To many people, celestial burial in Tibetan highlands is a mysterious cultural
phenomenon. Mr. Sun Mingyuan, a documentary filmaker whose credits include
A Story of Gesaer, has worked in Tibetan region for many years. Here, he gives us his heartfelt observation
and unique understanding of Tibetan Celestial Burial......
CALLING
FOR THE MAGICAL CONDORS
The
most recent filming of a celestial burial ceremony took place in DaLa Monastery
(Rta-nya dgon in Tibetan), situated in the Hengduan Mountain valley near the
upper reaches of the Lancang River. The Monastery attracted my attention for
several reasons. First of all,
it’s ancient. Its origin can be traced to Sa-khyun-dkar bsud-nams-rdson, a
name used during the era of Bon Religion (about 100 BC). Currently, it is the only Yel-pa bgah-brgyud dgun-pa monastery
in Tibetan region. Also, in two
caves of the mountain facing the monatery, 5,300 meters above the sea level,
there is a group of thousand year old memorial tombs(gdun-rten in Tibetan). These are the ancient final resting place
for King Ling Gesaer’s soul (glin-rje ge-sr rgyl-po) and those of his thirty
generals. Visitors are easily
impressed by the prestine condition and the number of gold Buddha statues,
ancient scriptures.I was lucky to be the first media professional to visit
the Monastery. By chance, a young
Tibetan named Hlo-ldhn was travelling with me. He had just graduated from a TV university and was on his way
back to his hometown to be an elementary school teacher. We travelled 106 kilometers together by
automobile from Nangqian County (nan-chaen-rdson in Tibetan) of Yushu Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture to Skyid-na Village. From there, we travelled for two more days on horseback to
arrive at Dala Monastery.
I was given
the privilege to view all the treasures at the monastery. In the middle of filming, Ar-bian, the
young Living Buddha, told us to stop temporarily. He told us to go film the celestial burial of a deceased old
lady. Seeing my hesitation, he
encouraged: “Go ahead. The lady was very friendly with our monastery!” Indeed, in order to have a complete and
detailed view of DaLa Monastery, celestial burial is part of the big picture.
Living Buddha
Ar-bian told me that the old lady had expressed her wish on how to despose
of her body. She had asked the
lamas there to redeem her soul by chanting Buddhist sutras and then let hungry
condors, a type of vultures which feed on dead animals and humans, to take
her useless body so some small and weak animals can be spared. I immediatly developed profound respect
for the old lady’s spiritual wisdom.
She reminded me of a well known story in Buddhist teaching “Buddha
sacrificed his body for a tiger.” The story is about Sakyamuni, the founder
of Buddhism (565—486BC), he courageously sacrificed his body in order to save
a hungry baby tiger in his previous incarnation. Could the old lady’s thought be traced to this Buddhist story?
From the
old lady’s viewpoint, celestial burial is in essence a form of charity, giving
oneself completly to nature to express one’s love for life and the weak. This is a merciful feeling and a gesture
of selfless devotion. In fact,
this is a common understanding among Tibetans who choose to have celestial
burial.
It had been
raining for several days. Though
the rain stopped on the day of the burial, the sky was covered with thick
clouds. The old lady’s body was
wrapped up with big cloth and placed in the square in front of the Buddha
Dharma Temple(chos-skyon lha-kan in Tibetan) of DaLa Monastery. A group of
lamas were about to chant Buddhist sutras(bar-dao thos-grol) for her.
