WEBVTT - The Self-Mummifying Monk 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.920 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:14.360 Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:16.320 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I am 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.079 Christian Stager. If you've been listening to our podcast, you 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.759 may have tuned into our episode on Egyptian mummification and 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.759 the long history and evolution of mummification there from a 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:33.720 purely environmental mummification into this ultra refined mortuary art. Yeah. 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.680 We went over the history of thousands of years of 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:41.200 how mummification evolved, and during that episode we we said 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.680 to you the audience, Hey, you know, there are lots 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:46.919 of other forms of mummification out there. We're not going 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.000 to be able to do them justice in this one episode, 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.560 So do you want to hear more? And the answer 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.720 seemed to be yes. Yeah, enough people said yes that 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:55.600 we went ahead and did what we were going to 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.040 do anyway. Yeah, well, this one's too fascinating to pass 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.720 up to. Yeah, because in this we're getting into um. 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.920 I mean, there's still elements of environmental mummification and funerary mummification, 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.240 but there's this added element of self mummification. So and 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.880 of course when I started researching this, it immediately made 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:21.000 me think of seppuku, which is another form of suicide 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.280 in this same region in Japan. Uh And this is 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.039 essentially suicide, in fact, so much so that it was 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:31.160 banned by the Japanese government in the nineteenth century. Yeah, 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.520 I think we can't help withdraw a line between these 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.880 two forms of ultimately highly ritual life self destruction. Yeah. 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:39.960 In fact, I would go so far as to say 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:45.160 that this has some elements in common with uh DR Kevorking, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.520 for instance. I mean, it's on a much longer term scale. 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:51.640 You're not This takes like ten years, I think right 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.200 to self mummify. Yeah, It's definitely a deliberate act in 0:01:55.240 --> 0:02:00.280 which the individual is accepting death and really speeding along 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.840 to a certain degree, in taking a certain amount of 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.720 command over the process. Yeah. Absolutely. So, Okay, enough enough 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:09.079 teasing on our part here. What are we talking about here? 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:14.040 This is the suku shin Botsu of Japan. Yeah. This 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.480 practice lasted from about seven hundred and seventy four Common 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.680 Era until the twentieth century, and aside from nineteen mummified 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.600 members of the twelfth century Fujiwara clan, it constitutes the 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:31.040 only mummification right in Japanese culture. One of our resources 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.239 for this episode is an excellent piece by Kim Jeremiah 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.799 titled Buried a Lie, The Forgotten practice of self Mummification, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.560 and he does a great job outlining this practice that 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.840 was carried out by certain Shinn Buddhists who sought to 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:50.040 serve Miroku Bosatsu, the Bodhisattva of the future who will 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:55.079 arrive on Earth some five billion, six hundred and seventy 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.959 million years from now. So this is essentially a Buddha 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.639 that will arrive on Earth tremendous amount of time in 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:05.920 the future. And and so from what I was reading, UH, 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:08.880 he is said to currently reside in what is called 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.040 Tussida Heaven, which is this place is depicted as flooded 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:17.440 with rotating light, and this rotating light apparently reveals a 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.240 forty nine story palace uh. And it is a you know, 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.239 as most heavens are a paradise with no sorrow or sin. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:27.720 The thing that's really interesting here about this particular group 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.600 is uh the Sokushan Budsu practicing. It was in Yamagata, 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.560 and there were members of a specific sect that brought 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:40.360 together parts of esoteric Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and some kind 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.960 of local spiritual practices. So this is I guess like 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:50.480 like the version of mysticism, right, like Buddhist mysticism sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:52.960 well we'll discuss you see this um. You know, like 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:57.440 with any religion, religions don't travel on James. Any culture 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.040 they enter, they end up with absorbing pieces of pre 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:05.920 existing religions. They emerge with a with cultural values. And 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:10.960 so as Buddhism UH emerges from India, travels through China 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.800 UH into Japan, it ends up picking up all these 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.560 different elements sort of like how when we talked about 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:18.600 the serpent and the rainbow in one episode, like the 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:22.200 Vuodha and culture incorporates aspects of local culture and Haiti 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:28.160 as well as Catholicism into the mysticism and myth of zombies. