Self-Mummified Buddhist Monks
Scattered throughout Northern Japan are two dozen mummified Japanese monks known as Sokushinbutsu. Followers of Shugendô, an ancient form of Buddhism, the monks died in the ultimate act of self-denial.
The actual practice was first pioneered by a priest named Kuukai over 1000 years ago at the temple complex of Mount Koya, in Wakayama prefecture. Kuukai was founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, which is the sect that came up with the idea of enlightenment through physical punishment. There were three steps in the process of self-mummification that Kuukai proposed, and the full process took upwards of ten years to lead to a successful mummification.
The first step is a change of diet. The priest was only allowed to eat nuts and seeds that could be found in the forests surrounding his temple; this diet had to be stuck to for a 1000 day period, a little under three years. During this time, the priest was to continue to subject himself to all sorts of physical hardship in his daily training. The results were that the body fat of the priest was reduced to nearly nothing, thus removing a section of the body that easily decomposes after death.
In the second stage, the diet became more restrictive. The priest was now only allowed to eat a small amount of bark and roots from pine trees. This had to be endured for another 1000 day period, by the end of which the priest looked like a living skeleton. This also decreased the overall moisture contained in the body; and the less fluid left in the body, the easier to preserve it.
Towards the end of this 1000 day period, the priest also had to start to drink a special tea made from the sap of the urushi tree. This sap is used to make lacquer for bowls and furniture; but it is also very poisonous for most people. Drinking this tea induced vomiting, sweating, and urination, further reducing the fluid content of the priest’s body. But even more importantly, the build up of the poison in the priest’s body would kill any maggots or insects that tried to eat the priest’s remains after death, thus protecting it from yet another source of decay.
The last step of the process was to be entombed alive in a stone room just big enough for a man to sit lotus style in for a final 1000 day period. As long as the priest could ring a bell each day a tube remained in place to supply air; but when the bell finally stopped, the tube was removed and the tomb was sealed. When the tomb was finally opened, the results would be known. Some few would be fully mummified, and immediately be raised to the rank of Buddha; but most just rotted and, while respected for their incredible endurance, were not considered to be Buddhas. These were simply sealed back into their tombs.
The Japanese government outlawed Sokushunbutsu in the late 19th century, though the practice apparently continued into the 20th.
24 comments
More evidence that buddism is not a peaceful religion. Self harm is not peaceful. It is by its nature damaging, and thus; violent.
It is a peaceful “religion;” in fact, this goes directly against the Buddha’s teachings of the middle path. Interesting article regardless.
Wow!!
Buddhism is, by the way, the only religion that does not have some sort of fundamentalism, unlike Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or Islam.
Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I was under impression that Buddhism was/is not a religion at all. It is a spiritual philosophy. It has no god (Buddha made it clear never to raise him to that level), and doesn’t have all of the usual entrapments of religions. Clearly it may have led to similar shocking behavior like this, though. This saddens me deeply, as since I believe quite strongly that these people were wrong (but doesn’t everyone about a religious belief they don’t share?), I’m sickened by how they suffered and wasted their lives in these final acts.
Peter is a sad example of a christian trying to patronize everyone else. While this in an outsider’s humble opinion is a very cruel thing to do to oneself, it’s something that they believe in, it’s an indication of faith. Your everyday christian going to church every Sunday in hope for a better afterlife is just pathetic compared to this.
You think this is violent and yet you shrug on the everyday suicide bombings that kill several innocent civilians, well that’s how people are nowadays I guess.
You are quick to degrade budhism when in fact all religion in the past is no different from what these people have done. Christians have done far worse to women (who were thought to be witches) than what these budhists have done. All religion has some dark history and just because you don’t understand doesn’t mean you can judge. I am pretty sure that is somewhere in the bible
hey janne, even though i disagree with peter’s comment, i also disagree with you assuming that he shrugs off suicide bombings and is a christian.
those are pretty hefty accusations to get out of ’self-harm is violent, therefore buddhism is violent; not peaceful.’
Buddha himself tried the starvation, asceticism thing for a few years, before he realised it wasn’t getting him closer to Enlightenment, managed to eat again and found the Middle Way. Why these monks thought this was a way to Enlightenment, I have no idea, but I think you’ll find that 99.9% of todays Buddhists would think this is a mistaken way to try to reach Enlightenment. At least they only harmed themselves, but Buddhism is about Compassion and Wisdom, not mummifying yourself!
“Kuukai was founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, which is the sect that came up with the idea of enlightenment through physical punishment.” I don’t think this second part is very true. Where did you get the idea that Kukai was the first to come up with enlightenment through physical punishment?
This, however extreme, is not surprising as another example of ritualistic masochism. There are many examples of people going through bizarre, and painful rituals for spiritual enlightenment. In Christianity, Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi put herself through tremendous amounts of pain to become more spiritually enlightened. The idea of enlightenment through physical punishment has been used by world religions for thousands of years. The idea of self-punishment has to do with sensory overload, and the natural opiates which form in the body. When the nervous system is overloaded to an extreme amount, extreme pain, opiates start building in the body, and the mental experience shrinks and weakens resulting in an otherworldly, euphoric disconnection with the body. In the case of the monks they are using the extreme starvation and painful poisoning to literally disconnect from their bodies to reach a higher state of spirituality, or Nirvana, and become a Buddha.
