Buddhist self-mummification

Sokushinbutsu

Day 2000

The mountain air cuts sharper today. My robe, once snug against winter's bite, now hangs loosely from shoulders that have known nothing but pine nuts for three years. Master Yūzen says my eyes have changed. "They look inward now," he told me this morning. His voice carries neither approval nor discouragement—just observation, as a true teacher should.

Tomorrow, I begin mokujiki. No more seeds or nuts. Only the bark of trees, roots, and the bitter herbs that grow where snow melts last. My body, already a vessel hollowed of desire, must become lighter still.

Day 2187

The temple bell sounds different. Its vibrations seem to pass through me, rather than around me. Yesterday, a novice monk brought me water, and I saw fear in his eyes. Perhaps he saw the thinning boundary between worlds in mine.

My urine runs clear as mountain streams now. Master Yūzen says this is good—the body purifies itself before the final transformation. The pain in my joints has subsided, replaced by a curious lightness. When I meditate at dawn, sometimes I cannot feel where my body ends and the mist begins.

Day 2458

Today I drank the urushi tea for the first time. The sap that poisons insects and preserves wood will now begin to preserve me from within. Its bitterness is profound, but no more bitter than the cycle of rebirth I seek to transcend. The vomiting came as expected. Master Yūzen held my head, and whispered the Heart Sutra as my body convulsed.

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form," he chanted. Never have those words rung truer.

Day 2530

The urushi has changed me. My skin burns, but does not blister. When I bleed, the blood congeals quickly. Master Yūzen says my organs are becoming like lacquered wood—hardened against decay.

Today a messenger came with news of war in distant provinces. How strange that men still fight for land when all earth is but borrowed dust. I blessed the messenger, who seemed eager to leave my presence. Do I appear so changed?

Day 2639

The tomb is complete. I visited it today, touching the stone that will embrace me for eternity. It is small—just large enough for me to sit in meditation. The breathing tube has been placed, and a small bell with its rope.

Master Yūzen performed the blessing ceremony. Many from the neighboring villages came to pay respects, bringing offerings I can no longer consume. I blessed their children instead, these little beings still fresh from the void, not yet aware of the suffering that awaits them in the cycle of rebirth. Unless they too find the path to liberation.

Day 2643

Tomorrow I enter the tomb. My last day under open sky. I spent it watching clouds form and dissolve above the mountain peaks—perfect teachers of impermanence.

I no longer feel hunger or thirst. The urushi tea has transformed my interior landscape. My breath comes shallow and slow. In meditation, I often forget to breathe, until the burning in my lungs reminds me this final attachment remains.

Master Yūzen shaved my head…one last time. His hands trembled slightly—the first emotion I have seen him display in all our years together. "You will succeed where I failed," he whispered. "You will become Buddha in this very body."

Tonight, I write these final words by candlelight. The brush feels heavy in my hand, as if it already belongs to the world of solid things that I am leaving behind.

May all beings find liberation from suffering.

Day 1

Darkness absolute, save for the small light that enters through the breathing tube when the sun is directly overhead. The stone holds the cold of the mountain—a cold that no longer troubles me.

I sit in perfect lotus position. My spine is the axis upon which the universe turns. I ring the bell in the morning, and I hear the answering bell from the temple below.

Day 5

The air grows thick in my tomb. My lungs take what they need and no more. I can feel my heartbeat slowing—a drum beating the final march toward enlightenment.

This morning, I found I could not move my left arm. The body begins its transformation from vessel to vessel-transcended. I rang the bell with my right.

Day 8

No longer can I distinguish between meditation and waking. The boundaries dissolve like mist in morning sun. The Buddha appeared before me in the darkness—not as vision, but as certainty.

My breath comes only when I consciously call it. Between those moments, I dwell in perfect stillness. I am the stillness.

The bell grows heavier each dawn.

Day 15

Today I could not lift the bell. I tapped it softly with one finger. Did they hear? It matters not.

The Great Compassion fills this small space. I am compressed into diamond. All that is not essential has burned away.

I see life after life stretching behind me like pearls on an endless strand—farmer, warrior, beggar, king. I see lives ahead branching into infinite possibility. And I see the moment of severance approaching, when the strand breaks and the pearls scatter.

My lips form one final smile.

The bell fell silent on the twenty-first day. As was tradition, the air tube was removed, and the tomb was sealed completely with wax. Three years later, when the tomb was opened, the monks found the body of Honmyōkai perfectly preserved, sitting in eternal meditation. He had achieved sokushinbutsu—becoming Buddha in this very body.

The History of Sokushinbutsu

Sokushinbutsu, or Buddhist self-mummification, is a real practice that occurred primarily in Japan between the 11th and 19th centuries. It was practiced mainly by monks of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, particularly in the Yamagata Prefecture of northern Japan.

The process was exactly as described—a years-long journey of extreme asceticism that culminated in self-mummification. The monks would follow a strict diet progression, first moving from regular food to nuts and seeds. Then, they’d exclusively eat tree bark, pine needles, and roots (mokujiki, lit. 'eating a tree'), and finally just toxic lacquer tea, made from the sap of the urushi tree (the same sap used in Japanese lacquerware).

This diet aimed not just to reduce body fat, but also suffuse the monk’s tissue with preservatives, and make it toxic to decomposers.

After years of this preparation, the monk would enter a stone tomb equipped with only a bell and an air tube. There, they would meditate until death, ringing the bell daily to signal they were still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the air tube would be removed and the tomb sealed completely. After approximately three years, the tomb would be opened to see if successful mummification had occurred.

If the body was found preserved, it was believed the monk had achieved sokushinbutsu—becoming a "Buddha in this very body." These mummified monks were sometimes placed in temples where they became objects of veneration.

The Japanese government outlawed the practice in 1879 during the Meiji Restoration, as part of the modernization and westernization of Japan. However, by this time, dozens of monks had successfully completed the ritual. Today, about two dozen examples of sokushinbutsu remain, primarily in temples in Japan's Yamagata Prefecture.

You can see Honmyōkai in Honmyō-ji temple.