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:29.320 And I think it's one of the things that makes 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:34.040 any discussion of a religious worldview fascinating, that ever changing 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.159 nature of it. So these guys in particular thought that 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.920 they could achieve special powers, obviously one of which was 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.960 to live for five billion years and meet this Buddha 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.880 in the future, but other things where they practiced meditating 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.800 in caves or under these really cold waterfalls, and then 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.520 some of them even stabbed out their own eyes and 0:04:56.600 --> 0:05:00.960 performed other forms of mutilation on themselves, uh, in order 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.920 to gain these powers that were part of their beliefs. Yeah, 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.160 there's a there's a huge trend here with a just 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.800 a complete I mean, they were they were aesthetics. They 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.880 were rejecting the physical world, um, showing them in almost 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.440 a contempt for the physical world in their devotion to 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:21.240 to the spiritual realm. And and you know, there are 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.480 definitely some kind of cool quasi sci fi elements here too, 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.840 because essentially they're they're wanting to put their body into 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:32.039 a spiritual suspended animation so that they can reach this 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:35.200 far distant time and place. Yeah. Absolutely, I think you 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.839 should explain that process because it's it's pretty wild. It 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.120 reminds me of that Darren Aronofsky movie The Fountain. Have 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.599 you seen that? Yeah, it reminds me of that this 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.680 idea that like you're not even reincarnated, but like there, uh, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:54.200 you will exist in this other state for this long 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:58.400 long period of time so that you can ultimately achieve transcendence. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.000 and I would not be surprised of if he was 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:06.200 inspired by these Eastern models. Yeah. So, in order to 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.839 reach that five point six billion year point in the 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.560 future and meet the Bodhistotta of the future and and 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.520 serve him um, you have to self mummify as a 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.880 living Buddha, which Jeremiah explains as a as a means 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:23.560 again to reach this towout sue heaven, which is the 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:27.359 current residence of the Bodhisatta of the future. So you 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:28.880 have a What you do is you engage in a 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.279 slow and meditative approach to the death point, and it's 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.679 only then that the monk can self guide their soul 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:39.520 through the void to a realm of his choosing. And 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.200 this reminds me of of elements of Tibetan Buddhism as well, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.400 where there's this huge emphasis on what happens immediately following death, 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.880 and you've got to be prepared for that journey between 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.800 this incarnation and the next. And as we learned, there 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:59.360 is a connection between Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism and this practice. 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.400 Their culture really connected in a way, and we'll get 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.479 to that later, but we wanted to start with these 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.520 guys the and I say guys. They were all men 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.280 the soku shin butsu practice. Now another source, we're looking 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.640 at his mummification in the ancient and new world. This 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.080 is a wonderful resource for anything related to mummies. Will 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.040 include a link up. This is our goat here every 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:22.560 time we do something about yeah yeah, from Anna Maria 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:27.880 Rosso and she classifies shing gone self immuni mummification as 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.600 a case of entering a kind of undead suspension in 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:36.120 which the monk's body is preserved for resurrection upon Mikoru 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:40.160 Bosatsu's arrival. So they're kind of two different takes. They 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.680 are probably amounting to the same thing. Either you're sticking 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.920 around and tell he comes, or you're preserving your body 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.120 is kind of an anchor for your wandering spirit to 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.800 go and serve him. Now. Yeah, And so the first 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.480 I guess founder of this that practiced this was Kobu Daishi, 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.240 and he was alive from seven seventy four war to 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.560 eight thirty five. And the idea here is that he 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:09.720 remained in this particular state within the Gogyo mausoleum, and 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.720 monks to this day right still bring food to him 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.640 as he awaits the arrival of their you know this 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:20.560 this Buddha in heaven essentially. Yeah, there's some wonderful images 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.960 of monks bring into the highly ritualized affair. It's not 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:27.200 just someone pushing ateria tray under a crypt door or anything. 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.560 It's a it's a it's very ritualized. And they bring 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.760 this fine chest up with with food for him. One 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.200 of the things I read was that supposedly his nails 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.320 and hair continued to grow for years after his death. Uh, 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.600 And monks would go in there when they would feed him, 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.760 they would also give him a trim and redress his body. Uh. 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.080 And then you know, they'd go back another thirty years 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:52.320 later or whatever, and they'll just be dust. And the 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.400 dust was the rags of the robes essentially, and they 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.079 clear it out and do the whole process all over again. 