I didn't take any pictures out of respect for the whole experience. I would sure look like a super douche-bag-tourist if I did that, so sorry if their are no pictures. I'll just steal some examples from off the internet.
It seems that in Japan, Buddhism takes care of matters of death mostly and Shinto takes care of life related rituals. Grandma is a particular sect of Buddhism and is really serious about praying for her ancestors. She cleans the tombstone every month. She knows the chants too. She was generous enough to have me come along for the cleaning and I heard my name among her chanting so that was nice to hear. You see, Japanese pray to their ancestors that their ancestors will look after their family still living.
Japanese cremate their dead. So each family has their own tombstone which contains the cremated remains of their passed on family members. I agree more with cremating dead remains than burying them, but really, when I'm dead an gone am I going to care whether my body is left out for wolves to eat or cremated? No. But then, that's just me.
The graveyard was a really nice place. It was actually part of the environs of a huge Pagoda which houses some of the cremated remains of Siddartha Gautama!
At first I was taken by surprise... You mean the remains of the Buddha exist? People actually know where the remains of the Buddha are?? I couldn't believe it. Why didn't I know about this? Why isn't this bigger news? The Buddha was a great guy, he had some really good ideas, he has a very good explanation of reality too which has seemed to stand up to scientific scrutiny. And not only that, monks that follow him can do some pretty freaky shit! I thought it would be bigger news. I thought it would at least been in Wikipedia. But then, I'm one of the few people who were brought up and conditioned to believe that the Buddha is some divine manifestation. So knowing where he is buried is kind of a big deal. But even though I don't really believe that now, it is still a big deal to me that such a renowned and venerated personage actually has a resting place. It is pretty significant.
Now before you get your panties in a knot with all these questions like WTF is Siddartha's remains doing in Japan? What's the story here? I was like that too walking around the Pagoda while everything is in Japanese... One of the former premier Jawaharlal Nehru of India divided the remains of the Buddha and sent them to different areas in Asia as a symbol of peace. Apparently, there are many more of these Pagoda's around Japan.
Here is an article from the New York Times from 1909 regarding a discovery of part of the Buddhas remains.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=FA0E13F63E5D12738DDDA00A94D0405B898CF1D3
When the Buddha was first cremated they were divided up in to eight parts to be sent to different areas. It was in that spirit that Nehru sent out these remains again after some were rediscovered. Anyway, I thought it was interesting. This is what it looked like.
I stole it from this guy's site. :P. Here is his site. http://davidbruce.tripod.com/himeji2.html
After we cleaned the grave we offered some money, lit up a candle, lit up some incense, and moved on to check out the big Pagoda. At the tombstone you can offer stuff to the dead. We offered a big can of Asahi. (It's an easier offering than food, and a lot less elaborate than burning fake paper stuff in the hopes that it will reach the dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_paper)
Anywhere I travel I hope I get to understand what it is like to live in the country or do what people there do. During this trip I got a little taste of what it is like to live in Japan. I'm really grateful I was able to do this.
This was in the morning. The Afternoon and evening was comprised of going to Kobe for some browsing, Kareoke, and Yakiniku (beef BBQ). Next blog will most likely be about food.
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