My letter back to village about Crazy Uncle’s death
When I arrived at Chang’an (Xian), I got excited for all the unfamiliar materiality that the new sacred place had to offer me. I was planning to change my outwear to all the traditional customs in order to feel the sense of originality and materiality of pilgrimage could bring to me. However, I received a letter instead. It was from the village, all the way back where I began this pilgrimage. Chang’an is only my first stop of pilgrimage and I already felt something was not right.
The letter informed me that a hermit who lived in a cave near our village had just passed away. The hermit was known as “Crazy Uncle”. It was odd that no one knew about him. In the letter, some assume that he was a Tantric practitioner. Even the old people in the villager only know that he was around long time ago but do not know much about him. My sincere condolences to the Crazy Uncle, I laid out some possible facts about him. He was a Tantric practitioner who meditated in a cave for decades. He might have been taking vow of silence because no one knows anything about him. Some events or someone could have turned him so determined that he never appeared around the village for long time. He is full of suspicion and question and now he is dead.
After laying out all the possible facts about him, something clicked in me. I don’t know if it is only me that feel this way but I was sincerely happy for Crazy Uncle and even jealous of him. In reality, meditating alone in a cave for years sounds harsh. However, in Buddhism, meditating is a joy of pursuing Buddhahood. Even if he had negative action of Karma from his early stage of life, meditating for long time is an act of positive karma. He could have been storing the positive Karma until his death. We all know that one day we all die. I am sure that Crazy Uncle knew that he was dying and practiced the death ritual/meditation prior to his death. If my guess is right, he must have known about his death in advance to prepare. Not many fortunate people have chance to prepare for their death by performing death practice. I never met Crazy Uncle but I have strong feeling that he has done great amount of positive karmic actions including meditation in order to pursue his path to Buddhahood. I was also reminded of Milarepa. Similar to Crazy Uncle, Milarepa had meditated in a cave for decades. Milarepa only survived from eating just nettles until his body turned green. So far, I don’t know much about Crazy Uncle so I decided to write back a letter to people in the village to discuss what we can do now. The villagers and I should also speculate about the level of Crazy Uncle’s attainment before doing any funerary rituals and dissolution of the body.
Death is a gradual process. From one life’s death to the next life, the transition is called, Bardo. At the moment Crazy Uncle died, he then began his process in Bardo, the intermediate state. This Bardo concept is crucial to understand the most of funerary rituals in Buddhism. The well-known Tibetan Book of the Dead contains the series of rites and liturgical works for rituals on dead during its process of dissolution of 5 constituent elements. These rituals are to eliminate the fear that Crazy Uncle would have during his intermediate process Bardo. However, it is essential to know about Crazy Uncle in order to perform the ritual for him. Most of the rites and funerary rituals require some feedback/knowledge about the dead person. There are couple more reasons to speculate his level of attainment during his life. First, the relic is the physical remains of a holy person left after their death. The relic has a high value on the personal relationship between teachers and disciples and it is used to resolve a persistent problem in Buddhist traditions. However, some relics are made by negative figures like demons. Without knowing who Crazy Uncle is at the moment, his relic could deceive people or some could arise through being submerged from the four constituent elements, earth, water, fire and wind. It could be safer not leaving any relics from unknown figure. Second, according to canonical literature, it is rare in Tibetan tradition to preserve the bodies of Buddhist teacher and it does not produce relics. It is more so when the villagers do not know exactly who he was. It is not only harmful to the deceased but also it makes difficult to process the Bardo, in which the rebirth occurs gradually into the next saintly incarnation.
In the letter for the villagers, I suggested that even though the preservation of the body is one of several ways to treat the dead, the cremation is the most appropriate way to treat the dead in this case of Crazy Uncle. The cremation is more popular practice across a spectrum of social classes and also traditionally, Buddhist masters and members of the remaining of social groups are generally cremated. According to traditions, after the cremation, it should be buried in the ground or left exposed to the elements. I also suggest that it should be left exposed to the elements after the cremation. It is to give enough time for dissolution of the five elements of Crazy Uncle. It is to show respect for unknown who practice meditation alone in the cave for decades and who was considered as a possible Tantric practitioner. In the process of dissolution, even though it is already cremated, the order of dissolution is the same. At first, the earth elements begin to dissolve into water element. The water element dissolves into wind and so on. The elements usually dissolve into next element that is less solid. It is the same concept that can be explained with modern science — more dense substance dissolve into less dense substance. It is called, the theory of biogeochemical cycle. This modern concept theory could be demonstrated as an extended understanding of Samsara with scientific and empirical evidence. The Buddhist philosophy embraces the modern concept in most part however both philosophies are suggesting that the elements of compounded phenomena are always in cycle through the formation and dissolution. The last step of dissolution of Crazy Uncle would be the element of consciousness leaving the life of Crazy Uncle.
To not focus on what are reported and known about Crazy Uncle, but to focus on what should be done to treat the corpse, the villagers should carefully hold the cremation and the practice rituals for the dissolution of his constituent five elements with respect. In the past, the medicine farm in the village was haunted once. Also, our neighboring village was once affected by the naga illness. Both cases happened mostly because we upset the local spirit and deities. We could only recovered from the situations by praying for the deities and chanting mantras. Same for this case, the villagers must approach to treat the Crazy Uncle with all the respectful Tibetan Embalming practices whether he was an awakened mater or evil deity.
As I send the letter back to the village, I thought of Crazy Uncle. I wondered what if he was like a Milarepa who attained the enlightenment even after the great amount of his sinful deeds in his early stage. Crazy Uncle meditated in a cave alone for so long that people in the village barely knew him. All of sudden, I wished that I knew him before my departure of pilgrimage. As a same villager who lived in a cave, I could have many questions to ask him if I knew his existence. For now, I hope that villagers receive my letter on time that they could have proper funerary rituals for Crazy Uncle.