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.839 But the myth is that his hair and nails kept 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.320 growing and so they had to cut it. Huh. So 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.640 in all of this, um, obviously we need to we 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:11.319 need to state that we're dealing with the religious interpretations 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.680 and often in supernatural layers, all on top of a 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.520 body's decomposition or lack of decomposition. So as we go 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.600 through all of this, you keep an open mind about it, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.520 but also you know, don't feel I mean, feel free 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.040 to pick at a little bit with your mind. Yeah, 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.760 and I think, like the Egyptian mummies, there is of 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.040 course the cultural and religious aspect that comes into play 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.800 that you know, promotes this activity. But then there's a 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:44.440 science behind it to actually achieve mummification in such a 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.640 way that the body doesn't decay. Right, Yeah, because okay, 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:49.280 so so what's the goal here? The goal is to 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.880 gradually reduce one's physical body to a withered state, just 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.400 like how much of a mummy can I become while 0:09:56.480 --> 0:10:00.120 still alive, while just meditating and trying to re to 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.280 that death point and then to remain dry and for 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.400 the most part incorruptible. So in order to achieve this 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.439 state would be Soko shum bits who first practices a 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.920 starvation diet. Okay, and this consists of just nuts and 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.520 berries and tree bark and roots and uh this phase 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.800 apparently last would last between three and ten years, however 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.719 long it took to whittle that body down to the 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:32.360 skin and bone state atlasientially starving themselves. Yeah. In fact, 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:35.400 that diet, did you know, like it was designed specifically 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.959 to strip them of body fat. That's what specifically ate 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.360 those things. And in fact, some of the herbs and 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.240 nuts that were involved in that diet were designed to 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.480 I mean, they didn't have the science of this, but 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.880 they inhibited bacterial growth. So that was part of the 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.800 process here of helping you mummify yourself. Yeah, and I 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:54.840 guess that could conceivably cut down on decomposition too, because 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:56.720 so much of the decomposition, as we've discussed in the 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.720 previous momification episode, is coming from within. So keep that 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:03.400 in mind as well. You're dealing with early people that 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.920 are looking at a corpses decomposition, they're often thinking of 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:11.560 it as an externalized decomposition, the elements making the body decompose, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.200 when really it's most of the decomposition is occurring within, 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.559 as the body begins to fall apart of the bacteria 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:20.400 feeds on everything. Yeah. And as part of that too, 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:22.800 they weren't even allowed to eat specific things as part 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.400 of their diet too, so like cereal, wheat, rice, foxtail, millet, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.920 proso millet, and soybeans were all things they had to 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.400 stay away from because of you know, it would promote 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.720 bacterial growth. Now, Atlas Obscura also has a has a 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.920 page about self mumification, and they mentioned that the poisonous 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.079 sap from the rushi tree uh was also used to 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.160 the monks consumed this to purge their bodily fluids and 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:52.760 and supposedly repel scavenging parasites. Yeah, and this is brutal, 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.040 Like the several accounts that I read of this, I mean, 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:58.960 purge bodily fluids is accurate, but I mean it was 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.480 violent vomiting uh. And but they did it, you know, 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.320 for this reason. It was part of the sacrifice of 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.040 being able to make this journey through time. And in fact, 0:12:11.040 --> 0:12:14.600 here's another interesting tidbit that I read. They did X 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:17.559 rays of some of these monks uh and they found 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.880 that there were river stones in their guts. So apparently 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:23.679 they ate those two. I don't know what the promotion 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.480 would be like what you know, how that would affect 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.080 the mommification process. But they were filling their stomachs with stones. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:34.800 And it goes without saying, if anyone out there is 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:37.959 looking to lose weight, um, please don't try this diet. 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.640 Please don't try the self modification diet. Although I could 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.400 see that being the next big thing. Yes, Okay, so 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.640 you're finally reduced to the state of walking or maybe 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:49.800 just sitting here. I wonder if they could even walk. 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:51.920 I would imagine the other monks maybe had to help 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.439 them get from place to pull, because they have to 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.600 be pretty frail at this point. UM. So at this 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:00.760 point they be You're buried alive with a little help 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.080 from your friends, obviously, um for three years, with only 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:08.320 bamboo breathing tubes to sustain you down there in the darkness, 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:12.800 and here you meditate, you recite sutras, and you periodically 0:13:12.880 --> 0:13:15.720 ring a bell um to let everyone know that you're 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.760 still down there, still meditating, until eventually you're gonna die 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.439 from dehydration. Yeah. So the idea here is that they're 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.320 when they're buried alive, they're buried alive in the lotus position. 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:27.760 So I think that the box or whatever they're in 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.680 is designed to fit their bodies in the lotus position. 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.679 And then when you stop ringing that bell, I think 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:35.960 that you ring the bell once a day basically to 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.600 say like, hey, I'm still moving down here. And when 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:42.200 it stops, that's when they take the tube out. Uh. 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:45.160 And they sealed the tomb uh, and there's a thing 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.920 here too, that the number three is very important to 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.760 this ritual. They did things in threes, uh, and it 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.640 was particular to the Buddhist priesthood. The reason why is 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.760 that apparently there's three jewels in Buddhism, the Buddha, the Sanga, 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.679 and the Dharma. And then there's the three great secrets 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.400 of secret of the body, which are moodras, which we 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:08.600 know over here as you know yoga practice basically. And 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.400 then there's a secret of speech mantras, and the secret 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.000 of the mind which is meditation. So that's why they 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:17.719 wait for three years before they pull them back up. 