Monks Who Spent Years Turning Themselves into Mummies While Alive | Hacker News Reader

Monks Who Spent Years Turning Themselves into Mummies While Alive

atlasobscura.com

125 pointsThevet103 comments

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This was discussed a few times earlier this year in an article that contains pictures of the monks:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10892556

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

Actual article: https://www.damninteresting.com/sokushinbutsu-the-ancient-bu...

Curiously similar wording too. Original article:

"Some of the monks drank tea made from the bark of the urushi tree during their fast. Also known as the Japanese Varnish Tree, its sap is normally used to make a lacquer varnish, and it contains the same abrasive chemical that makes poison ivy so unpleasant. Urushi is so toxic that even its vapor can cause a rash, and it remains in the body after death. Drinking urushi tea served to hasten the monk towards death as well as make his body even less hospitable to insects."

This new article:

"A kind of sumac, the Japanese lacquer tree is called such because it is used to make traditional Japanese lacquer, urushi. Its bark contains the same toxic compound that makes poison ivy so poisonous. If ingested by these monks, urushi tea would have both hastened death and made the body even less hospitable to the bacteria and parasites that aid in decomposition."

> Curiously similar wording too.

That happens quite often with such articles, they’re usually cross-licensed, and just slightly rewritten.

If you really want to be freaked out, read gaming journalism – they all just copy the original press statement and slightly adapt it.

What's freaky about lazy journalism?

Edit: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Because with gaming journalism, they’re literally copying developers’ PR statements – zero reviewing, zero own opinion, and it’s still presented as review.

Why do you assume that this is limited to gaming journalism?

Outside gaming journalism I believe the term is "native advertising".

Obligatory Last Week Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc

I’m not assuming it is limited to gaming journalism, but I can only prove that it is happening in gaming journalism, and I don’t want to make any unproven accusations.

I have had full stories copied wholesale into computer mags. You hire a good writer to make it not read like a press release.

In turn, game companies hire good writers to not make their copy read like a press release so journos don't have to change as much.

I thought "gaming journalism" was a book you were referencing about this practice and it sounded like a good read.

Ah, sorry. That was a bad choice of words.

There was a time when, to do let’s plays on YouTube, you had to still get written approval from publishers, and back in the day, that meant getting into their press contacts program.

Which in turn meant I got their press statements, half pre-written articles, phrases that should be used in articles, etc.

When reading gaming magazines after that I always noticed the exact same texts being used, often only minor alterations being made.

Sometimes they even suggested a range in which the rating for the game should be.

Same goes for a lot of music journalism

That's known as "churnalism", and it's disturbingly widespread in mainstream journalism; it's by no means limited to gaming.

> they’re usually cross-licensed, and just slightly rewritten

I'd expect that "slightly rewritten" articles aren't licensed or in syndication, they're plagiarized. (and not necessarily one from the other, but in some cases plagiarized from a common source) One common exception being if the articles have the same author.

> gaming journalism

Fun fact: this is what Gamergate was (supposedly) originally about before it escalated into whatever it is now. This is why you still occasionally hear the phrase "ethics in game journalism" in discussions about GG.

At the completion of a thousand-day cycle on this diet, practitioners were considered spiritually ready to enternyūjō. However, most monks completed two or even three cycles to fully prepare themselves.

Oh, come on. You know they just backed out like anyone would a couple times.

Is there any real spiritual value here? It appears to me to be misguided if the objective is to preserve oneself for later reanimation.

They believed they would go to a very desirable heaven, with the ability to help people on Earth, but only if their body remained intact. They never believed they would be reanimated, in fact, they didn't even believe that they were escaping the cycle of death and rebirth, but that they could live in that heaven for over a million years, helping humanity.

It's strange, I admit, but no stranger in my view than something like taking communion.

At it's core, Buddhism is about learning non-reaction to both pleasure and pain, treating both as mere sensation. I suppose this practice could be defended in that vein. However, it reminds me more of the Buddha's early ascetic practices, that he himself renounced, declaring that there is no point in actively harming oneself, and that one should instead work to reduce craving and aversion (the two fundamental types of reaction).

