Oryoki

You know what this footnoting is like? It's like the final phase of a Japanese oryoki meal, a staple of Zen monasteries.

You have a setsu, a cleaning stick, round which you've wrapped a piece of cloth at one end.

You clean out your bowls with it, so no washing up is required. You get little tastes of everything you've eaten. It can be a little gross.

Yeah it's like that: cleaning your bowl thoroughly. Reading through endless philosophy texts getting little tastes of them. It can be a little gross.