Day 5 of the Nepal Yoga Retreat. It is the 15th of April, Bengali New Year! The last destination on our Itinerary was a visit to the Pashupathinath Temple in Katmandu Nepal. Regarded as the biggest Hindu temple in Nepal. Lord Shiva in the form of Lord Pashupatinath is its primary deity. Its main attraction is a unique Shiva Linga displaying eight faces of Lord Shiva.
One of the remarkable aspects of the Temple is that there is a Cremation ground where one can observe the final rites. Here as I stood from the slightly higher viewing spot looking down at the river…it took me a while to truly register the situation.
It is a strange space to be in. On one level I am surrounded by so many living people, children with families, dogs happily running by, Sadhus dressed in clothes happily obliging tourists with photographs for a token fee. We are all watching the dead. It seems appropriate within the complex of a Shiva temple…the lord of Destruction.
Lord Buddha in the Satipattana Sutta under Mindfulness of the body list, ‘Nine Cemetery Contemplations‘. It is perhaps not the most popular foundation, consider our society is fearful and in denial of death. One of the things that I appreciated as I stood here overlooking the funeral rites is the acceptance and integration of death in life. We could hear a lady wailing and crying mourning the death. Later I found out that people often hire professional mourners to lament the dead. How odd is our current culture where silence, stoic forbearance is praised and to witness a full blown cry and lament is uncomfortable. Perhaps it holds up the mirror to our own repression of grief, terror and fear of death.
When I first looked at the bodies I had a sort of self-concious trepidation. However this soon changed. What struck me was how the corpse was so inanimate…(ha ha you might say…duh! That’s obvious!). Let me explain. Here was a human body being carried to the river’s edge covered in a white cloth laid out on a stretcher. The head and the feet are visible. I really looked at the feet, it seemed rubber-like…so different from any live person’s feet. The face was also visible…yet covered by some ritual pastes. From a distance though it was a human’s face…it was like a rubber doll. So what is it that maybe when this person was alive that animated this body?
Another thing that struck me is here we are dusting ourselves off, trying to not get dirty, taking good care of our bodies, having a sense of control in covering it, presenting it to another in a favourable way. Yet when we die we have no control how our body is treated. Our bodies can be close to dirt in ways we would shrink from while we are alive, it could be handled bathed touched by strangers and finally burnt or buried. Almost seemed comical how we take this body so seriously. Watching a corpse…it is so obvious that we are not the body and form a dysfunctional attachment to it.
I now understand why the Buddha encouraged cemetery ground meditations…though I am not watching the decay…simply seeing the corpse, makes me realise I am not the body! That strangely brings a sense of peacefulness.
You said a lot. It is a good TED Talk
You have truly captured the experience in its entirety; the discomfort some of us felt at being bystanders and witnessing the grief of others and then understanding that this is a ritual that aims to normalize the cycle of life and death, being confronted by the sight of the body and understanding at a deep level what truly makes us who we are , and experience a sense of calm and peace as you said, by realizing that we are so much more than the body .
Beautifully written thoughts and observations.. Thank you.