There was another article about a small sect of Japanese Buddhist monks that had some horrible practices, like screaming at each other in the morning, and so on. Even stranger (and more horrible) practices exist. But I would not call them Buddhist.

Shingon is a Vajrayana-style mystic tradition of Buddhism: more similar to Tibetan Buddhism than more popular East Asian forms. Also, it has been basically isolated in Japan since about the year 800. Although there is a Chinese school, contact was apparently limited.

The screaming might be part of Zen training. They scream at disciples to focus their mind on whatever they are doing right now. No daydreaming or you get screamed at.

I don't know, what's an example of something of real spiritual value?

Based on having read a fair chunk of the earliest Buddhist records, my guess is that he would probably have ridiculed or at least discouraged this practice. Obviously anyone capable of going through with it has tremendous spiritual strength, though.

This probably comes from Taoism, not from Buddhism. There's a lot of Tao in Japanese Buddhism, because it came there by way of China.

Suffering (and ritual suicide, too) is very much a part of Taoism.

> Suffering (and ritual suicide, too) is very much a part of Taoism.

Interesting, it's certainly not found in the 'classics' of Taoism. Where exactly does it come from?

The 'classics' of Taoism you read in college (Tao te Qing, Chuangze) don't cover a LOT of what monks do in practice. I assume those are the books you are referring to when talking about 'classics'

Fair enough. I'm just curious if the suffering aspect comes from Taoism, or the various Buddhist sects which have come through the region. Even though Theravada certainly emphasizes the 'middle' way the Buddha spoke of, extreme asceticism and suffering is certainly a part of Vajrayana and Mahayana sects (especially the former).

I'm familiar with the classic texts of both Taoism and Buddhism, as well as with Buddhist sects, but know little about contemporary Taoist sects or popular Taoist religion.

but know little about contemporary Taoist sects or popular Taoist religion.

The first time I entered a Taoist temple I was shocked. They didn't teach me about Xi Wang Mu in my college classes!

I'm just curious if the suffering aspect comes from Taoism......extreme asceticism and suffering is certainly a part of Vajrayana and Mahayana sects

Good questions. Ideas certainly have intermingled over the millennia. When I think of Vajrayana suffering, I think, "I am going to sit here and let leaches suck my blood so I can clarify my mind" or "seek out that which bothers you. If graveyards scare you, go sit in a graveyard."

Whereas Daoists will break their legs and suck the marrow out of their bones, or chop their arm off to show they are sincere about learning. Buddhists typically won't starve themselves to death.

I'm not sure what part of extreme asceticism and suffering you were referring to, but if you'd like to discuss it, I'll hear it.

> Whereas Daoists will break their legs and suck the marrow out of their bones, or chop their arm off to show they are sincere about learning.

Interested to find out more about this... Any links?

Guess it's kind of like Hinduism, you think it's all vegetarianism and non-violence, then you discover there's gurus engaging in human sacrifice and black magic.

There's strangely little information about it on the internet about it, I don't know why. I recommend going to the library for some paper books. "Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits." Might be a good book to start with, although it's not just about Taoism.

Source? See nothing about killing oneself as path in the Tao Te Ching.

The Tao Te Ching is a book about daoism that entered into a religious practice that was already happening. It is not the only book, there is also (for example) the Yinfujing. Much teaching is also done orally.

Read any book about Daoist monks in China and you will surely come across some of their suffering and other antics. The ending of the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is a popular reference to such a suicide.

As someone who grew up in a Christian culture that cherishes life, I find this sort of thing deeply disturbing. But I don't want to dismiss Buddhism. Even though I'm an atheist, I admire Buddhism's focus on compassion, and I think it has a beneficial effect on Buddhist cultures.

>Even though I'm an atheist...

Interestingly enough, Buddhism does not entail a belief in God.

Fair enough, atheist is probably technically the wrong term but it's a convenient shorthand for not believing the tenets of any particular religion.

Assuming by God you mean Christian God. Buddhism brings views which you can associate with God, but they're not the idea of a being watching over us.

