Chapter 6
(Tape 12)

   The next chapter is an unpleasant chapter. It is the chapter on what is foul, what is loathsome about a dead body. It is also about applying the state of a dead body to our living body. This is the foulness of the body meditation or the loathsomeness of the body meditation. Most people in the West I think are afraid of this meditation.
   A man asked me: ：Do I have to tell my wife that I imagine her to be a corpse when I go back home?； If you practice this kind of meditation, you have to do it. Whether you tell your wife this, that is another matter. You may or may not do so. But if you are going to be practicing this, then you have to see not only your wife but anybody including yourself as loathsome, as foul. If you don・t like it, don・t practice it. It・s OK.
   This meditation is very powerful and effective in removing attachment to bodies, to self. Once you see the various conditions of a dead body, you become less interested in your body or in the body of any other person.
   Just today I was talking with a monk in Los Angeles. He lived in villages for some time. So sometimes he had chance to cremate a dead person, a dead monk. After doing this two or three times, he got disgusted with his body too.
Student: This type of meditation is particularly recommended or useful for people of greedy character.
Teacher: Yes, for those who are attached to their bodies or the bodies of others.
Student: It is discouraged for those of hateful or angry character.
Teacher: Discouraged, no. But it is recommended for those who have strong attachment to their bodies, to their lives.
   You have read all this, so you know what these subjects of meditation are. These are the different stages of decomposition in a corpse. After two or three days it becomes bloated. Then it deteriorates further becoming livid, festering, cut up and so on.
   I want to talk about the first one, the bloated corpse. ：The bloated: it is bloated (uddhum?ta) because bloated by gradual dilation and swelling after (uddha?) the close of life, as a bellows is with wind. What is bloated (uddhum?ta) is the same as ．the bloated・(uddhum?taka).； Do you understand that?  ：What is bloated is the same as ．the bloated・.；
   Please look at the P??i words. The first is uddhum?ta. The second one is uddhum?taka. So ．ka・ is added to the word. What the Commentary wants us to understand is that ．ka・ denotes disgust. If you say uddhum?ta, it is bloated. If you say uddhum?taka, then it is a bloated body which is disgusting. The particle ．ka・ is added to show that it is disgusting. That is what we should understand. It is very difficult to convey this meaning in a translation. You have to put in a footnote. All these ten kinds of meditation have added the ．ka・ to the description of the corpse. The first one is uddhum?taka, the second one is vin?laka, the third one is vipubbaka and so on.
   In order to practice this you have to do a lot of preparation. Everything is explained in detail in this book. For example you are not to go to the corpse as soon as you hear that there is a corpse in such and such a place. You are not to go there directly. It is said that sometimes there may be wild animals around the corpse or there may be ghosts around the corpse. Your life may be in danger.
   You must not go directly to the place. You have to study the road to and from it. You must notice things along the road. Everything is to be noticed - stones are here, in this place the road goes off to the left, here at another place the road goes off to the right. You have to take note of everything on the way to the place.
   You know this meditation is a very frightening meditation. You have to go alone. It says two or three times in this book ：no companion,, no companion；. So you have to do it alone. Sometimes when you are alone, you are frightened. Even when a dead branch drops, you may be frightened. You may think it is a ghost or something. So you have to be very careful.
   You must inform at least the head of the monastery where you live that you are going there. That is because cemeteries are not like here. In this country they are beautiful places. In the East sometimes thieves or robbers may frequent a cemetery. It is a place not many people go to. It is secluded for them. Thieves or robbers may go to that place followed by some people. Then they may drop something that they have stolen near the monk. Those who follow them may see their property close to a monk and take the monk to be a robber, to be a thief. In that case if he has informed the head monk of the monastery, he can explain to people. So you have to do a lot of preparation if you want to do this meditation.
   It is impossible even in our countries to do this meditation. Dead bodies are not left on the ground. They are either cremated or buried. It is almost impossible to see a bloated corpse or whatever.
