Sokushinbutsu

- Sokushinbutsu is the ritual practice 
of Buddhist monks observing asceticism 
to the point of death and entering 
mummification while alive.  



Over a thousand years ago, the monks 
Liuquan and Kukai prepared for life 
after death by eating only nuts, seeds, 
and berries and drinking a poisonous tea 
to make the body repulsive to maggots. 

Then they folded themselves into the pose
of deep meditation. The bellows of the lungs
slowed, the flesh gradually lost moisture 
and elasticity, and they were sealed
in a stone tomb for a thousand days.

If the body shriveled but kept intact,
that meant divinity had come to mold 
the mortal form into a specimen of itself; 
and it could sleep inside the statue of 
the Buddha, there to be venerated as 

a kind of ghost inside eternity's fragile 
shell. If this is so, then what ghosts 
reside in all the statuary we've created 
from the beginning of time? When moon-
light passes through them will we see
 
their scroll of bones, their tree-like 
veins? The general on his horse, the child 
drinking from a fountain; the girl 
in a simple dress, tilting her head 
and holding a bird feeder in each hand.