It does entail a belief in divine beings, though.

I think associating this particular mummification practice performed by monks of Shingon sect of buddhism with buddhism itself isn't right. They took some buddhist teachings in 806 and modified them a bit. The founder of Shingon was a student of a Chinese teacher, who was a student of a Hindu teacher. Derogations are bound to happen.

Even still, It takes some insight to comprehend their self-mummification practices. I suppose it weren't just a bunch of pointless suicides.

That said, there aren't such practices in Hinduism or most, as it turns out(?) Buddhist philosophies (such as tibetan buddhism).

Right, but Buddhism has some extreme acts too. In 1963 a buddhist monk burned himself alive in the name of peace.

A video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epfNsk5l26U WARNING: It's a bit graphic!

It's disingenuous to attribute that act to Buddhism; that was a political act.

It's an act that has been performed by Buddhist monks for many reasons, political or otherwise. I don't think you can make the distinction you're trying to make here.

It was carried out by a Buddhist monk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...) in response to the South Vietnemese government oppressing Buddhists in favor of Catholics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_crisis

My impression is that while the impetus could be called political, removing the religious factors here would be far more disingenuous (especially considering the history of self-immolation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation#History).

If you read that last wikipedia page about self-immolation that you linked, you'll find out that:

> Jimmy Yu has shown that self-immolation cannot be interpreted based on Buddhist doctrine and beliefs alone but the practice must be understood in the larger context of the Chinese religious landscape. He examines many primary sources from the 16th and 17th century and demonstrates that bodily practices of self-harm, including self-immolation, was ritually performed not only by Buddhists but also by Daoists and literati officials who either exposed their naked body to the sun in a prolonged period of time as a form of self-sacrifice or burned themselves as a method of procuring rain. In other words, self-immolation was a sanctioned part of Chinese culture that was public, scripted, and intelligible both to the person doing the act and to those who viewed and interpreted it, regardless of their various religion affiliations.

Other self-immolations were political protests, and they weren't performed only by buddhists. ( examples here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation#Political_prot... )

Of course, as the wikipedia article says, "Since 2009, at least 120 Tibetans have self-immolated, more than 40 have died". But later on, you we read, "In 2013, the Dalai Lama questioned the effectiveness of self-immolation as a demonstration tactic. He has also expressed that the Tibetans are acting of their own free will and stated that he is powerless to influence them to stop carrying out immolation as a form of protest".

This of course was political, much as it is today in Tibet.

As an aside, I've always found the way in which East Asian Buddhists held firm against cultural invaders, extremely inspiring. In India, there seems to be little other than memories of conspiring with the colonizers for profit.

There are a quite a few Buddhist monks who perform acts that are clearly contrary to the Buddha's teachings. Self harm is a very obvious one. A monk commits suicide for whatever reason and that implicates Buddhism? I don't think so. I think it's a dramatic demonstration of failure to overcome attachment to an idea (although he certainly overcame attachment to his body).

"Self harm is a very obvious one. A monk commits suicide for whatever reason and that implicates Buddhism? I don't think so."

--> 'There is no self' in Buddhism :)

Were it not for the monk's Buddhist training, he would not have sat burning so calmly.

"It's disingenuous to attribute that act to Buddhism; that was a political act."

I would argue a Buddhist would describe it as a completely 'apolitical' act :)

But I think it's fair to associate such things with Buddhism, or at least specific branches of it, because it's a pattern of behaviour and an attitude, not particularly common elsewhere, and the act itself is to some extent consistent with their actual beliefs and value system.

Actually there is one such living practice amongst Jains, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santhara

sAkyamuni himself did, and many sAdhus today go to great trouble to become "asaktaH" (non-attached). It's said that former recognized the errors in this path, gave up on this course, and attained nirvana the subsequent day. Unless this is modern propaganda, I imagine Kobo Daishi was aware of it too.

India too has not suffered a loss of creatures who file PILs at the slightest deviation from the fashionable.

(note: Jainism is a traditionally recognised nAstika school, one that's not grounded in the vedAni. By this definition, Buddhism too is Hinduism - the demarcation only became rigid in the past ~200 years.).

