A Natural Meditation Place – The Cadaver Forest

Lineage Of Wisdom Dakini

1.5. A Natural Meditation Place – The Cadaver Forest

Despite of the surprise of her parents, Niguma went to Suosha Langhan Cadaver Forest. This was one of the most well known cadaver forests of ancient India, where local people disposed dead bodies. Cadavers would spontaneously come into view, the stench was overwhelming and wild animals occasionally frequented. According to a popular saying in India at the time, cadaver forests were the best place for meditation. Here people have a graphic view of life’s transience and easily form detachment from the material world. In this world of coloured lights and intoxicating drinks, song, dance, TV, internet and infinite new toys occupy almost all of everyone’s time. People almost do not have time or interest left for spiritual matters. They do not think about death. Only when friends or relatives pass away might they sigh at the brief touch with transience. But to sigh is easy, to commit is difficult. Hardly has a sigh expired before a new desire is born. Partially enlightened souls are always sullied by outside matter, as jade coated in mud or pearl covered by dusk, the innate radiance is not easily emitted. So meditators of ancient India often departed far from worldly society, preferring instead to be close to death, and meditated in the cadaver forests.

I too, like going into cadaver forests, or burial grounds, sky burial stages and Han area graveyards. Last time I went abroad, I took a picture with the cemeteries beneath the cross. Whenever I go to these places, I always hear the dead telling me: life is changing quickly; you should meditate as soon as possible! Do not waste your time! There are photos of the dead on most gravestones in foreign countries. Most show the best images of the dead, very healthy and very beautiful. But no matter how beautiful, how healthy, how powerful and how wealthy, in the end, they all passed away, leaving only a pile of white bones to mark their brief presence. Even those white bones will not stay in this world forever, not long afterwards, they will become powder with the passing days.

I deeply understand the Indian meditators. I understand that what the masses see as a foreboding place of darkness is actually full of truth. Whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist, there are people who understand the truth of inconstancy. “Everything is changeable” is one of “Noble Truths” of Buddhism, however, other religions, such as Christianity and Islam, also accept this, either partially or completely, and many of their scriptures speak of it. When Niguma became enlightened, there were many other religions in cadaver forest, such as Brahman (developing to future Hindu), Jain (who called themselves the eternal religion), and other non-Buddhists, who also recognised the prevalence of inconstancy. But these non-Buddhists believed in an eternal being within this world, like the Heaven God of Hinduism. Jain also saw every outward appearance as changeable, but believed that their religion was forever, and as a result fell into self contradiction. For either Buddhism or non-Buddhism, the root of meditation is detachment from the world. Looking to everything as changeable is the first requirement to produce a feeling of disaffection and break attachment. Therefore, many yogis choose the cadaver forests.

During the ten years I have taken refuge under Shangpa Kagyu, Guru always taught that I should see through illusion and not become attached to the temporal world. I can not go to cadaver forest as Niguma did, however I built an atmosphere of the cadaver forest in my home. I love to listen to funeral music. In my view, funeral music is black, its notes the shape of crows. When the music plays, I always feel like there are many black crows flying, dancing, shaking their wings and crying: “death, death!” They remind me that whatever I do, I should use death as a reference. When you refer to death, you will find many things do not have true value. Wealth, fame, power, beauty are all dreams with no substance. Besides listening funeral music frequently, there is the skull of a dead man in my bedroom. It has been with me for many years. I know it was once beautiful, and possessed great fortune, and yearned for power, but all it had and all it strived for has disappeared without a trace. Only the skull bone remains, like the warning shadow of Sima Guang, reminding me that transience will always follow us like a shadow.

One of my friends has been to India. He told me the Vajra Seat which Niguma worshipped was once resplendent for being the place of Shakyamuni Buddha’s enlightenment, but now its glory has faded and it sits deserted. The Nalanda Temple, once the highest institute of Buddhist study in India has become a mound of yellow earth. It is even more impossible to seek the place of Niguma’s birth. It should be a place of cultural interest, but it has long become unknown. Only the spirit of Buddhism is left in this world. This spirit has continued for thousands of years through sutra and teaching. Today, every time I meditate in the “Five Golden Dharma of Niguma”, I always can feel the vibrant pulsing heart of Niguma, my guru. I deeply understand her.

Below, we follow her into the cadaver forest.

In India of that time there were many people mediating in cadaver forest. When Niguma went to the cadaver forest, she saluted by prostration three times toward the heavens and the realm of Ghanavyuha appeared in the sky. As easily as strong men flex their arms, she entered the Ghanavyuha realm. Vajra Dhara gave her the empowerment of Five Great Vajras Integrative Meditation Dharma (that posterity named the “Five Golden Dharma of Niguma”) and taught her the related dharma. Niguma promised to pass the “Five Golden Dharma of Niguma” to living beings that possessed enough cause and Yuan of blessing and morality.

Accompanied by the twenty-four major Dakini, Niguma went back to the Suosha Langhan Cadaver Forest in India. In the sky above the cadaver forest, her body became the secret realm, as high as seven Duoluo trees above the earth, as splendid as the Ghanavyuha realm. The realm still exists today, and like the Shambhala country in Tibet, can be seen and reached by the persons with appropriate Yuan. The third generation guru Khyungpo Naljor met Niguma there, and received the inheritance, empowerment, and keys of meditation of the “Five Golden Dharma of Niguma”. One thousand years later, I also have had the fortune to become one ring in the chain of Shangpa Kagyu.

The secret realm to which Guru Niguma transformed is called the second Ghanavyuha realm in Shangpa Kagyu.