Hope it was worth it to them
TurboFool: Buddhism is definitly a religion. It is common in “west” to think of buddhism as a “philosophy” but that is a misunderstanding. When we think of buddhism, we think of meditation and the deep questions of zen, but that is not all there is to buddhism, especially among ordinary people. (There is still a lot of very interesting buddhist philosophy, though.) They do believe in gods, gods just aren’t as important as they are in the other big religions. They also believe in spirits and ghosts, the law of karma, reinkarnation, hell and heavenly paradises, eternal life, etc. They also pray and perform all kinds of ceremonies.
Alex: This “Buddhism” that you speak of is more of a combination of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, not pure Buddhism. Buddhism celebrates no god or gods, or deity of any kind, and therefore can not be called a religion because it is not “a system of faith and worship owing any allegiance to a supernatural being.”
Im the poster from above. Janne, I am not a christian. I did love how you jumped to that conclusion straight away. And how TokyoGuy didnt even seem to question it.
Yes I am an outsider to this religion, but I dont see how that invalidates my point.
Im actually an atheist. (Shock horror!)
Dennis, there is fundamentalist Buddhists.
Look up Zen Buddhism, Soto sect. (The O;s have little lines over them). These guys were one of the main driving forces behind Japan entering WW2.
And it is a religion.
Shame on all of you. what right have you to judge what a person may or may not do? If that is what they believe then they will do it. To outlaw it is like saying that places of worship are off limits.
As for whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy, who cares? Know the origins of Buddhism first. It sprung from Hinduism, so SomeGuy, it is inevitable that they would share similarities. It is foolish to drop into this debate. There are fundamentalists in almost every religion. Who are you to say that Buddhism does not? Fools.
There isnt anything wrong with philosophy. But religion is another matter. Where I would seperate them is that one is logical, the other is not. (Take a guess as to which is which) There is a danger in any faith, just look at the pictures above.
Oh, and…
http://www.salon.com/news/1998/07/13news.html
Check it out, for anyone who thinks its is an absolute truth that Buddhists have no fundamentalists.
Everyone has their own beliefs about their religions and what they can gain from it.
Everyone stop being judgemental against how people want to gain something from their religion, and support it, eh? Fuck.
Peter, your last post intrigued me, regarding the article on the Dalai Lama.
That was, by far, the most saddening thing I’ve read.
He always struck me as such a jovial, peace-loving, down-to-earth, spiritual figurehead.
Now this has opened my eyes to the more “realpolitik” side of Tenzin Gyatso.
I was enthralled when he became involved with some political oriented ethical philosophies.
And that’s all well and good.
But now I see that the Dalai Lama is just attempting desecularization, just backwards (a religious leader immersing themselves in politics, not the other way around).
Thank you for this.
As to the article above, I cannot help but find this interesting, albeit more than a little disturbing.
Those who know of Gautama Buddha’s struggles as a Jain ascetic (or something like it), can obviously draw the connection.
However, I’m not so sure about slap-dashedly lumping these rituals in with Shingon Buddhism, however esoteric it may be.
Anyone have any more information on this?
The common thread among many people here is the supposed tolerance of someone’s illogical belief system. Buddhism, whether traditionally a religion or not is still a system of beliefs and teachings that are based on faith. Faith is the utter lack of empirical evidence, and therefore illogical. Just as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Jainism, etc are all aiming for something that is based squarely on faith, Buddhism is no different.
As an atheist and someone whose willing to stand up towards religion and illogical belief structures, no belief is above criticism. As long as you have faith in something that is untestable, and cannot be discarded through the scientific method, then what you have is many people agreeing and disagreeing over stupid fantasies. Yes, these are illogical and stupid fantasies. If I were to believe in attic gnomes that stole socks from the laundry facilities, and only made themselves present through constant self flagellation, then most of the commenters here would consider me crazy. Yet, people still go on, believing in some indoctrinated fantasy, such as god, angels, demons, spiritual monks, oneness with nature, energies that cannot be scientifically measured, souls, spirits, witches, black magic, esp, remote viewing, etc.
It’s one thing to have an open mind, and another to have it filled with fantasies that one believes are true, but have very little to do with the universe we live in. Without our fascinating brains, and evolutionary quirks of creativity and imagination, all of these concepts would be as useless and imaginary as the Star Wars Universe. It’s all a fantasy people, wake up and actually participate in the real world. It’s much harder, and takes a great deal of education and enlightenment, but in the long run, you’re all better off casting your fantasies and embracing the actual physical universe around us. Not much comfort for those fearing death, or needing some kind of figure or spirituality to link to, but ultimately, as appealing as it is, you’re just lying to yourselves and closing your mind to the real universe. It’s apathetic, unrelenting, at times unfair, but it is what it is.
Thank you for speaking my mind. I hope you don’t mind is I copy your comment to my drive, because when I read it, I can’t help but smile.
You’re welcome. I regularly post similar topics on my blog at http://www.agnostictruth.blogspot.com
Sometimes, when faced with so much illogic, it’s as though we must have some kind of masochistic streak to constantly fight an uphill battle against such nonsense. But ultimately, people will come to accept it. It wasn’t too long ago that some courageous individuals stood up against slavery, and although it took centuries, it eventually came to an end. Let us hope that it doesn’t take as long to embrace reason and empirical thinking.
you guys crack me up. you dont even realise your arguing over something that doesnt exist:)
some of you are probly gettin pretty wound up too
with all you wise old boddhisatvas you would think someone would have a few reasurring words on life, but no lets all debate the ethics and choices of every lost soul on earth….. because enlightenment means nothing if you cant argue over it
-sabbe sutta sukhi hontu
by the way. buddhism isnt about faith in anything, its the absence of faith all togather. realy, its the ultimate acceptance of what simply IS…. but its whatever. to each his own
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