Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
200 year old monk in meditation position found
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
And some people think 20 minutes is a long time to sit 
8
Comments
This is why I put a timer app on my phone, you just never know.
@Hamsaka, I cracked up when i read that
Although not in a lotus position, there are numerous mummies of monks in Thai Theravadan temples. I never knew quite what to think of it.
It reminds me of a meditation retreat I once did.
Am I the only one who wondered upon seeing the picture why monks didn't wear any clothes back then? Those mountain temples had to be drafty enough. Maybe the monk didn't do this on purpose. Maybe someone stole the poor man's robe the night before and he froze to death.
Did you read the stories about how some are saying he's not dead, that he's still meditating?
Also, in this story (I will link below) he was wearing clothes. He had monks clothes on, they must have removed them for photo purposes. Poor guy, mummified while meditating and now he's naked for all to see.
http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/n0105-mummified-monk-is-not-dead-and-in-rare-meditative-state-says-expert/
http://www.360nobs.com/2015/02/worlds-weirdest-relic-photos-of-a-200yrs-old-mummified-monk-found-preserved-in-meditating-pose/
Such a strange story. I wish there was more to it, though I doubt we'll hear much. The stories I read said he was covered in cattle skin. Why would someone still alive (in any sense) be covered in cattle skin? Sounds like he was preserved to me. The stories also say he is about to become a real life Buddha "about to" as in...what? He's been sitting for 200 years already...I wonder what tie frame they have in mind, lol. According to one story, he was actually in another location, and they found him in some house because someone stole the guy and was going to sell him on the black market.
So someone reads this story (one of those I posted above) and probably thinks Buddhists have some very strange beliefs,
One day while I was in Thailand, one of my Thai friends decided to take me on a little journey through some of the Bangkok canals. As we would come along to a temple, we would get off the boat and walk through the temple. We got to one that he knew quite a bit about. We went into the wiharn where people were crowded around a "meditating monk". People were just sitting there watching. My friend insisted on sitting there and watching for well over 10 minutes. Finally, we went outside and I said, "My god, unbelievable how still he was sitting during meditation, and not distracted at all by the spectators." My friend looked at me and said, "That was a wax statue."
At first I felt kinda dumb, but then thought so why were people just sitting and staring at a wax statue for such loooong periods of time?
Wax statues kind of creep me out. It's one of those situations where I can't stop staring because it's crazy how realistic they are. Did your friend ever explain why he felt the need to look at it so long?
Not exactly, other than that the monk (actually I think an abbot) represented was apparently a very famous monk throughout Thailand who had died fairly recently.
To be honest, I was never impressed by monks who have their own following. Buddha should be the focus, not some rock star monk. (I know many will not agree with that).
I do....
The Buryat/Mongol Khambo Lama died in a similar state in the 1920's, and was said to be perfectly preserved when he was first disenterred in the 70's, then again in the first years of the new millennium. He was put on display in Buryatia's main monastery outside the capital, Ulan Ude, as a sacred relic. However, some monks later confessed to having given the body special salt or herb treatments to preserve the body, so it could serve as inspiration to Buddhist practitioners.
We can't know for sure if the body in question in the OP did or didn't also receive some sort of special treatment. It was originally found in a cave? Someone could have been attending to the body after death in that cave. Or perhaps the dry Mongolian air preserved the body naturally.
The article had said the body was covered in cattle skin, I assumed that to be some sort of preservation method but maybe they meant it was just covered, in a way you'd put a tarp over something?
@vinlyn
To be honest, I was never impressed by monks who have their own following. Buddha should be the focus, not some rock star monk. (I know many will not agree with that).
It is an interesting subject for me for since I currently follow a meditation practice where others look to a teacher for the same purpose.
but...
What changes might occur if the current portion of media attention that was given over to the latest scandal by the latest rock star actually focused instead on a humble monk?
Should a devotional practice where one discovers the Buddha through the actions of a master, be limited to a specific number of people?
Is not the intent of a monk more important than the quantity of people following him?
If we are all on a graduated path, is an attachment to another being ahead of us on that path, not just another step on that path?
Is there a the difference between the following of a Buddhist Monk and the following of the Buddha, except it's size?
Even my fear for a monk falling under the spell of fame and gain, is tempered by how it could just as well be shown as folly by how a true renunciate behaves in it's presence..
.
I was in Singapore recently and they have the buddha tooth relic temple (http://www.btrts.org.sg/history-of-btrtm - click on the link, the recitation/music is quite soothing, doesn't bite into you if you get what I mean...) I did not have enough time to go and see it, but wonder would it really do anything for me other than be a buddha tooth relic, when I can look around me and see buddhadharma everywhere.
Sorry in serious contemplative mode at the moment...
The buddha's tooth, and mummified monks found in meditation postures, and lost and homeless and displaced and murdered people and people who chatter and natter on buddhist forums about dhyana, chan, Zen etc are all to be equally revered in my mind.
And compassion for everyone lost in samsara is generated by this view - even those IS extremists - isn't it interesting that their initials spell IS or IS IS or IS ILL... Just a very poignant point to consider when you are doing varieties of compassionate meditations...
Anyway back to the real world I have created for myself!
Yeah, that's not clear at all. I would think a cattle skin would be acidic, and would gradually degrade the corpse's skin. So maybe it was just a temporary covering.
I think the point is that these examples provide inspiration to the people, and strengthen their faith. You could argue the same in Christianity: why beatify popes and other high church officials, and declare some of them saints, when followers should focus on Jesus? Why make a big deal of individuals who claim to have seen the virgin Mary? Because reports of miracles help keep the faith going. This is how much of organized religion works and perpetuates itself.
Dakini, I think you and I are talking about completely different levels.
This is what happened in Dunedin South Island NZ back in 2011 "Death Meditation"
There is a psychological 'process' (??) they have named the Uncanny Valley that describes aversion to wax statues or just-a-bit-too-human figures like some robots, or like zombies and corpses.
Dang, I can't get the link to take
just google 'uncanny valley'
I remember visiting Madam Tussauds as a child and some of the wax models were quite scary ...
It's a hypothesis (according to Wikipedia, the first 'hit' you get if you google this term) that explains a lot about the nature of human aversion and 'why' evolution provided certain kinds of aversion in natural selection.
Getting the creeps from wax statues is the silly part of it (and the enjoyable part considering how popular zombies are). Apparently, those humans who felt aversion to their obviously sickened (think leprosy) fellows avoided contagion and provided 'resolve' to avoid death and stay healthy and alive. It's just a hypothesis but explains a lot of entertaining things we do
Oh gosh, and mummies, they are uber creepy, and meditating mummies especially so to Buddhists!
But when one thinks about it @Hamsaka, what a fitting way to depart these shores
Imagine your fossilized remains being chipped out of limestone by a far future alien archaeologist
And all the crap they'll make up about you 
There's a wax museum in Victoria, British Columbia that has a wax model of one of their staff, posed around a corner in a hallway. Visitors tend to mistake it for a real person, and ask it questions, or make comments, try to make conversation, before realizing it's wax.
Shoshin, is that photo from the museum website?
I found it in images...so it might be...
It's the same at Madam T's, I remember a uniformed attendant (wax model) which fooled many visitors including myself...
They make up crap about me now as it is so
Amazing stuff!
Hey, Leon! Are you back?