instructed his followers to be mindful that the body was nothing special, just a collection of parts. The parts of the body – 32 of them – become objects of meditation.

Furthermore, the monk reflects on this very body from the soles of the feet on up, from the crown of the head on down, surrounded by skin and full of various kinds of unclean things: ‘In this body there are head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, pleura, spleen, lungs, large intestines, small intestines, gorge, feces, bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, skin-oil, saliva, mucus, fluid in the joints, urine.’ Just as if a sack with openings at both ends were full of various kinds of grain — wheat, rice, mung beans, kidney beans, sesame seeds, husked rice — and a man with good eyesight, pouring it out, were to reflect, ‘This is wheat. This is rice. These are mung beans. These are kidney beans. These are sesame seeds. This is husked rice’; in the same way, the monk reflects on this very body from the soles of the feet on up, from the crown of the head on down, surrounded by skin and full of various kinds of unclean things…

MN 119, Kayagata-sati Sutta

The first five parts of the body – head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, and skin – are the bag and its accessories. The outer parts are what we present to the world. We identify with these parts because they are how we identify ourselves to others. We spend much time and money on these parts, and not always out of necessity. We strive to make ourselves more appealing to others and at the same time distinguish ourselves from them. There are other psycho-social reasons, too, but but I don’t want to wander further into the realm of psychology.

The next 12 parts of the body comprise the solid matter within our double-ended bag of skin. They are seen rarely by anyone except those who would  repair a wound or address an illness. We don’t think too much about these parts unless we are ill or broken. The exception is muscle (flesh), because well-toned muscle enhances the overall appearance of the bag of skin that surrounds it. We give a lot of attention to muscle.

The remaining parts (with the exception of the brain) are produced by the other parts. Most of these parts we take great care to conceal. Sometimes they  come out at unexpected times, often to our great embarrassment.

Note: If you are here for the first time, please take a moment to read the Introduction to the 32-Parts Project in the sidebar for background information.