A priest, if perchance he sees a decaying body being eaten by crows, or ... by vultures, or being eaten by dogs, or ... being eaten by... insects, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."
Poor White Trash Rampant on a Field of Garbage
Fiction
Nonfiction
Dirty Words (Rating-R)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Poetry
Nested Frames
A Few of My Favorite Things

 

 

A Buddhist Meditation on
Rotten dot com

Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out the window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage.
     
Catch-22 : A Novel by Joseph Heller
Deep and funny, probably the best novel of the 20th century.

"They're trying to kill me," Yossarian told him calmly.
"No one's trying to kill you," Clevinger cried.
"Then why are they shooting at me?" Yossarian asked.
"They're shooting at everyone," Clevinger answered. "They're trying to kill everyone."
"And what difference does that make?"

Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him
with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drops bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all. And if that wasn't funny, there were lots of things that weren't even funnier


"Frankly, I'd like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry. If
we pay the government everything we owe it, we'll only be encouraging government control and discouraging
other individuals from bombing their own men and planes."
 
Buddhism in Translation by Henry Clarke Warren
I've always liked Warren's
translation of various Buddhist texts, probably because it was the second book on Buddhism I ever read. It includes the Cemetery Contemplations.
 

Those of you not familiar with the darker side of the web may not have heard of rotten dot com. Rotten deals with death, shows us Snowden's secret in all its horrible reality. Close up and personal on the injured, the sick, the dead, the decaying, rotten dot com shows us exactly what can and will happen to us, sooner or later, because all flesh is grass. The flower fades and the grass withers and we will all be dead and rotten someday.

So I look at the pictures on rotten dot com, contemplating my own mortality, doing the mediation on death from the Buddhist Mahâ-Satipatthâna-Sutta and thinking, "my body has this nature, my body is subject to this," trying to accept that all things are transitory, nothing lasts, including myself.

 

From 74. THE FOUR INTENT CONTEMPLATIONS
{Mahâ-Satipatthâna-Sutta}
Translated from the Digha-Nikâya, and constituting Sutta 22
But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body one day dead, or two days dead, or (MSS.308) three days dead, swollen, black, and full of festering putridity, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person, as respects the body, observant of the body, or in other persons, as respects the body, observant of the body, or both in his own person and in other persons, as respects the body, observant of the body; either observant of origination in the body, or observant of destruction in the body, or observant of both origination and
destruction in the body; and the recognition of the body by his intent contemplation is merely to the extent of this knowledge, merely to the extent of this contemplation, and he lives unattached, nor clings to anything in the world.

Thus, O priests, does a priest live, as respects the body, observant of the body.

Cemetery the First


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body being eaten by crows, or being eaten by eagles, or being eaten by vultures, or being eaten by dogs, or being eaten by jackals, or being eaten by various kinds of insects, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Second


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body consisting of a skeleton with its flesh and its blood and its tendonous connections, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Third


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body consisting of a skeleton, stripped of its flesh, but stained with blood and retaining its tendonous connections, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Fourth


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body consisting of a skeleton without its flesh and its blood, but retaining its tendonous connections, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Fifth
(MSS.3522)


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body with its bones unconnected and scattered in all directions--the bones of the hands in one direction, the bones of the feet in another, the bones of the shanks in another, the bones of the thighs in another, the bones of the hips in another, the bones of the spine in another, and the skull in another--he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Sixth


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body with its bones as white as a conch-shell, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Seventh


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body with its bones scattered in piles and washed by the rains of years, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt."

Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Eighth


But again, O priests, a priest, if perchance he sees in a cemetery a decaying body with its bones rotting and crumbling into dust, he compares his own body, saying, "Verily, my body also has this nature, this destiny, and is not exempt." Thus he lives, either in his own person [etc., as before].

Cemetery the Ninth

End of the Intent Contemplation of the Body.1 (MSS.3918)

Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out the window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.
 

Isaiah 40:

6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:
7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.
8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.

 

 
   

Copyright Alllie 2002

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