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Tag Archives: funeral

Holy Buddhist Priests

07 Monday Feb 2011

Posted by Bob in myWhys

≈ Comments Off on Holy Buddhist Priests

Tags

benze, bones, born, buddhists, burial, business, carbon, child, conversation, cremation, drive, expensive, father, footprint, funeral, gown, holy, japan, japanese, married, mercedes, order, position, practices, price, priests, privileged, protracted, questions, resomation, rituals, shrewd, society, suits, talking, temple, trip, western, woman

Recently, I had a conversation with a fellow who used to live in Japan. He married a Japanese woman whose father passed away a couple of months ago. Thus, they had to make a sudden trip back to Japan and, as the only child, they are the only people who can deal with the father’s affairs. They also have to cover the costs, which, as it turns out, are considerable. Let me see if I can relate the jist of the conversation. Let me know if I get anything incorrect.

Japan is a country of mostly Buddhists. To plan and hold a funeral, one must deal with the priests. It seems that the priests are free to set the price at whatever they want. “I always thought of Buddhist priests as very holy and tied to a temple and rituals.” According to the fellow I was talking to, “that is only for show, once they are done, off comes the gown and they are wearing suits and are very shrewd business men.” He told me, they drive around in Mercedes Benzes. Apparently, nobody really questions the practices of the priests and one must be born into the order to attain this privileged position in society.

A Japanese Buddhist funeral is not only expensive, it is a long and protracted set of events that includes a cremation and the laying out of the bones. Since it will take 49 days until the next portion of the funeral, my friend and his wife must make another trip back to Japan.

I guess we really can’t complain about a western funeral, unless, it concerns the carbon footprint of a cremation or burial. An alternative to cremation is on the way—resomation.

So, what do you think about Japanese funerals? How about Buddhism and the priests? Have you heard of resomation and what do you think about it?

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Preamble

I have many interesting activities in my life—so many that I have neglected my blogs. Since myBobLog is my original and first blog, it is here that I endeavor to begin my blogging journey once again. I start now with a new theme.

In the hopefully near future, I want to write about a project of growing my hair to donate to cancer patients. I have a fundraising page that I will link to. I also need to write about my return to playing music with my cornet and how had a dream come true by acquiring a particular cornet. I also need to write about the two jazz bands I run. In fact, I have begun websites for them too, so there lies more blogging activities.

My next move will likely be to take a peek at my Technojungle Project. I suppose I have been blaming my blogging neglect on the writing of my upcoming book, however, music has also been a strong draw away. I have even postponed work on my photography.

Don't worry about the details of all these projects and activities. I will make sure the mud settles as soon as I get a better handle on how I want to set up things here on this blog to start with.

It will take some time, so stay tuned and be patient.

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