Life is hard.
And death is harder still, at least for the medieval Japanese.
Back then, they believed the moment of death
was a special time when thinking the wrong
thoughts led to an afterlife of torture and suffering.
So they came up with delightful ways to avoid it.
This Buddhist idea became popular in the Kamakura Period [1185 - 1333].
They thought that a dying person lay at the border between this realm and the next,
a special space with special rules.
Like how a different universe has different laws of physics,
the moment of death has different laws of karma.
Normally, you earn good karma by doing good deeds,
like introducing someone to a great anime.
And you earn bad karma by doing bad deeds, like when that anime is a hen-thigh.
But there is a cheat code, you can beat the system,
because in that moment of death,
the karma you earn is boosted millions or billions of times.
The right thoughts at your final moments could erase a lifetime of sin.
A great second chance for serial killers and hen-thigh watchers.
But one wrong thought and a lifetime of good
deeds could vanish in a puff of impermanence,
and you could be reborn in a lower realm or even hell.
So what were the right thoughts?
The mind of the dying often swam with thoughts
of smallpox or dysentery for some reason.
But to the dark side, those thoughts led.
The right thoughts were of the Buddha and of rebirth in an enlightened afterlife.
By this time in history, Buddhism already had its prayer beads far up Japan’s bum,
Japan was stuck with it.
The religious elites anal-yzed this thought crime problem from the front and the rear
and every which way, because it was a big problem.
Controlling your thoughts is hard.
If I tell you don’t think of a pink elephant,
you can’t help but think of a pink elephant.
If I tell you don’t think of a cartoon turtle,
you can’t help but think of Mitch McConnell.
So the Japanese came up with deathbed rituals
to help people focus their thoughts on the Buddha.
One of the rituals: the chapel of impermanence.
When a Japanese noble contracted a bad case of the dying,
his family moved him to a separate building
called a chapel of impermanence,
with incense and flowers scattered about the place.
They didn't want him to lie sick at home
where he could look at his belongings and
form thoughts of attachment.
Hard to let go of worldly things when you’re staring
at your Pokemon card collection,
knowing that it’s going to your little brother
who likes to play with matches.
Thoughts of attachment were dangerous.
They said if a person clung to life, flies or ants would appear on the person’s face.
If a man died thinking of his wife, he would
reincarnate as the white worms that emerge
from a woman’s nose, that’s what they said.
So if you got noseworms, your husband must have been thinking of you when he died.
If you don’t got them, oof.
Well at least he’s in paradise.
Or he was thinking of the neighbor.
The dying person would concentrate on a statue or
painting of the Buddha, and grip a five-colored
cord attached to the Buddha’s hand, to help focus his thoughts.
This cord was special, and so were the methods to make it.
One text forbade the reader from revealing the methods to normal people.
Here’s what it says.
The threads should be spun in a purified room
by a woman around 80 years old,
because she’s free from the filthiness of secks.
Right.
Then a holy man should dye the 5 colors to them.
Then it should be woven into a cord under the supervision of a holy man.
Another text says the cords should be purified
in perfumed water, and woven by a young child or old nun.
People of different Buddhist sects focused their minds on different Buddhas, but the
most popular sect was Pure Land Buddhism, and they concentrated on their
number one Buddha, all around nice guy, Amida.
They were supposed to think of Amida, his body,
and rebirth in his Pure Land paradise.
Thoughts of anything else while dying,
even important things like your kids or your browser history,
led away from the Pure Land, and maybe even to hell.
The bad thing about lying in bed sick is that it can take a while to die.
The good thing is that you have the entire
rest of your life to contemplate the Buddha’s body.
For example, some people pictured Amida’s urna, that dot between his eyebrows.
It was supposed to emit a holy light that
enveloped the dying, bathing them in Amida’s compassion.
Now not every noble could afford to have a separate chapel of self-importance.
The government also had low-ranking nobles who you’ve never heard of.
The Secretary of Silly Hats probably just cleared out a little room for himself.
Some people used their bedroom,
but moved the furniture around to make the surroundings less familiar.
Visitors were allowed, except those who recently drank alcohol or ate meat.
And they had to be careful of friends and loved ones.
Seeing a loved one would have triggered thoughts of attachment.
Even after death, mom could ruin your life.
But there were certain special people you could see on your deathbed.
These people stayed with you until you died.
They were called zenchishiki 善知識, or good friends, and you really wanted them around.
It’s hard to think clearly when you’re dying.
That was where good friends came in, 3 to 5 of them, ideally, they thought.
Being chosen as a good friend came with heavy responsibilities,
and there were books on how good friends should act.
As a good friend, you’re supposed to take care
of the dying person, cleaning them,
changing the sheets, keeping the lamp going so the
sick person can always see the Buddha painting.
