A Death in the Village — Blog Ten

I have heard whispers of the death of someone in the village, a man known as crazy uncle. Crazy uncle was a hermit and not many people knew him. The amount of people that knew him is very small, and a lot of their accounts are from many years ago and all differ from each other. The only thing that is clear is that he was a cave dweller; because we do not know a lot about crazy uncle it gives the community a tough decision. We are left with the task of putting his body to rest, but wish him to rest in the proper way, based on his level of attainment. The main problem with this is that because no one really knows a lot about crazy uncle no one can say for sure what his level of attainment was, so now we have to try to put our best judgment forward in deciding what to do with his body.

It is my belief that crazy uncle should have a natural funeral, because this way we are not just dumping his body in the mountains. The scattering of ashes is an environmentally friendly way of disposing of someone’s body, and I think that for crazy uncle it should be thought about because he has no family that needs the closure of a grave plot to visit. This natural way of disposing of a body, or more pleasantly described as laying a person to rest could solve our problem of not being aware of the merit that crazy uncle had because Buddhist rites do not need to be performed. That being said, the Buddhist rights could still be performed if we chose to do so before the scattering of the ashes. I think that the Buddhist rites should be performed before the scattering of the ashes because crazy uncle may have had high merit so it is important that he has a proper funeral.

If we scatter the ashes the bones will still be intact, as the amount of heat used when cremating the body is low enough that the bones do not burn. Therefore the picking up the bones can still happen, they will just need to be crushed before released in nature. The picking up the bones ritual is when the family picks the bones out of the ashes once the body is cremated and brings them home so that the dead may visit home once more. The bones would then be put in an urn on top of an alter with their picture below it. The urn would then stay there for forty-nine days because that is the transition time for that person to have re-birthed. The one major problem with this again, is that crazy uncle was a hermit and has not family, so would that mean that we would just not perform the picking up the bones ritual, or would they be kept in the temple, or would the ritual be performed by community members instead of family and put in the cave that crazy uncle lived in? I have no answer to this question; I will need to find the answers from the community when we decide what is to be done in the near future. Someone in the community will have to do the crushing of his bones; hitting them until the bones are crushed into small pieces can do this. When scattering ones ashes we are supposed to pick a place that they visited often, or meant a great deal to that person, the problem with that for us again is our lack of knowledge for crazy uncle’s life. Because he was a cave dweller, we could spread his ashes in the mountain, or we could put them in a neutral place such as an ocean. A natural funeral will also give crazy uncle a chance to continue the circle of life by having his ashes and eventually bones become one with the environment (either the land or ocean) where we lay him to rest.

A problem with the natural funeral is that crazy uncle may have had a family, and therefore there may be a family-plot that he should be part of, as they were very popular in the past. The obvious problem with this is that we have no idea who his family was; this is just a small example of how no one in the community knew of crazy uncle’s personal life, or what his wishes were. The nice and important part of being buried in a family-plot on the temple grounds is that there are people continually praying in the atmosphere that the dead have laid to rest. This is important because it means that there are always people continually praying for dead. If we give crazy uncle a natural funeral he will essentially miss out on the ‘extra’ prayer from the temple and what is now seen as the ‘norm’ for funerals in very recent history. The other problem that comes with a natural funeral is that it is a very controversial way to lay someone to rest, and many people in the community are against it. If many people do not agree with a natural funeral it will be difficult for the community to make a decision on whether or not to do it because many people will not be willing to accept this for someone who did not choose it. The people who live in my village are not the only problem with the natural funeral but the wishes of crazy uncle. It is not right to cremate one’s body and spread the ashes in a private forest or in the middle of the ocean if it is not the wish of the dead. The problem that keeps leading me to re-think my idea of a natural funeral has returned, we as a community have no idea of what crazy uncle would have wanted. Now I am at a loss so I will have to continue thinking of the pros and cons of a natural funeral.

Although he would not have the prayers from the temple the natural funeral would bring crazy uncle back with nature. Crazy uncle and nature could go through re-birth together if he became a part of nature, and would help with birth in death. It is also important to note the crazy uncle would not be contributing to the unnecessary land use a graveyard uses, while leaving the remains in a box, and not one with nature. Crazy uncle would be one with the environment and supplementing the environment with many nutrients to help new birth instead of taking up unnecessary space while not giving back to the environment.

Another burden in trying to convince the village that crazy uncle should have a natural funeral is that many people believe that the scattering of one’s ashes resembles discarding a body in the mountain, as done hundreds of years ago. Instead of the idea that crazy uncle would be one with nature and contributing to life in death, some people have the illusion that we would be ‘throwing away’ the ashes disrespectfully. The only way to get around this particular burden is to try and educate the people on the good this can do, and how it is not ‘throwing away’ a person’s body but putting them as one with nature. The one thing that is helpful is that many people with the view that this is just an easy way to discard a body (which it is not) hold the belief that this does not give people such as family and friends a chance to visit with their family who is diseased at a gravesite. Unfortunately crazy uncle had no family or friends that would visit his gravesite, this is obvious, as no one in the village knows anything of him, except that he is a hermit. The people who are against it for this reason may be more lenient with their decision on how to put crazy uncle to rest, especially if this is their main or only concern with a natural funeral.

Tomorrow when the community comes together to decide what to do with the body of crazy uncle it is my hope that we come to the conclusion that is best for crazy uncle. I will voice my true opinion that I believe that crazy uncle should have a natural funeral, because I think that it works well with his situation of being a cave dweller hermit. In saying that I will also keep an open mind and see what the other community members think is best, because ultimately we need to decide to do what is best for crazy uncle.

Additional source: Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism, By J2rn Borup link: https://books.google.ca/books?id=CyV4PaqMzd4C&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq=picking+up+the+bones+buddhism&source=bl&ots=Nneen-gr7D&sig=ccI3peqm9jpqaloECNEkXZFB7J4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rNYIVZiJEoydyATz6oLIDw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=picking%20up%20the%20bones%20buddhism&f=false