   Let us say it is possible. You are not to sit too near the corpse or too far away from the corpse. You must not sit downwind. You must sit in the other direction. If you sit downwind, you will be offended by the smell. So there are many things in detail which you have to take care of before you go and practice.
Student: Did you have the opportunity to do that?
Teacher: No. You know it is a very frightening meditation. Not many people would do this. You have to have some kind of courage.
   One thing in our countries is that parents used to try to scare their children by saying, ：There is a ghost here, there is a ghost there.； So we are afraid of ghosts. Even though we have grown up, there is some kind of residue of it in our minds. We cannot shake it all together from our self. It is not like people in this country. People in this country are not afraid of ghosts. They may even talk with ghosts. They may even adopt ghosts or something like that.
Student: Some people!
Teacher: One thing is that when you are invited to a funeral service, then as a monk you have to go to a cemetery. And a cemetery is not a good place like here. It is frightening. It is dirty. And it is smelly. They don・t have embalming. Most people don・t have that. So when the corpse is carried to the cemetery, it may have decomposed. There is that smell.
   I had that experience. Once I was invited and I went to the cemetery. Then the body was put in front of me, about one and a half feet from me. Then there was the smell and the impurities dripping from the body. There is always a not good smell at a cemetery. There are monks who live very close to or in the cemetery. They build small huts or kutis and practice this kind of meditation.
   The body should not be of the opposite sex. That is mentioned here two or three times. A man must look at the corpse of a man. A woman must look at the corpse of a woman. This is because even a dead body can cause some mental excitement if it is not yet dead long enough or has not yet decomposed. Some people may have thoughts of lust even looking at a corpse. It is not recommended for a monk to look at the corpse of a woman.
   The last one is a skeleton. You can practice looking at a whole skeleton or you can practice looking at only one bone.
   In paragraph 85 ：And individually the bloated suits one who is greedy about shape since it makes evident the disfigurement of the body・s shape. The livid suits one who is greedy about the body・s color since it makes evident the disfigurement of the skin・s color. The festering suits one who is greedy about the smell of the body aroused by scents, perfumes etc., since it makes evident the evil smells connected with this sore, the body. The cut up suits one who is greedy about the compactness in the body, since it makes evident the hollowness inside it. The gnawed suits one who is greedy about accumulation of flesh in such parts of the body as the breasts since it makes it evident how a fine accumulation of flesh comes to nothing. The scattered suits one who is greedy about the grace of the limbs since it makes it evident how limbs can be scattered. The hacked and scattered suits one who is greedy about a fine body as a whole since it makes evident the disintegration and alteration of the body as a whole. The bleeding suits one who is greedy about elegance produced by ornaments since it makes evident its repulsiveness when smeared with blood. The worm-infested suits one who is greedy about ownership of the body since it makes it evident how the body is shared with many families of worms. A skeleton suits one who is greedy about fine teeth since it makes it evident the repulsiveness of the bones in the body. This, it should be understood, is how the classification of foulness comes to be tenfold according to the subdivisions of the greedy temperament.；
   When a person practices the foulness meditation, any one of them, he can only get first jh?na, not the other jh?nas. It is explained here with a simile.
   ：But as regards the tenfold foulness, just as it is only by virtue of its rudder； - I don・t think it is ．rudder・. What is ．rudder・?
Student: A steering mechanism.
Teacher: Yes. In P??i the word is pole. We use a pole to push the boat in a strong stream. ：Just as it is only by virtue of a pole that a boat keeps steady in a river with turbulent waters and rapid current, and it cannot be steadied without a pole, so too [here], owing to the weak hold on the object, consciousness when unified only keeps steady by virtue of vitakka (applied thought), and it cannot be steadied without vitakka (applied thought), which is why there is only the first jh?na here, not second and the rest.； You can only get first jh?na if you practice foulness of the body meditation. This is because you need vitakka (initial application of the mind) for your mind to be on the object. The object is coarse or gross and so you need this vitakka to keep your mind there. Vitakka is only present in the first jh?na. It is not with second jh?na, third jh?na and so on. So you can only get first jh?na by this kind of meditation.
