The Japanese Art of Self-Mummification | Hacker News Reader

The Japanese Art of Self-Mummification

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98 pointsjourneeman25 comments

Such practice is quite common within east asia. It is called 'sokushinbutsu' in Japanese, kanji of which translated into 即身仏, which means 肉身佛 in Chinese, literally 'flesh body buddha'. From wikipedia, monk Hui Neng, dating back to 638 A.D. tang dynasty, seems to be believed the first of such example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huineng

I cannot say I understand how this is explained from Buddhism within, because I am not practitioner. But if such thing happens, it is usually viewed as some kind of wonder/miracle by the locals, and also means the monk has ascended to be Buddha.

Previous discussion :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10650278

(With a less catchy title)

And Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_mummies

I agree, ;-) but honestly, that title didn't prepare me for the content.

How could someone who is fully enlightened, full of joy and love for all living beings, and totally at peace with oneself choose to indulge in such a practice?

This was less about enlightenment and more about pride and ritual, two powerful forces in all human cultures but, arguably, a greater force in medieval Japan than anywhere else, before or since.

Fear, like in all religions. In abrahamic religions people take the "Hell" story seriously. It's to be avoided as nobody wants the eternal torture. Now the eternal torture in the religions which believe in cyclical births and deaths is simply this thing of permanent new births and deaths! Therefore, as long as the body doesn't decay, the cycle doesn't repeat and that's the achievement.

>Therefore, as long as the body doesn't decay, the cycle doesn't repeat and that's the achievement.

As far as I know, this is false. The cycle stops repeating when one has reached enlightenment; to my knowledge, what happens after that point is irrelevant - one can't go back from enlightenment, and certainly not due to the body decaying (which is a major topic of Buddhist meditation anyway).

Is there any Pali canon source (I'm only interested in Theravada) that backs up the concept of no decay = no rebirth?

This idea, known in the text as annihilationism, was rejected by the Buddha as far as I know.

Nirvana is "the liberation from the cycle of birth and death." The cycle is the main cause of suffering. Observing it this way, the first Budda (being born in Hindu environment) who recognized that the enlightment "frees from the cycle" that is, not beleiving in religious stories achieves the freedom. The follovers made the religion from that too.

>that is, not beleiving in religious stories achieves the freedom

The way to achieve enlightenment is via the Noble Eightfold Path. This does not require non-belief. At some point, one eradicates doubt about the teachings because one has realised the truth for oneself through insight meditation.

Enlightenment is nothing as benign as removing faith - it's the removing of the need for faith via direct experience.

Besides, the teachings cover a far wider range of ideas than rebirth. Not only that, but the Buddha is written to have said that an enlightened person can recollect his or her previous births.

I don't write about teachings of the religion made later. I just consider the context of Budda trying to save himself from Hinduism in which he grew up. He had a simple solution: deciding not to worry about Hindu beliefs of eternal torture through eternal rebirths and lives and deaths, thus achieving his own personal Nirvana.

His solution, if you believe it was one, was far from simple though.

It wasn't just a momentary decision to ignore Hinduism that let to his enlightenment, but a deliberate practice of self examination.

Buddhism is actually a kind of psychology, a study of the mind, and the historical Buddha studied his mind methodically for years using introspective techniques (meditation) that he adapted from Hinduism.

But it's also more than that. Just like you can't learn a difficult skill like hitting a baseball by looking at pictures of others doing it, or by thinking about it or by being told how it feels to do so, you can't realize enlightenment without striving for it.

So buddhism is a set of teachings about the nature of your mind, combined with practices to help you fully realize (come to know) the truth of these teachings in your own mind and body.

> In abrahamic religions people take the "Hell" story seriously. It's to be avoided as nobody wants the eternal torture.

You mean the Christian religion, as neither Judaism nor Islam believe in eternal torture. Judaism has a 1 year maximum time limit, and opinions on the length vary in Islam.

I find it interesting that they believe that as long as the body does not decay the person is not reborn. In Judaism embalming is discouraged because it makes it harder on the soul to disconnect from the body since as long as the body is preserved the soul thinks it's supposed to stay there (but obviously can't).

Can they not embalm the person after a natural death though? Why does it have to be by this process?

> opinions on the length vary in Islam.

It seems that the "eternal Hell" does exist in Islam:

Al-Bukari, Narrated Abu Huraira: "some of them will fall and stay in Hell forever; others will receive punishment (torn into small pieces) and will get out of Hell, till when Allah intends mercy on whomever "

Eternal Hell. Merciful, really.

I saw that too, but apparently not all agree. That's why I wrote opinions differ.

Life is Hell?

I doubt pride is a strong enough force for anyone to undergo such intense suffering as this.

It is pride because the person thought they could defeat decay, which is undefeatable.

Maybe once you are fully enlightened the practice stops being something frightful?

If you find this sort of quirky ( by Western European standards ) behaviour interesting, then I highly recommend The Naked Eye and Known Unknowns by Charles Saatchi.

The self mummification is one of his short essays.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Naked-Eye-Charles-Saatchi/dp/186...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Known-Unknowns-Charles-Saatchi/dp/18...

With all respect - this feels to me like the most extreme kind of extreme sport. Absolutely pointless, absolutely deadly - and totally awe inspiring.

> These monks also believed deeply in self-sacrifice in service to others. This manifested in a lot of the usual community service: feeding the poor, caring for the elderly, treating the sick.

Boy, did that change. Now monks in Japan are all about extorting money from people for any kind of service, and ride in ridiculously expensive cars. Buddha would be proud.

How did the monks of Kiev Lavra end up mummified?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev_Pechersk_Lavra

In the 80's and 90's you would pay a lot of money for a cassette deck that would minimise hiss. Here we are in 2015 adding it in artificially.

That's supposed to be the sound of insects, cicadas, I think.

Yes, especially in Japan they put that sound in pretty much any audio to indicate summer because that's what summer sounds like in Japan. Some of the cicadas are louder than ambulances

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE-_kNWJXNw

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