It's my opinion that most humans have to really try thinking outside the box to understand this particular case.

Western culture, for example, has this innate fear of death. This is not a fear that other cultures share.

One could call what these monks were doing mental instability, lack of education or being suicidal. However, from another perspective, one could call what these monks were doing an incredible act of mental strength, self-control and devotion, following their beliefs wherever they lead, for what they perceived to be a selfless act.

I prefer to think that these are people who had a different way of thinking, they lived (and died) ascribing to that, without seeming to cause anyone else harm in their lives. Death was part of a bigger picture for them, not something they feared (or they taught themselves not to fear it).

While I certainly don't ascribe to the belief system these monks shared, there is something that we can learn from this alternative way, and respect in its own way.

Ultimately, I think that's what all compatible belief systems enable... a way of living peacefully and honorably allowing people to explore their own beliefs from life through death, and who knows, potentially beyond.

"Western culture, for example, has this innate fear of death. This is not a fear that other cultures share." This seems incredibly broad and...just very off.

I think you can make a strong case for this.

For example, Western culture lacks ritual suicide outside of possibly the idea of a captain going down with their ship. Though this is more utilitarian as the assumption is insufficient lifeboats. Other forms of ritual suicide are fairly common across most cultures.

I also have this "off" feeling, but I have at least one specific example:

http://news.nationalpost.com/holy-post/we-love-death-more-th...

"These grisly words are as foreign to Western sensibilities as they are all but sacred dogma for Muslim radicals at war with the West—and with Western sensibilities.

The sentence originated with a 7th-century Muslim commander who threatened his enemies with the prospect of “an army of men that love death as you love life.” As if to prove that, at least in the Middle East, there is nothing new under the sun, Hassan Nasrallah employed the phrase in a 2004 interview to explain why Hizballah, the organization he heads, is destined to prevail over Israel"

"How to understand this macabre sentiment? Martyrdom has played an important role in Islam since its inception, and a number of chapters in the Quran mention the rewards of those who fight and die for God."

That's for armies, though. The West is the culture that produced "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" and "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," both in the context of war.

And there have been many, many religious martyrs in the history of Western civilization, and lots of veneration of those martyrs, mostly in the context of battle. Not just in Christianity - the Eddas say that all who die in battle will be guaranteed a place in Valhalla (or either Valhalla or Folkvangr, depending on the source).

I think the interesting distinction here is that my examples and yours are all related to battle, and the context here isn't about battle. Is some culture unique in its lack of fear of death outside of battle?

> That's for armies, though. ... Is some culture unique in its lack of fear of death outside of battle?

At least staying with my example, there's an explicit "duty" for the "jihad" (which can also be translated as the "battle" http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/struggle and which is exactly so understood by the majority of scholars) to be performed by every believer:

https://www.al-islam.org/a-muslim-in-society-al-balagh/jihad...

"a holy duty made obligatory upon all Muslims by Allah"

"Allah made jihad obligatory, in all its forms"

The Christian tradition knows the concept of ecclesia militans. Whatever the battle metaphor means depends on the believer and their tradition. It's not helpful to single out Islam as particularly militant, indeed Mohammed originally considered himself a reformer instead of the founder of a new religion. Muslim concepts tend to have a Christian counterpart.

> Mohammed originally considered himself a reformer

And Jesus didn't consider himself starting a new faith ("Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.") Irrelevant.

> It's not helpful to single out Islam as particularly militant

Have you actually read the original texts, the Bible and the Quran and Hadith (as these two are the equivalent of the Bible), to compare? I think the huge difference is more than obvious to anybody who does. That is, that whoever actually reads can't deny it. E.g. ten commandments versus 75 commandments only about sharing the loot (including the female slaves):

http://www.clearquran.com/008.html

Or 10 commandments versus 164 jihad verses:

http://www.answering-islam.org/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.h...

Or simply compare: the Christian martyrs are those who were thrown to the lions. The other martyrs are those "who are killed while killing the unbelievers." The idea of heaven with 72 virgins always ready for sex with the died fighters is also quite non-comparable, but explains the motivation for wishing the death.