   Now paragraph 88 ：This foulness, while of ten kinds, has only one characteristic. For though it is of ten kinds, nevertheless its characteristic is only its impure, stinking, disgusting and repulsive state. And foulness appears with this characteristic not only in a dead body but also in a living one (That is the point here.), as it did to the Elder Mah?-Tissa who lived at Cetiyapabbata, and to the novice to the Elder Sa~gharakkhita while he was watching the king riding an elephant. For a living body is just as foul as a dead one, only the characteristic of foulness is not evident in a living body, being hidden by adventitious embellishments.； We wash ourselves. We clean ourselves every day. Some people use cosmetics, perfumes and so on. Therefore the characteristic of foulness is not evident in a living person, in a living body. When it is dead the characteristic of foulness becomes evident.
   If you want to attain jh?na through this practice, you really have to go to a cemetery and look at a corpse and practice meditation on it. But if you just want to practice it as a mindfulness of the body meditation, you don・t have to go to a cemetery. You may imagine a corpse in your mind and apply the nature of that corpse to your own body. ：As this body is bloated, my body also will not escape this state.； You apply the nature of the dead body to your living body. In that way you can practice Satipa??h?na mindfulness meditation. In that case you don・t have to look for a corpse or whatever. But if you want to practice this samatha meditation in order to get jh?na, you have to find a corpse somewhere.
   It is almost impossible in this country. But if you go to some medical college, you may be able to see corpses there. Outsiders are not allowed there. If you are a special guest, they may allow you to see the corpses. Otherwise they will not allow you to see. So it is almost impossible nowadays even in our countries to practice this kind of meditation.
Student: We can see these stages in animals.
Teacher: Even that is not so common because of health standards. They won・t let a corpse be in that stage. One can take pictures of corpses, but it is difficult even to take pictures. You may look at the picture and develop meditation on it.
   This is the foulness of the body meditation. In our countries when a person dies, they send out invitation. In the invitation it says please come to such and such a place to practice asubha meditation. They are not invited to come to a funeral service or to go along with the dead body to the burial place. They are invited to practice foulness of the body meditation along with us.
   I went to Los Angeles this time to conduct a funeral service. One of my devotees died. I said ：You are invited here not just to say ．Oh, poor lady・ or whatever, but you are to look at her and practice foulness meditation and the other kind of meditation, the recollection of death.；  At least these two kinds of meditation people should practice when they go to a funeral. That is the way to attend a funeral service. We don・t say that we are assembled to pay last respects to the person, but we come to practice this meditation and to apply this nature of this person to ourselves in order to reduce attachment to ourselves.
   Then there is one other thing. That is to share merit with the dead person. That is the purpose when people go to a funeral service. Most people actually don・t know what to do and why they are invited. In order to be the real followers of the Buddha then we ought to do this. One should go to a funeral and meditate in this way and then share merits with the dead person.
Student: What do you mean by ．sharing merit・?
Teacher: That means that I tell that person ：I share my merits with you.； You tell that person with the understanding that he may be somewhere around as a ghost or a lower celestial being.
Student: Is it like a blessing?
Teacher: Not a blessing. Can we call it a blessing? No. It is helping him in the present life. A person can be reborn as any being according to the teachings of the Buddha. Although a person may be a very good person for the whole life, if he has bad thoughts at the moment of death, then he could be reborn in a lower world. So those who are reborn as ghosts, hungry ghosts, and lower celestial beings can be helped by those in this life. That is the basis of a funeral service in Therav?da Buddhism. When we share merits with that person, then that person rejoices at the merit. Then he gets merit himself by rejoicing. That merit of his actually helps him in his life. It is not the merit of people here directly giving him results. The teaching in Buddhism is that you have to do it yourself to get results. Nobody can give you their results. The merit of those who share becomes the basis for the merit of those who accept. So it is important when we go to a funeral to practice foulness of the body meditation and the recollection on death.
   OK. Thank you.

                         S?dhu!     S?dhu!    S?dhu!