Don’t Let My Body Die in This Cold Ground
There is a river in the mountains I miss -
Oh, my lips blew kisses to you
on
the valley wind
sweeping up between the hills
to a
home in your breast.
In this nest I curl, as in mink fur
the
soft ground
where the sheep rest
before their ascent:
This is the place I hear your song.
If I could, I
would be the sarira
the
holy man not burned in cremation.
My bones are old
they need your touch
to soothe the angry wind.
This land where the bell was rung
where war was ravaged,
is my temple once again.
Now it is autumn
there is not the singing
of
one bird.
Lingua Sarira -- Michele Thomas
Śarīra originally meant "body" in Sankrit, but has come to mean Buddhist relics, especially the pearly or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are found among the cremated ashes of spiritual masters and are believed to emanate or incite blessings within the mindstream and experience those connected to them. (Under certain conditions of heating, human bones can form crystalline structures.) Many claim that pearls of śarīra rain at the funerals of eminent monks. These objects embody the spiritual knowledge, teachings, realizations, or living essence of the deceased master and are taken as evidence of their enlightenment and spiritual purity. Some believe that their beauty depends on how well the masters had cultivated their mind and souls; others that śarīras are deliberately left by the master's consciousness for veneration. (For example, Kumārajīva, a monk and scholar during the Sixteen Kingdoms period [304 to 439], wanted to demonstrate that his Sanskrit translations into Chinese were not false, so his tongue remained intact after cremation.) In the Himalayan Buddhist tradition, they are believed to ward off evil. They come in many colors, and some are translucent, and are typically displayed in a glass bowl inside small gold urns or stupas or enshrined within the master's statue. Saffron threads are sometimes placed inside or around the bowl. They are believed to mysteriously multiply if they have been stored under favorable conditions, and they may appear or disappear based on their keeper's thoughts. However, some Buddhists believe that śarīra are not limited to humans or to masters only; some associate students' spiritual life with the amount and condition of the śarīra they leave after cremation. Full body śarīras are the holy mummified remains, whereas broken-body śarīras are cremated remains. In addition, dharma body (dharmakāya) śarīras are sutras as told by the Buddha, since that which is unchanging in what was told by the Buddha is of the same property as the essence of the Buddha himself.
ReplyDeleteThe Liṅga Śarīra is the vehicle of consciousness with which one passes from life to life and is propelled by past-life tendencies; linga is "characteristic mark" or "impermanence" and sarīra is "form" or "mold." In Theosophy, it is the human body's invisible double which models the shape, appearance, and condition of the physical body.