Edit Or can you quote something testosterone inducing in fighting for Christian God or being in heaven? This is from the real site ("a project of the non-profit Islamic Supreme Council of America organization devoted to providing educating the public regarding Islam, Muslims, Islamic belief and law, and Islamic spirituality (tasawwuf)"): "Arousal and verses about the houris" http://eshaykh.com/halal_haram/arousal-and-verses-about-the-...

/Edit

We are really lucky for all the people who don't take the religious texts seriously.

> The idea of heaven with 72 virgins always ready for sex with the died fighters is also quite non-comparable, but explains the motivation for wishing the death.

It's there in christianity as well, it's just not so explicit - if you die for a christian goal, you'll get into heaven, same as their muslim counterparts, and heaven is an awesome place that you really want to be.

Can we have proper sourcing on this website please? Some decent Islamic theology if you discuss Islam, not random stuff written by people with uncertain reputation? No one would quote such stuff in their degree thesis, it would make their university look funny.

It's pretty difficult to make an intellectually honest comparison between the levels of violence in the Quran and the Bible if the Ten Commandments is the only part of the Old Testament you're willing to acknowledge exists. It's not like the Old Testament doesn't also have long lists of innocuous things for which one can be put to death, clarifications on the level of beating that one is permitted to give ones' slave, and divinely-sanctioned combat and divinely sanctioned mass killing of civilians. As with the Quran, there's a lot of scope for scholars and leaders to determine which passages they believe are most applicable to the present situation.

Can you point me to any actual Fiqh which presents the possibility of choice of "which passages to believe" in Islamic scholarship? I'm really not aware of it, only the opposite, and for that there's enough quotes in any Fiqh:

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

Jihad as the actual physical fight is also a part of every fiqh.

Excluding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya that are around 1% of all believers and actually not accepted by the rest.

I actually said "which passages they believe are applicable to the present situation" which is quite different from "which passages to believe"[1]

Fiqh literally is the principle of interpreting how actions and statements made by Muhammad at various times during his rather turbulent life should be applied as behavioural rules and guidelines for Muslims living under different circumstances today and in the future. For example, Islamic scholars differ hugely on whether the "sword verse" abrogated all prior calls for religious tolerance found in the Quran or was better understood from the context of the surrounding passage as a conditional and quite specific directive targeted at particular pagan groups in the event of them opting to violate a ceasefire during the time of Mohammed (and of course there is plenty of scope for scholars following the latter interpretation to nevertheless claim a particular side of a particular conflict is an analogous situation...). Needless to say, the interpretations found on websites like "Answering Islam" are not necessarily the most authoritative or representative of mainstream Muslim belief.

[1]if this is because you have a more general difficulty or unwillingness to interpret even simple, uncontroversial sentences written in modern English using their most natural meaning, the study of Islamic theology probably isn't for you...

These schools of law (fiqh) cover almost all Muslims in the world:

Sunni: hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, Ẓāhirī Shia: Ja'fari Ibadi

The Shafii approved one is translated in the

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

"We certify that this translation corresponds to the Arabic original and conforms to the practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community (Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’a). — Al-Azhar, the Muslim world’s most prestigious institution of higher Islamic learning (Cairo; February, 1991)"

Some quotes from this fiqh:

"In the time of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) jihad was a communal obligation after his emigration (hijra) to Medina. As for subsequent times, there are two possible states in respect to non-Muslims. The first is when they are in their own countries, in which case jihad (def: o9.8) is a communal obligation, and this is what our author is speaking of when he says, "Jihad is a communal obligation," meaning upon the Muslims each year."

"O9.4: Who is Obligated to Fight in Jihad Those called upon (O: to perform jihad when it is a communal obligation are every able bodied man who has reached puberty and is sane."

"O9.6 It is offensive to conduct a military expedition against hostile non-Muslims without the caliph's permission (A: though if there is no caliph (def: o25), no permission is required)."

Etc.

Now I'm still waiting to hear from you fiqh of which school excludes jihad as a warfare and an obligation, or which of those allows anybody to chose which passages "are applicable to the present situation."

