Burying Shifu's Ashes

Simon Child

When I heard that Shifu's death was imminent, I wondered whether I would be able to get to the funeral, but given the nature of my work it is very difficult to take time off at short notice. In the event I was not able to attend the cremation service seven days after death, but was able to travel to Taiwan for the last of the major services which took place fourteen days after death, the Burial of the Ashes. My travel took me about 25 hours to get there and another 25 hours back, with three flights in each direction, and in between I spent less than 48 hours at Dharma Drum Mountain, so it was literally a flying visit but I was glad to have been able to attend.

DDM knew that his passing would be a major social event and had planned well for it. Indeed I understand that last autumn they had trial runs at some of the planned ceremonies and arrangements, and showed videos of these to Shifu for his approval.

This planning paid off and it seemed that all the arrangements were appropriate and effective, and very necessary given the numbers of mourners involved - an estimated 30,000 attended DDM for the ceremony of the burial of the ashes, an estimate likely to be accurate given that 10,000 people had pre-registered to attend and many others turned up without prior registration. Correspondingly DDM had prepared 20,000 boxed lunches for the mourners who started arriving at DDM at about 8am for the 1pm ceremony, and who were seated closely packed on plastic stools in one of the many halls in the DDM complex, each provided with a service book and a plastic mac in expectation of rain, and each hall having a video screen displaying the ceremony in progress.

A streaming video broadcast had been setup on DDM website shortly after his death and continued for 14 days. This forewarned me of the scale of the occasion because I had seen one of the earlier ceremonies on this video-link, that of the coffin leaving the Grand Buddha Hall to go to the crematorium, and had seen how literally thousands lined the roadways of DDM, all prostrating at the side of the roadway as the hearse passed by, disregarding the pouring Taiwan winter rain except for the wearing of their plastic macs. Even so it was rather different being there in person, part of it all, as events unfolded.

In a sense, despite the scale of it, the whole affair was designed to continue Shifu's teaching, emphasising frugality, harmony, ecology, non-attachment, in accordance with requests in his Will ¹:

I arrived on the Saturday evening before the Sunday Ashes ceremony, and soon after arrival went to visit the Grand Buddha Hall. Over the preceding 13 days I had seen on the video-link the activities in the Grand Buddha Hall where Shifu's body initially 'lay in state' for two days for 10,000 people to file past and pay their respects, then the coffin lay there for five days, then after the cremation the casket of ashes was placed on Shifu's chair and nearby were other objects such as his incense stick (kyosaku). At most times in the hall a 20 year-old recording was playing of Shifu himself leading Amitabha recitation, and sometimes those present recited as well and sometimes they sat silently. Sometimes the Amitabha recitation stopped and a video was shown of a past talk by Shifu and all present bowed to the image of Shifu on the screen.

On the Sunday the DDM complex became progressively more and more crowded, yet in a very well-organised and harmonious manner. Buses were timed to arrive approximately one per minute and their parties were guided by flag-carrying volunteers to their allocated seats in one of the halls. A dozen TV outside broadcast vans assembled near the Grand Buddha Hall. Security teams, some carrying briefcases and 'guitar cases' checked the place thoroughly prior to the arrival of the President and Vice President of Taiwan, and continued to escort the President throughout the day. Boxed lunches were supplied to those sitting patiently for hours on their plastic stools.

John was unable to travel to Taiwan because of back problems, so I was the senior of the three Western Dharma Heirs present, representing John and the WCF, as well as myself. Also present were Zarko Andricevic from Croatia and Gilbert Gutierrez from USA. We were to be given a key part in the ceremony, participating in the actual burial of the ashes. Shifu had been quite precise in his instructions in his Will, that there was to be no retention of 'relics' following his cremation - part of his teaching has always been to counter some tendencies to superstition in 'folk' Buddhism, such as offering of incense (this is not allowed at DDM) and collecting of relics. Hence all the ashes from the cremation had been ground into fine powder so there were no substantial relics, and the ashes divided into five portions in biodegradeable paper bags with biodegradeable ties. These were to be buried in five holes, the idea being that very soon the ashes would return to the earth and be indistinguishable from the mud of the burial area - this bird would leave no trace ².

The 'Eco-friendly' Memorial Garden is government property and religious ceremonies are not allowed and so there was to be no chanting or other religious trappings. We were given our instructions as to how this simple ceremony would be performed. Each of the five packets of ashes would be buried by a group of three persons: the first person would receive a packet, pour the ashes into the hole in the ground, and then place the bag and the tie in the hole; the second would place a flower into the hole; and the third would place some soil on top. The first three packets would be buried by monastics, the fourth by we three lay Dharma Heirs of Shifu, and the fifth by the President and Vice-President of Taiwan together with a senior member of the DDM trustees.

