Welcome back. Every summer, Japanese people light thousands of lanterns and set them on the water. Today we're going to chat about why. First, let's watch some of these lanterns, this batch is on the Hirose River in Sendai from last summer.
Since that day, the Tōhoku earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster has left tens of thousands of people in the area dead, and hundreds of thousands of people homeless, many of whom are still living in shelters in Sendai. I have a feeling the Toro Nagashi offering on the Hirose River will be larger this year. More after the flip...
Background
What happens when we die, when those we care about die? That's a question human beings have been asking themselves, each other, the earth, the heavens, since well before we developed writing. Part of the question is well answered, anyone who cares to read up on it can obtain a reasonable understanding of decomposition, of cemetery and crematory operations, of probate law, of the psychology of grief. To most people, those answers feel ... incomplete.
One of the traditional roles of religion has been to give people some answer to this question, a context, a framework through which to view the death of people around them, to plan for our own inevitable death.
When Buddhism arose, roughly 2,500 years ago in the Ganges river valley, the prevailing view was the Vedic Hindu view of reincarnation: when your life is over, you are reincarnated into your next life, the karma you generated by living your life, well or poorly, determines the sort of life you'll have next time around. If you were born into the Brahmin caste this time around, and live your life properly, you get to step clear of the wheel of reincarnation and enjoy nirvana. That's a vast oversimplification, and modern Hinduism has a somewhat different view of it than the pre-Upashanic Vedic Hindus, but it's at least an idea of where the people where coming from.
Part of the background here, one of the reasons people were looking for something like Buddhism at the time, is because social changes in ancient India made it so that increasingly, Brahmins were unable to fulfill all their expected duties, which made the Vedic cycle of reincarnation a cycle of infinite frustration (incidentally, this was also surely part of the inspiration for the Upanishads and the resulting transformation of Hinduism). Raise people to believe their life is striving for an ultimate reward, and they get upset if they learn the reward has become literally impossible to ever reach.
Dharma Chat — Buddhism, Self and Rebirth
Buddhism comes up with a very different answer, that arises naturally from its teachings of the lack of an independent self, the lack of a permanent soul, and the Buddhist concept of continual rebirth. It's impossible to explain properly with words (and I'm sure my understanding is incomplete, as well), but if I were to give an oversimplified description to a Western Scientific Atheist, it would probably be: we live on at least in the marks we leave on the community around us, but be very careful not to underestimate how deep those marks go.
However, early Buddhism didn't have to explain itself to Western Atheists, it had to explain itself to believers in Vedic reincarnation, people who hadn't yet learned the Buddhist teachings, much less completed their understanding through meditation, practice and enlightenment; people who would probably never put in such time and effort in this lifetime. So Buddhism put forth stories to the laypeople, stories easy to connect to, that meshed well with a belief in reincarnation, but also with deep symbolism so they remain relevant as our understanding of anatta, anicca and saṃsāra deepens.
I'm not going to go into all the stories today, instead I'll focus on peta, ghosts, especially hungry ghosts. It is said that people who are insufficiently generous, who don't inspire generosity from those who come after them, become hungry ghosts, often depicted with a bulging belly, a very narrow neck, large eyes and an insatiable hunger (though occasionally they're depicted as skeletal, or with no neck at all, like Slimer from Ghostbusters, who was clearly inspired by such stories).
Buddhism teaches us to make offerings to our ancestors, to honor their memory throughout the year, to practice generosity, remind us of our interconnectedness, and to reduce the suffering of hungry ghosts. Mahayana Buddhism teaches us to make a big festival of offerings on the fifteenth day (the full moon day) of the seventh lunar month. Modern realities have shifted the dates around widely, but this is one of the holidays that doesn't get forgotten.
Dharma Chat — Ullambana
The holiday is called Ullambana, Yu Lan Pen or Zhongyuan Jie in Chinese, or Obon in Japanese. It usually lasts three days. Honoring ancestors is a big deal in Asia, there are many festivals for it, but this is the one where folk tradition holds that your dead answers are actually dropping in for a visit.