Meanwhile, a billion or so actual Muslims living in their own countries included, apparently don't think the quotes you have cherry-picked from this Fiqh amount to a communal obligation upon them to go to war each year.

But I'm sure you know their religion much better than they do.

As I've pointed out Fiqh literally is the interpretation of which passages are applicable to which situations and so your request makes about as much sense as "show me a legal ruling that Common Law is a law". (If what you actually want is an example of Islamic scholars not considering passages of the Quran relevant to contemporary life, I refer you to the Wikipedia link you just posted...). As for the different schools' perspectives on what can constitute jihad, every school of Islam acknowledges that jihad can take several non-violent forms, including jihad al-nafs ("literally jihad against oneself") and every school acknowledges that military action can be a form of jihad, though since jihad literally translates as "struggle" that's pretty much a tautology, and Islamic scholarship is rather more concerned with debating which circumstances dictate that war is just or unjust. This is Islam 101 stuff.

I suspect you're under the impression that a bit of Google-fu and a few straw man requests makes you look like you're well informed on this subject and have a point. It doesn't. It makes you look like a troll.

Even if this was the place to discuss comparative theology, I wouldn't feel inclined to do it with somebody inclined to start discussions by suggesting that violence is unique to the Quran by implying Biblical exhortations and narratives never got any bloodier than the Ten Commandments.

So you don't have any reasonable answer, just as I've thought.

That the billion of Muslims don't go around killing anybody isn't proof of Islam not being a blood-thirsty-Jews-and-Unbelivers-hating religion. It's just a proof these Muslims don't take their scripts seriously, just like a billion or so Christians also don't. But Islam is more problematic simply because the founder of it was more problematic. He killed unbelievers, ordered them decapitated, he raped the female slaves, he took 20% of all booty .... nothing of it was done by Jesus... Islam is based on considering its founder as the best example of life that exists... Specifically, I claim that Islam is based on not allowing the believers to do any critical thinking about exactly these acts of its founder. The exact example of any influential (for the believers) person who is a counterexample is more than welcome.

All the priests consider the founder as the best example of the righteous life, so if you just give me one influential that doesn't I would believe you.

Note: I don't have anything against Muslims, just like I don't anything against Christians. But I absolute don't like what the founder of Islam did and I don't like anybody who considers this a good example: specifically: killings of unbelievers, decapitations, intolerance, rape and torture. And I don't like anybody who approves these acts on because it's "a religion" or "his religion." And I'd really like to see who does approve this just because it's related to the name of the specific religion. It's absolutely no excuse.

> Note: I don't have anything against Muslims,

You make very many anti-Islam posts for someone who doesn't have anything against them.

Why is it so hard to understand? I am against religion, and that one especially deserves to be analyzed for its negative basics. I don't have problem with the people, most of who never had any choice: they were just born there and leaving that religion can still get you killed.

Free people are supposed to be able to point to the negativity of some ideology, and that religion has huge ideological component which is dangerous: the still practiced laws (in more countries officially or semi-officially) of killing anybody who disagrees shouldn't be ignored.

Why do you only talk about "ten" commandments and not the other six hundred and three: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments

Because it's only thing which is clearly separated as "the actual words of god" in the Bible, compared to the Quran which is "the whole separated book of the actual words of Allah." If we'd count everything from the Bible, we'd have to count everything from the Hadiths ("The life of Muhammad," much bigger than the Quran) including all the killings ordered by Muhammad (once, 900 Jews were beheaded at once after they surrendered) which are described there but not in Quran.

Now the life of Muhammad was actually used by Muslim law makers to produce the Sharia Law, but what did Jews and Christians do with the "every Jot and Tittle," in the words of Steve Wells:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/EJAT/intro.html

"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law. Matthew 5:18

If Jesus really said these words, he wasn’t much of a prophet. Because nearly every jot and tittle of biblical law is ignored by his followers today, as it has been throughout the history of Christianity. Even the Jews stopped obeying most of the commandments after the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.1 And yet despite Jesus's prophecy, the earth is still here."