Although we were to precede the President and Vice-President at the burial ceremony, protocol quite reasonably placed them higher than us in the seating in the Grand Buddha Hall for the preceding thanksgiving ceremony, but only just higher and we were seated right next to them. So I found myself in the third seat, next to the Vice-President who had been a follower of Shifu and who introduced himself to me, and we had a bit of a chat before the ceremony began. Further down the row, below we three, were other dignitaries such as the Minister for Religion.

The Thanksgiving ceremony itself was quite simple. It was presided over by an old masterfrom another organisation, an old friend of Shifu, together with two other older masters. There was a chanting of the Heart Sutra, then each of the masters presented a four-line verse composed for the occasion. The third master sung his verse and then sung a eulogy. Then the President of Taiwan presented a posthumous citation to Shifu, and gave a short Thanksgiving speech. We had been given an English translation of his prepared speech, but apparently he did not keep to his text and gave a longer more personal speech than scripted. Then a short video of Shifu was played.

The burial party filed out of the Grand Buddha Hall, with those monastics delegated to participate leading the way carrying the ashes, and then the President and VP, and then we three, then followed the rest of the DDM Sangha. Our route was again lined with mourners two to three deep on both sides of the road, all prostrating as the ashes passed them, and as they rose from the prostration I could see that probably 80% of them were weeping.

After a little way we left the road and went to a hillside path and from here the public had been excluded since the path was only just wide enough for us to walk two abreast. The walk to the burial area probably took us about 20-30 minutes in total, and then we found ourselves in a circle around a small area of grass and small trees, and there were five markers in the grass indicating five pre-prepared small holes. After standing for a minute's silence, one by one each group of three filed up and performed their burial, closely watched by TV cameras, then the whole group circumambulated the area and then filed back down the hillside. As we did so some monastics were already completing the filling of the holes and re-turfing them.

Once we had cleared the hillside the lay public began filing up to pay their respects, and on their return back down they were personally greeted and had hands shaken by the Abbot President Guo-dong Fashi. Some hours later, at 5:30pm with dusk falling, and now with quite persistent rain, I noticed there was still a substantial queue of mourners standing patiently in line awaiting their turn to climb the path up the hill.

After the burial, the burial party had one more small ceremony. We went to the "Founder's Memorial Hall", a sort of 'museum' or display area for artefacts of Shifu's life, including a reconstruction of his solitary retreat house. In there is a 'Bodhi Tree' a frame on which to hang wishes written on little cards in the shape of a Bodhi leaf. We hung up our leaves that we had written earlier, and then we dispersed. The lay mourners also all wrote on Bodhi Leaves, and these were collected from them as the came off the hillside, to be hung on the Bodhi tree later.

There was another short ceremony at 9 pm that evening. A wooden tablet carrying Shifu's name had been resting in the Grand Buddha Hall together with his ashes. There was a short chanting service in the "Founder's Memorial Hall" and then this tablet was now installed in a cabinet which already contained a larger wooden tablet carrying the lineage details. It is common for Buddhist temples to have whole walls devoted to shelves carrying memorial tablets, and I assumed that this was where Shifu's memorial would rest in perpetuity. But no, Shifu had already thought of this and in line with wanting to leave no relics or attachments had left instructions for his tablet to be burned 49 days after his death "or else in no time at all this place will be full of too many wooden tablets!" Indeed this bird does not want to leave any traces.

The following afternoon, shortly before leaving for the airport to return home, I took another walk up the hillside to the burial area. This time the area was almost completely deserted, in stark contrast to the tens of thousands there fewer than 24 hours previously. But not quite deserted. As I walked steadily up the path a woman overtook me, apologising for doing so but signalling in broken English that she had to rush because her bus was leaving soon. As I reached the top she was bowing and standing looking over the burial area, now with hardly a disturbance to the turf to be seen. She apologised again for being in my way, and signalled that she would do three circumambulations. I followed her about half a circuit behind, and that gave her time to do three prostrations at the end without feeling that she was in my way. As I arrived at the end point she pointed at the grass and signalled that her teacher Sheng Yen Fashi was there. I said, "My teacher too", and her face lit up and she grasped my hand and shook it, then rushed down the hill to catch her bus.

¹ See especially paragraph one, in the Will reproduced in earlier pages of this journal and also online at: http://www.ddm.org.tw/event/master_shengyen/en/will.html

 ² A reference to the last line of the verse 'Lancet of Sitting Chan', by Chan Master Hung-chih (J: Hongzhi)