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Monks Who Spent Years Turning Themselves into Mummies While Alive
- jdironman 10y agoAt 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.
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- biot 10y agoThis 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=10892556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10650278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10650278 Actual article: https://www.damninteresting.com/sokushinbutsu-the-ancient-buddhist-mummies-of-japan/ 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."
- kuschku 10y ago> 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.
- stephengillie 10y agoWhat's freaky about lazy journalism? Edit: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- kuschku 10y agoBecause with gaming journalism, they’re literally copying developers’ PR statements – zero reviewing, zero own opinion, and it’s still presented as review.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoWhy do you assume that this is limited to gaming journalism?
- pluma 10y agoOutside gaming journalism I believe the term is "native advertising". Obligatory Last Week Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc
- kuschku 10y agoI’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.
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- bjelkeman-again 10y agoI have had full stories copied wholesale into computer mags. You hire a good writer to make it not read like a press release.
- pluma 10y ago
- sadgit 10y agoIs there any real spiritual value here? It appears to me to be misguided if the objective is to preserve oneself for later reanimation.
- M_Grey 10y agoThey 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.
- javajosh 10y agoAt 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.
- contingencies 10y agoShingon 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.
- praptak 10y agoThe 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.
- code_sardaukar 10y agoAs 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.
- alphakappa 10y ago>Even though I'm an atheist... Interestingly enough, Buddhism does not entail a belief in God.
- code_sardaukar 10y agoFair enough, atheist is probably technically the wrong term but it's a convenient shorthand for not believing the tenets of any particular religion.
- kamac 10y agoAssuming 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.
- vacri 10y agoIt does entail a belief in divine beings, though.
- kamac 10y agoI 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).
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- cairo_x 10y agoI'm doing something similar, but with cigarettes and coffee.
- madengr 10y agoA diet of Twinkies myself.
- mark_edward 10y agoAmen
- irascible 10y agoBe blessed, fellow traveller!
- dogma1138 10y agoJesus 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.
- e40 10y agobut 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.
- dogma1138 10y agoOk 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.
- smnplk 10y agoHow can you do this to yourself? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c#/media/File:Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c_self-immolation.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%9...
- xxr 10y agoThey don't do "murder," "genocide," or "rape," but they will do "death," "kill," "assassination," and "assault," it seems. Peculiar.
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- elcct 10y agoIf time can be divided infinitely you can live any moment forever
- skj 10y agoOk, Xeno.
- sixQuarks 10y agoI 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.
- white-flame 10y agoOr the mind might simply be able to control the perception of time. (which leads into the question "What is time?")
- kaoD 10y agoYou're probably referring to Alexander and Ann Shulgin.
- fsloth 10y agoThere 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 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.
- jomamaxx 10y ago"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?
- amitbr 10y agoI 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.
- Noseshine 10y agoYou 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.