Offerings are made at your ancestors altar, especially food and drink, fruit is an especially popular offering here. Often public performances are offered ... with a front row of empty chairs for the ghosts.
This is also the time to go visit the cemetery, and maintain the graves there, the graves of your departed ancestors, and the graves of people who don't seem to have anybody attending, if there is sufficient time.
In a week and a half, it's back down to New Haven for me, for my grandmother and great-grandmother's grave sites. This time, I need to not forget to bringing rocks to pile, placing little stacks of rocks on graves is both a Jewish and Mahayana Buddhist tradition, helping to build up the Holy Temple/Stupa. I'm also working on helping my local sangha get coordinated with local cemeteries to help volunteer there.
Many cemeteries in the US desperately need such help, especially in states like New York, where cemeteries are (by law) not-for-profit entities working on a shoestring budget. More than time, they need people not afraid to get their hands dirty, clearing debris, trimming back undergrowth, fixing storm damage and vandalism. For people who aren't up to that sort of work, a resurgence of interest in genealogy combined with the handwritten ledgers that account for most cemetery records means there are lots of opportunities for people who are willing to go out there and document who is buried where and when for online digital databases. Until you know the laws and lay of the land, it's best to work with existing organizations, check with your local cemetery or historical society for more info about how you can most effectively and appropriately help.
In many East Asian towns, even some with large Buddhist populations, there are also town altars to make offerings for the hungry ghosts without families, either in the streets or at the temples.
At the end of Ullambana, there is often a little sending-off party for your visiting guests, called Toro Nagashi in Japan. That's where the lanterns come in, a little light floating down the water to help send them safely back. Often the lantern festival is accompanied with music, solemn or lively depending on the town, some towns include fireworks. Our plans involve lotus-blossom floating candles, to keep the waste (and fire risk) down from the more traditional lanterns (with the traditional municipal net downstream, and city-run cleanup crews that I don't have here).
Dharma Chat — My Grandfather
This year, I have two extra to send on their way. I've already talked about my uncle here, and we're on the subject of Hungry Ghosts, so let me talk a little about my grandfather. Apologies to any family members who might uncover this, I understand this story is officially Stuff I'm Not Supposed To Discuss In Public™, so I'm banking on my pseudonymity to prevent offense.
My mother's father was a Russian Jew, who came to the US as a child with his mother and family, early in the 20th century. To say he was distant was an understatement. When my mother completed high school, he refused to pay for college for her, so my grandmother disobeyed him, got a job at a local department store, and paid my mother's way to higher education. When my mother fell in love and got married, he disowned her for disobeying him and marrying a goy. Soon afterward, my grandmother divorced him.
I once caught a glimpse of his signature on a court-ordered alimony check to my grandmother. One day, I was riding in a car down a street in New Haven, I caught a glimpse of an old man who was sitting on a folding chair in front of a shop; my mother commented after we passed that she thinks that was my grandfather. That is the extent of my direct contact with the man. He died six years ago, but I did not find out about it until last month. I found myself using Google to verify that I properly remembered his name.
From what I understand, the man was stingy to a fault. Everything he touched seemed to turn to deprivation and suffering. He seems to me to be a perfect example of a hungry ghost.
That being said, even without meeting the man, even without him ever being willing to accept the fact that his genes lie within me and my sister, the marks of his life are all over me. My mother learned a great deal from him, both good and bad, about how to carry herself in the world, and those lessons passed on to me.
I believe it is because of him I am reasonably effective at convincing people of facts, of courses of action. It is because of him that I can lie with a straight face (and because of my grandmother that I generally don't). Many of my psychological difficulties seem to trace back right through him and his mother. Therefore, my attempts to help people address psychological difficulties also connect back to him.
I'm not sure whether or not I could honestly say I have any love for the man. I know I don't like anything I've heard of him. But I must respect the role he played in my becoming the person I am today. I know I am setting out offerings for him this year, and lighting a candle to help him be a hungry ghost no longer...
How about you, who might visit you this year? Are you ready for such guests? Any other questions, concerns, comments, offerings?