Sounds like special pleading to me.

Jihad isn't obligatory, that's a perversion of the verse. The only obligations are the 5 pillars of Islam - Belief in the Oneness of God, Salah (Prayer), Hajj (Ritual Pilgrimage), Charity and Fasting during the month of Ramadan.

Also, Jihad doesn't refer to a violent battle. Jihad means struggle, struggle to follow their faith. Violence is only the last step and often only in self-preservation. Even then there are rules of engagement and not a barbaric manner as depicted.

Struggle for self-preservation to follow Islam is no longer applicable IMO. The West doesn't limit their citizens or visitors from following their faith. Freedom of religion is a fundamental right, and as such no Muslim can claim to be fighting for their religion when killing Innocents which is one of the biggest sins.

Jihad was invented by Muhammad who was political and military leader in need of big army to enable his conquest of Arabia. So when Muhammad spoke about Jihad he meant it quite literaly: kill the infidels.

That "spiritual struggle" interpretation was invented later, by some imams, who turned out to be better, more peaceful and compassionate human beings than the prophet himself.

A lot of Christian martyrs were martyred outside of battle. Like, the entire first 300 or so years of Christianity, for starters. Also Christians living under Muslim rule.

I agree that it is too broad. I am painting with too wide a brush with that statement, for that I apologize.

I think like anything, broad strokes overlook individual differences and Western culture (and other culture) is so diverse now that it's difficult (and sometimes controversial) to try to define it.

That being said, there is some research (although admittedly lacking strong empirical footing, although might be able to find it) to back up the assertion that Western cultures are often believed to be more driven by death anxiety than others.

"Although not many studies have empirically made comparisons between cultural groups on variables other than religion, we can extrapolate from these findings that death anxiety will be relatively lower among death affirming societies than among death-denying or death-defying cultures. The United States, and probably most of the societies in the West, is a death-denying/defying society where even the idiom of expression is that of resistance. People vow not to go gently into the good night (Blake, 1988) or conjure images of fighting illness, or fighting the enemy, death (Kalish & Reynolds, 1981). On the other hand, other societies appear to be more accepting of death." Source: https://www.wwu.edu/culture/gire.htm

That whole site is an interesting read on this topic.

My one highly peculiar meditation experience after experimenting with it for a few times was coming out of it with a TOTAL lack of fear of death, which lasted for a few days. What I discovered is that everyone has a "baseline" fear of death, but even THAT was removed in my case (making it possible for me to perceive it).

EDIT: Link to the guided meditation which brought me to this experience, which I put up on Soundcloud a while back: https://soundcloud.com/peter-marreck-fb/sets/meditation

Not having a fear of death would seem to be very strongly selected against in evolutionary terms, so I'd say it's reasonably uncommon.

Not necessarily. Lions probably have a lot less fear of death than their prey. Depends on the context. Don't praying mantises females eat the males after mating?

One wonders if this on a meta-philosophical level is related to the acceptance of death in Eastern cultures as just the beginning of another birth. Or may be it's a clever device to make people become attached to life ? Hmm.

>Western culture, for example, has this innate fear of death. This is not a fear that other cultures share.

go outside and try and kill an ant, you will see it fight and struggle for life. To suggest that other cultures are more different from us than ants seems . . . well it seems foolish. All people fear death.

#notallbuddhists

I miss the enshrined martyrium element. Cultures that have that have a tendency to bring forth innovators who keep going against all odds. Shia-Islam as a example.

Then you better not visit Kyiv's Monastery of the Caves in Ukraine where there are several similar self-mummified Christian monks. It is not just Buddhists who practiced this.

I think he meant Protestantism in particular.

