Feed the birds
We take kindly of our body remains. The body is the temple of God and is sacred. However certain cultures differ sharply from this belief.
Some weird practices are:
l. Self immolation (Sutee). It is a traditional Hindu practice and which has long been outlawed. However we see from the intl news about Nepalese or Buddhist burning themselves to death. Isnt it more of suicide.
2. Buddhist Self Mummification. Another form of suicide. Those who have anorexia or fashion models who are extremely thin are, I think believer in this. Over 2.000 days preparation are needed for this (nearly 6 years) and the one who will self mummify will eat nothing but nuts and seeds. for l,000 days. For the next 1,000 days, they will eat bark and root of a pine tree, and special tea from sap of urushi tree. It is extremely poisonous. There will be massive diarrhea, removing moisture from the body. The poison preserves the guts and protects them from maggots. The subject sits in a corner in lotus position. He will stay that way when he dies.
Kinda of degrading and painful?
Smaller remains are pounded to feed smaller birds
3. Tibetan sky ritual. This one is very bizarre. A corpse (maybe not embalmed) is set a top a mountain where it sliced up and left for the vultures and other scavenger birds to feed on. The practice is called jihator. Tibetans consider the body just a vessel for the spirit. The remains are then further smasshed up and fed to smaller birds. (Whew, I could just imagine the malefarous smell from this weird practice)
We do not do any of these stuff in the PHL or at Holy Gardens Memorial Park. The remains of our loved ones are special and deserve that as they are brought to final resting place.
Arent we lucky and blessed that our beliefs forbid these?
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