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:19.920 And so when they do pull them up, the first 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.480 thing you check is that could be corruption level of 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:26.120 the body. If it's uncorrupted, then the then hey, success 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.840 self mummification has taken place. You dress uh the monkey 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.240 in robes and put them on display for veneration. If 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.600 the body's rotted, however, you're going to perform an exorcism 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.400 and bury the corpse. Yeah. That two extremes. One is 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:44.240 you're venerated forever. The other is this is a hideous, 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:47.840 disgusting thing. We have to exercise it like you don't 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.520 exercise just a regular dead body. Right, but this this 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.000 process went wrong, and it's you know, within that practice, 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:56.920 I can sort of understand how they would they would 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.360 see it as being the opposite of holy. Yeah, is 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:05.280 well discuss later. You see this this interesting um dichotomy here, 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.120 where on one hand, there's still very much this idea 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.040 that a corpse is a thing that is not it's 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.520 not pleasant, it's not to really be dealt with, you Bury, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:15.680 I can get rid of it, except if it's the 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:19.080 body of a very special individual. Is that if the 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:24.000 body itself is in this strange, undeath uncorrupted state, and 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:28.200 then it is an object of veneration. Yeah, And I 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.080 want to add here they had a couple of little 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.680 cheats that they were here too. After they pulled the 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.120 bodies out. It's true that, you know, if the body 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.520 itself hadn't decayed, that that was when they venerated them. 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.760 But after they pulled it out, if it hadn't decayed, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:44.120 they would preserve it by adding incense to the body, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.520 and then they would um dry it out over a 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:50.880 charcoal fire. Yeah. And this is this kind of gets 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.120 back to the original idea from our Egyptian Amumies episode, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.400 where you have mummification begin as environmental process, and when 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:02.440 the environmental process fails due to different environmental circumstances such 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.880 as more elaborate tombs so that are being used, then 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:11.200 you have to begin employing mummification techniques, uh to to 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.360 fake what you're not achieving naturally. And so we see 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:15.560 a bit of that here. It's like, Okay, if it 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.400 has corrupted or it looks like it's corrupting a little bit, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.640 what are some cheats we can apply to get it 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.040 back into that that desired zone. Yeah, in the same 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.480 way that the Egyptians started off by burying their bodies 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.520 in the dry sands, and that would help to prevent 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:35.080 them from decaying. They're in Japan just using charcoal, fire 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:38.320 and smoke basically to achieve the same thing. Less than 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.320 thirty Japanese monks are known to have completed this grueling 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:44.200 journey to the death point. And of course we have 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.760 no idea if they found the Boodhystot buddhistop of the future, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.040 or if they're going to at some point the distant future. Yeah, 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.800 I mean that's still to come. Yeah, five billion years, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.360 that's the way is off. But the Japanese government, like 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.480 I said at the top. They did not like this, 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.600 and as of the nineteenth century it is illegal to 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.719 do that, though some of these monks did continue this 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.240 practice and into the twentieth century. I think, like the 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:12.400 early nineteen hundreds, they were a monks doing this um 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.560 the majority of which happened at a temple on Mount 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.359 you don't know called da Nichi bu uh and they're 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.800 basically there's an idea that there's a local spring there 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.600 that high has high levels of arsenic in it, so 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.000 they think that has something to do as well with 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.480 the mummification process, that somehow arsenic is contributing to those 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.400 uh in The area around there is where they conducted 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:41.159 their exercises UH. And in Japanese the area is called 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.280 sennen Zawa and that translates into the mountain stream of 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.440 otherworldly men or swamp of wizards or swamp of immortals, 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.040 which I like. I liked both of those quite a bit. 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:56.600 The swamps swamp of wizards. Yeah, uh, you can still 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:02.199 visit sixteen of these uh soku shinbutsus of the twenty 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.240 eight that remain, there were thirty that no were known 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:06.760 to have completed it. But I think that some of 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:08.960 them are off limits, you know, for obvious reasons. They're 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.240 probably pretty fragile, but in various locations around Japan you 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.359 can visit these. Uh. The hundreds of people are thought 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.160 to have attempted this, so that, you know, getting back 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:21.960 to that those exorcisms there, that means there were hundreds 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:26.080 of these exorcisms of these bodies that did decay. Yeah. 