The Bell - Defeated Sanity

Endless quest for enlightenment

Driven to extremes to become one with the exalted, reach immortality

Stemming from Shingon doctrines

Bizarre customs emerge

Practice of living embalment baffling

Uninitiated minds

Persevere to preserve (Your earthly vessel)

Your earthly vessel becomes a monument of spiritual sublimity

Sublimity achieved through acts of self-denial

Endurance beyond humanity

Stage 1

Meditation beneath icy waters

Self imposed hardships to drain body fat

Merciless reduction of food intake

Deprived of all earthly pleasures

Stage 2

Bark and roots, your sole nutrition

Toxic substances cause rapid loss of body fluids, vomiting

Arsenic ingestion corrupts

The little meat left on your bones

Stage 3

Encased alive in your tomb

Engrossed in spirituality

The bell rings for 13 days

Until silence signals transformation

Strengthened through excruciation

Body fat extermination

Deliberate contamination

Flesh now unfit for consumption

Torment chocked through meditation

Locked tight in Lotus position

Successful mummification

Postmortal idolization

Sacred site of admiration

A dead body’s exhibition

Visitors confronted with greatness