The Body in the Buddha (2017)
economist.com
The Body in the Buddha (2017)
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#2Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#3The idea of mummifying oneself seems quite specific, especially if they ritualized it and had some cocktail of botanicals they ingested to facilitate the process. Is there a name for this 3rd century Chinese Buddhist monastic culture and practice?
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#4The idea of mummifying oneself seems quite specific, especially if they ritualized it and had some cocktail of botanicals they ingested to facilitate the process. Is there a name for this 3rd century Chinese Buddhist monastic culture and practice?
This may be of interest: https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1062719
The "body in buddha" x-ray showed an iron band supporting the head. There is an explanation in the above paper.
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#5The idea of mummifying oneself seems quite specific, especially if they ritualized it and had some cocktail of botanicals they ingested to facilitate the process. Is there a name for this 3rd century Chinese Buddhist monastic culture and practice?
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#6The idea of mummifying oneself seems quite specific, especially if they ritualized it and had some cocktail of botanicals they ingested to facilitate the process. Is there a name for this 3rd century Chinese Buddhist monastic culture and practice?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu
Thanks for linking this.
Sokushinbutsu (即身仏) are a kind of Buddhist mummy. In Japan the term refers to the practice of Buddhist monks observing asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while alive.
Mendicants, these two extremes should not be cultivated by one who has gone forth. What two? Indulgence in sensual pleasures, which is low, crude, ordinary, ignoble, and pointless. And indulgence in self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, and pointless. Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One woke up by understanding the middle way of practice, which gives vision and knowledge, and leads to peace, direct knowledge, awakening, and extinguishment.
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#7This is not the way of original Buddhism
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokushinbutsu
Thanks for linking this. Sokushinbutsu (即身仏) are a kind of Buddhist mummy. In Japan the term refers to the practice of Buddhist monks observing asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while alive. This is so far from what the Buddha taught[1] that is shocking. Mendicants, these two extremes should not be cultivated by one who has gone forth. What two? Indulgence in sensual pleasures, which is low,…
We call many things Buddhism now as a fuzzy shorthand for a plethora of culture and practices that share a heritage and resemble each other. The reason the passage in [1] exists in the canon is because at Buddha's time both extreme indulgence and asceticism were in vogue. As the article makes clear they've continued past his time as well. (Gautama's not yet succeeded in persuading everyone on the wisdom of the middle way.)
I'm reasonably certain you're quite well aware of this. I just wanted to ensure a between the lines meaning was made explicit in the thread. To remind that Buddhism is nested inside a larger contingent, and that this story lies more in that outer part than in.
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#9This is not the way of original Buddhism
Unfortunately it is extremely hard to explain and for people to understand the way of Buddha...so easy to get mislead
Re: The Body in the Buddha (2017)
#10This is not the way of original Buddhism
Buddhism is not a centralized religion with a pope. Your opinion on what “original Buddhism” is can be yours but universalizing it does not fit within the practices of a relatively decentralization religion.