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:29.639 And also it's such a grueling endeavor to undertake. I 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.320 can't I can't imagine everyone who started out on this path, 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.919 had the had the afforded to do actually make it 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.480 to that death point in the original prescribed way. Yeah, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.240 I agree, And I want to add two stories about 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.800 two of these monks that I think put it into 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.040 a little bit of perspective here. And this isn't to 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.400 say that all of the hundreds of monks that attempted 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.600 this had these kinds of background. But the most famous 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.640 of which, uh, that you can I think still visit 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:03.119 is Daijuku Bosatsu Shinyo Kai Shonen uh. And he mummified 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.600 himself at the age of nineties six in seventeen three, 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.359 and he's at that mount uh you don't know temple. 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.280 He was a farmer. And the story goes that he 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.400 was a farmer. He was walking along the road one 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:18.119 day and a samurai bumped into him, and the samurai 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.960 took offense to this and started to fight, essentially drew 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.560 sword and started to fight, and this farmer only had 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.800 a walking stick and somehow defeats the samurai and kills 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:34.040 him in battle. Uh. But killing a samurai was illegal then, uh, 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.639 And the punishment was death. So he didn't want to 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.560 die for defending himself on the road, so he fled 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:43.119 to this temple and took up the religious you know 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.359 practice in the name Shinyo Kai. So that's what led 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:52.240 to his eventual you know, immersion into this culture and 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.720 then leading on to the self mummification practice. But I 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.439 gotta say, like, if I got to ninety six, you know, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.240 I'd give it a shot. Why not? I mean, you 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:04.200 can you can only be in control of so many 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.240 different things at that point. Why not be in control 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.960 of your your journey to the death point. Yeah. And 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:13.960 there's another monk known as Tetsu Monkei who's another part 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.040 of this order, and he supposedly killed two samurai with 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.360 a fire hook. Wait, what's a fire I don't know. 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.520 It's I was just imagining it was a hook that's 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:25.480 on fire, but I bet it's like a hook that 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.680 you used to move charcoals around something like that. It's 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.960 that because we also see this this traditional element of 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.359 the common man does not have access to weapons and 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:40.199 then must create a martial art around common farming or 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.600 you know, crafting tools. Well, this story was like a 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.919 little too large for some people to believe, so they 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:47.680 looked into it some more and they think what actually 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:52.480 happened as he killed a prostitute, okay, and then like 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.600 like the other guy fled to the monastery. Same thing. 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:57.920 But this guy, Remember I was talking about how they 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:00.359 would cut their own eyes out as part of aractice. 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.440 He's one of them. He cut out his own eye 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.359 and threw it into a river because he wanted to 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.399 pray for a cure for a local eye disease. It 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:12.520 was infecting the local villages. So that gives you kind 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.679 of an idea of the you know, these practices. We 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.560 don't have a lot of information on this, but it's 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.920 it's pretty extreme. Yeah, and I believe you were looking 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:23.920 into this and you found that there there is a 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:28.119 group that is that is advocating for more more access 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:32.320 to the existing mummified monks. Yeah. My understanding is that 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.600 it's called the Japanese Mummy Research Group and that apparently 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.240 they're responsible for studying, you know, the mummified monks, and 0:21:39.240 --> 0:21:42.119 they petitioned the government for permission to exhume the graves 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.280 of the ones that they find. But I believe that 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.800 this was started around the same time that the practice 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:52.280 was ending, probably the beginning of the twentieth century. So 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.520 now we're going to venture away from Japan and into China, 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.639 and particularly we're going to look at Chan Buddhism. This 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.399 is a cool of my Yana Buddhism that developed in 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:06.680 China from the sixth century uh CE onward. So here 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.879 we see a definite merging of Buddhist and dallast ideas. 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:15.879 And interesting here is the notion that Buddhism and dallas 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.640 to sorcery seem to combine into a notion of Buddha 0:22:19.920 --> 0:22:23.960 is a sort of foreign immortal who achieved some form 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:28.280 of death. Yeah, there's a fantastic piece that we used 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.919 for this, uh well as one of our sources for 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:33.200 this episode. That's up on Ion I and from a 0:22:33.280 --> 0:22:35.159 couple of years ago, I think, and it's you know what, 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:37.320 I didn't realize it until I've finished the piece and 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:39.040 I rolled back up and I realized it's written by 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:42.479 one of my favorite writers over there, woman named Lauren Davis. 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.440 She's good. Yeah, it's some of my favorite stuff on 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.600 their site is by her. But this is specifically about 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.720 in the Science and Civilization in China, a book, which 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.240 is the fifth volume of that series. Uh. And they 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.680