But mainly, you help the patient keep focus.
One text says that you should take turns keeping watch,
so that at least one good friend has
eyes on the patient at all times.
Never turn your back on the patient.
Even when resting outside the room, you should
be close enough to hear the patient’s breathing.
Keep the patient’s mouth moistened with water
so he can continuously recite scripture.
The most dangerous question to ask a patient was,
“Would you like anything?”
Because it would trigger desire.
He’d start thinking I want food, I want water, and next thing you know,
bastard’s in hell deep throating a torch.
People wrote a list of their good deeds, and died holding on to such lists.
A good good friend led the patient in chanting scripture,
chanting in a pitch that was neither
too high nor too low, allowing the patient to chant too.
Now the best death is the death that happens
while reciting holy words, but the truth is…dying
people have a habit of randomly falling unconscious.
They got no discipline.
When this happened, the good friend was supposed
to wake the patient up so he could continue reciting scripture.
“Bobunaga, I know your butthole is falling out of your butt,
but I’m gonna need you to repeat page 24.”
If this didn’t work, the good friend would
continue chanting to the rhythm of the patient’s breath,
a chant whose tempo slowed into a deathly silence.
Sometimes, just to make sure, the good friend
would chant a few hours more after the last breath.
Over time, good friends became even more important than the dying person.
You needed a skilled one to guide you to the Pure Land.
That’s why people chose experienced monks to fill this role.
They fought the demons and spirits that gathered around the sick and dying.
These spirits were bad news.
They could make you think non-Buddha thoughts,
could even fool you into imagining that you
were thinking Buddha thoughts.
How?
People believed that the images in your dying
mind revealed where you went after death.
So people commonly pictured the image of Amida
Buddha descending to Earth to carry his followers
to the Pure Land.
If people saw visions of fire or torture, their good friends were supposed to spring
into action and yell encouragements like
“Get your act together, death is nigh” and
“Don’t think of my wife,”
which were very helpful in guiding them to think better thoughts.
But evil spirits are cheeky li’o buggers,
and they could inject into your head false visions
of Amida descending to Earth.
It was the good friend’s job to listen to your description of the vision
and pick out clues of falseness.
Sometimes a color was different, an object was missing,
or something was just off about the vision.
Because a dying person’s visions could expose
where that person was headed after death,
good friends kept their mouths shut about it in public.
These were considered private visions between
a good friend and his dead friend,
who’s absolutely not drinking lava through his bum right now.
People wanted monks to serve as good friends
because monks knew religious stuff,
and it became a common service that monks provided.
Sometimes elite monks became good friends
for high ranking nobles, but most were monks
who lived isolated in the mountains.
Probably normal monks didn’t want to hang around dying people so much, it was impure.
There were also mountain priests who built chapels of impermanence in the hills.
People gave their dying family members to
these priests, and they would perform deathbed
rituals, and even funerals and body disposals.
There’s evidence that commoners sometimes did
these deathbed rituals too, but the typical commoner
was busy trying to put food on his family.
Who had enough money to hire 3 to 5 experts to take care of Papa?
No, Papa probably got one monk good friend,
or even good friends not of the monk-ish variety.
Clever monks convinced high-ranking samurai
to adopt deathbed rituals, by reminding them
that going around committing the sin of killing
probably didn’t help your chances of entering paradise.
Some samurai realized a problem with this.
In battle, you could die at any time.
At the moment of death, you were thinking of how to put an arrow
through an enemy’s eyeball,
not thinking of the Buddha.
The solution: camp priests.
In later medieval times, warriors brought priests to the battlefield,
who prayed for them before the fighting.
Kind of a mini deathbed ritual.
Buddha, please forgive me for the badass sins
that I’m about to commit on these poor mfers.
There were a few monks who criticized deathbed rituals.
They said, “These ain’t Buddhists, this some bulls--t.”
Buddhists were supposed to let go of desires.
Yet these goal-having losers were clinging to the desire to enter the Pure Land.
Even the founders of Pure Land Buddhism said
that trust in Amida was the path to salvation,
not trust in 3 to 5 worthless, ordinary persons.
Let Amida be your good friend.
But these criticisms were like drops of pee in a swimming pool,
they didn’t make a big difference.
Deathbed rituals remained a popular practice.
Mountain priests had plenty of business.
And Buddhist monks were no strangers to dead bodies.
Dead bodies were actually super useful.
For example, monks used dead bodies to fight their erotic desires.
This bizarre method to erase their erections you can see by clicking here.
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Arise, my moon.
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Of All The Snakes your majesty, Lyla Du Perie,
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Alright I love you, and spread the knowledge!