Uh... http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14317b.htm """ Stylites were solitaries who, taking up their abode upon the tops of a pillar (stylos), chose to spend their days amid the restraints thus entailed and in the exercise of other forms of asceticism. This practice may be regarded as the climax of a tendency which became very pronounced in Eastern lands in the latter part of the fourth century. The duration and severity of the fasts then practised almost pass belief, but the evidence is overwhelming, and the general correctness of the accounts preserved to us is no hardly disputed. Besides the mortification of the appetite, submission to restraints of all kinds became at this period an end in itself. Palladius tells us (ch. xlviii) of a hermit in Palestine who dwelt in a cave on the top of a mountain and who for the space of twenty-five years never turned his face to the West. St. Gregory of Nazianzus (P.G., XXXVII, 1456) speaks of a solitary who stood upright for many years together, absorbed in contemplation, without ever lying down. Theodoret assures us that he had seen a hermit who had passed ten years in a tub suspended in midair from poles (Philotheus, ch. xxviii) .... Saint Alypius after standing upright for fifty-three years found his feet no longer able to support him, but instead of descending from his pillar lay down on his side and spent the remaining fourteen years of his life in that position. ""

Just fyi, while I'm sure you didn't intend it, I find comments that start with "Uh..." to be rude.

Regarding asceticism in Christianity, I also find its extremes to be disturbing. All I can say is that Christian culture as I understand it, especially Western Christianity, places relatively little emphasis on asceticism. And all these acts happened a long time ago when people took religion more seriously. And if you compare these to Buddhism (say in China) at the same time I think you'll find them relatively tame.

If time can be divided infinitely you can live any moment forever

Ok, Xeno.

I forget the man's name, but he died a couple of years ago and was an amateur chemist who used himself to test a bunch of different psychedelics that he discovered. In one case, he swore that him and his wife spent an eternity within one second. They were looking at a clock and the second hand was frozen, they both confirmed this happened independently of each other. Take it for what it's worth, but the mind may control time.

Or the mind might simply be able to control the perception of time.

(which leads into the question "What is time?")

You're probably referring to Alexander and Ann Shulgin.

There is nothing exceptional in having the perception of time altered. This happens usually in accidents and such https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_motion_perception

I felt this in a car crash once. It feels really strange.

To have this same experience triggered by a chemical is not hard to believe.

"Take it for what it's worth, but the mind may control time."

Or perhaps, this is merely an illusory effect due to the drugs affect on perception and cognition?

Occam's Razor - which is the more likely?

You may find an interesting read about the subject in a book of Murakami Heruaki, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard-Boiled_Wonderland_and_t...

...said a person who never learned calculus.

I'm doing something similar, but with cigarettes and coffee.

A diet of Twinkies myself.

Amen

Jesus this is freaking morbid, I can understand suicide(side note: Apple won't auto fill/correct suicide this is interesting) but how can you mummify yourself pulling organs and draining blood sounds messy as hell.

but how can you mummify yourself pulling organs and draining blood sounds messy as hell.

I read the article and I didn't see anything about that. It was more about the diet before death that allows the mumification.

Ok so it did end at starvation and poison tea then, slightly relieved, I had the image of egyptian mummification in mind in addition to that.

How can you do this to yourself? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...

They don't do "murder," "genocide," or "rape," but they will do "death," "kill," "assassination," and "assault," it seems. Peculiar.

I can understand why many would fail to see the value of this or classify the practice as morbid, most of the people here are from a capitalist upbringing. Here you are taught materialism is eveything. The idea to disconnect from the material and ultimately release yourself from your ultimate possession (your body) is an interesting spiritual practice undertaken by many ancient philosophies. In fact, in India, there is a law that prevents devoted monks from fasting to death for that very reason.

You fail to show that it has any value.

  > disconnect from the material and ultimately release yourself from your ultimate
  > possession (your body) is an interesting spiritual practice

Humans have done that to each other since the very beginning, usually to others but also to themselves. Why you would see that as something of value would surely be interesting for us to read here, also what the difference is between doing it to yourself compared to doing it to others.

I would like to point out though, as a mere materialist but with Eastern Bloc communist upbringing instead of a capitalist one actually, I won't see a reasoning that is based on some state changes happening inside the person's brain as a useful justification, unless that has a (demonstrable) influence beyond that person.

It's not that I'm greatly concerned about what people do to themselves, just that you say we fail to see the value, which is very different and goes far beyond arguing for letting people do what they want if it only affects themselves.

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