The best funeral ceremony in Buddhist funeral culture dates back to the funeral ceremony of the Lord Buddha originated from the type of ceremony performed on emperors of ancient india. Eight stupas have built after the cremation when the Buddha passed...
The best funeral ceremony in Buddhist funeral culture dates back to the funeral ceremony of the Lord Buddha originated from the type of ceremony performed on emperors of ancient india. Eight stupas have built after the cremation when the Buddha passed away. Buddhist stupas served as a new core of religion community.
Funeral ceremony, the posthumous ceremony of human, is one of most important culture in our society and is a kind of huge drama performed according to the meaningful process and order. In this regard, in most cases, the religion personnel performs the role of director in funeral ceremony. Through ancient and modern times, funeral ceremony in our society are inseparably related to religion. The percentage of Buddhism was hug but rise and fall repeat according to social and political changes. Despite such problems, the funeral ceremony of Buddhist has formed one axis of funeral culture in our society. Even if the instruction of Buddha and its ideological foundation are well organized in the funeral ceremony of Buddhist in our society, however, there exist strict difference between implementation and reality of law, which is what this study exactly aimed at. There is serious restriction on new construction of new structure in the temple while it is utilization of existing facility in temple, and tree burial park is rough road for implementation. Then, what is the alternative? There will be expected results achieved only when the funeral ceremony is performed on true culture space of Buddhism.
First of all, funeral culture requires specific facilities like graveyard, charnel house or tower. In addition, it is also affected by social environment such as social recognition and structure of population(demander). It conflicts in the relation of functions between available areas of the land, the demander and supplier. If the population of death increases or preference of social awareness changes from burial to cremation, it is required to have the facilities or site for burial that can accept the increments as factors of supply. In this regard, tree burial park has received attention as the solution for poor supply and demand environment of various funeral cultures that inevitably occur in the changes in social environment of funeral culture.
Tree burial park has many concepts with specific nature, compared to other traditional burial methods. It can minimize the environmental burden, space and cost for burial while maximizing the environmental preservation between land and forest. More than anything else, it is the burial method that has Buddhism friendly thought and philosophy that return to the nature and earth.
The future of human who regard the nature as target for conquest and greed forecasts the environmental disaster by joint karma of environmental destruction. Tree burial park is the burial method focusing on recovery of nature. Burial problem up to now occurs since they paid no attention to nature. In this regard, the selection of tree burial park is the philosophical selection reflecting the harmony with nature in the last stage of life. Our people awe the tree and is humble in front of tree that symbolize the nature. If it is the tree that imbued with spirit of ancestor, the bad practice of destroying the nature will be regarded to pray for happiness to the memory of the dead. Like this, the tree burial park provides the chance to admire the ancestor together with nature.
It is said that belief and thought on Buddha are well harmonized in Buddhist type of funeral culture. Through the ceremony in which the dead and the living person bestow a favor on all life, it should be based on premise that death is not the end but the event to transfer it to the other start.
It can be regarded as true service for the dead and offering to present the strong points of descendant with the purport of applauding the secret act of charity and following the sublime mind-set of ancestors under the trees in the tree burial park cultivated by the descendent as well as outdoor Buddhist lecture meeting by the temple. In addition, under the big frame that the dead and the live can coexist, it is good chance for performing the doctrine regarding where our body comes from and go to. Descendents may set up tents and enjoy camping under the trees of their ancestors. It may always open to the bereaved family like temple stay type as is carried out in the designated temple, and hold diverse type of Buddhist lecture meeting on specific date of the year for memorial service. Of course, social phenomenon(social issues) of the time and theme per generation should be selected so as to form the playground where the ancestors and overall generations can play together under the tree of memory and serve as the arena for developing and improving the ability of each individual serving the society, while being faithful to home by reinforcing various creative program.