The Simplified Practice in, Poems and an Essay on, and Chenian Records of Practices in Cemeteries
Under the guidance of the Buddhist Yogi C. M. Chen
Edited by Yutang Lin
Poems by C. M. Chen
Essay by Leonard Price
The Simplified Practice in Cemeteries
Yogi C. M. Chen
Facing the West we stand under a tree in the cemetery.
We light three sandalwood incense sticks and insert them upright into the ground before us.
We open bags of rice and put them on the ground before us.
We recite the Holy name of Amitabha Buddha for at least 108 times (or multiples thereof), asking Buddha to bless all beings who are in darkness, in the ten directions, in past, present or future.
Then we bless the rice with a few puffs, visualizing that the rice has become the nectar granted by Amitabha Buddha.
Then each one of us carries a bag of rice and goes in different directions. While reciting the Holy name of Buddha, we walk among the graves and throw rice onto them, visualizing that the Buddha's Grace has come down to the deceased.
Poems on Death
Written in a Graveyard Hermitage of Calcutta
C. M. Chen
Entering Into the Hermitage in a Graveyard
Why need I wait for one hundred years?
Right now is time to sleep with graves near!
Although the lamp of Chan is so clear,
My heart in ashes wouldn't burn up with tears!
Forbidding Myself to Talk with Others
Worldly affairs are more or less the same.
Not many people have great wealth or fame.
Silence kept as my conversations end.
Lest dead peoples' faults be brought up by men!
Thanks to the Protectors
Sunny Spring day is so bright and hot.
A cloud in the blue sky there is not.
Wind and rain suddenly clean the spot,
Dragon king's protection is my lot!
Laments in General (Six Poems)
- Between two rows of tombs some space saved aside,
For their sons to stop by with incense alight.
The Holy day of the dead comes once a year,
Then only dry leaves and faded flowers abide.
- Either ugly or pretty face,
Either of strong or feeble race,
After death everyone's corpse,
Could occupy the same little space!
- From our country to India it s not near.
Just wanted to be buried no need to choose here.
Back home there are same blue hills and green grasses.
India may be closer to Pureland, my dear!
- Like a glimpse, it is quite easy to pass!
Time runs directly to graveyard with moss.
No matter how often you were lucky,
At last, this place you have to come across!
- Could I convert stones to nod whose heads so high?
Or cut my flesh to patch up the skulls so nigh?
To help the dead ones wake up now I would like.
Let all worldlings learn of death before they die!
- Alone I step in graveyard at sunset,
Wondering when I'll repay the Dharmic debt.
The living beings are still not converted yet.
Even more so are souls in dark and wet.
Laments in Particular (3 Poems)
- For the Scholars or Poets
Surely his talent and writings were so nice!
Being the laureate of his age he is so wise!
After his death only a few strokes of his name,
Are engraved on a stone plate once but not twice!
- For the Beautiful Stars
Being so pretty she was loved by men.
Her face was like flowers in demand.
Now that she's been buried in cement,
How could we smell again her sweet scent!?
- For the Wanderer
Wine and roses made him a wanderer.
He left home for wild love of strangers.
Folks do not know his regrets in death,
Near his tomb they still plant wild flowers!
Advising the Boy Servant
Weathered yellow leaves fall down a plenty.
The sunset's sending crows nest a pretty.
I advise my boy to have great sympathy,
Don't throw faded flowers to the dead party.
Night Prayers (3 Poems)
- Ghosts' energy seems to run through the palm trees.
Lights of phosphorus or firefly there would be.
A puff of chilly wind passes in front of me.
Have you arrived in Pureland and become free?
- The cool moon sheds light upon the graves.
Unutterable is the ghosts' deep grief,
I ring my Vajra Bell so loudly.
Dogs bark one by one for some ghost's leave!
- The cool pool reflects the crescent like an eyebrow.
During the night for the ghosts I do pray and bow.
Winds send the phosphorus lights back toward the West.
Twinkling stars and floating fireflies are in peace now.
Gift of Incantations
After the holy day for ghosts, who would come here? Do not stick by your dry bones for many a year!
I present to you some Buddhist incantations.
Take your lotus seat in the West and have no fear!
Feeling Sorrow for the Living Beings
Among the graves some spaces saved already;
Some of the living beings here will be buried.
May I ask to see if you know to rest now?
Why those people in China-town are so hurry?
Coming out from the Hermitage
like floating clouds I've made my home one in all.
I've shared your wind & sands in this graveyard-hall!
Now I take leave from you before the Spring ends;
I could not bear to see all the flowers fall!!
To the Cemetery and Back
Leonard Price
In this city, as in all, the dead are granted a little space. Our business and pleasure take us past the old iron gates a hundred times on the way to seemingly more immediate destinations. But on this odd morning when time hangs lightly and pure chance finds us here gazing over these hills of stone and ivy, let us actually turn our steps into the cemetery and along its crooked paths. The day is fine (or certainly we'd never venture here), the flowers glisten with last evening's rain, and a fair fragrance rises with the first breeze. Just inside the gates somebody stands at an easel and paints flowers. Farther off, a caretaker trims a hedge. The signs are propitious--we shall have privacy but not solitude, and the morning's grace restrains the onslaught of gloom. We may even, carefully, allow ourselves to think thoughts appropriate to the place.
On these finely tended hillsides the music of birds mingles strangely with the numberless testimonies of death. The earth is half-paved with stone remembrances and the middle air is full of obelisks and angels. Names and dates surround us, some sharp and raw, some worn nearly to oblivion, all crowding upon us with the particulars of spent lives--of this family, of this age, with these virtues, with this hope of heaven. What can this mean to us, especially if we have no family here? The breeze flings a rag of shade across the bright grass: We too shall die. The birds sing, the bees hum in violets, and the thought is not so terrible. Not so terrible, we remind ourselves, if the fever of life ends here, swathed in honeysuckle and southern airs.
We stroll on, reading the chronicles of grief: beloved wife, infant aged three days, son, darling children. Generations are drawn from the world by the chain of mortality. Do these stones mark an ending or only a continuance? The deceased fare on according to their deeds while we living stay to grieve. Where is there an end? These picturesque stones only mark the limit of our knowledge. Dress them how you will, O gardener, they bespeak our helplessness.
The rumble of the city dwindles and fails in these granite acres until a somber stillness attends our steps. Despite our resolutions and the sparkling sun, we are troubled and would turn back to the gates, but unaccountably we are lost and the hills roll on with their bare legends. Nothing to do but keep walking. Assuredly we still live, and while we live we can try our philosophies against enormous mortality around us. Look now, a butterfly flails at the air in what we hope is joy. Beneath that tomb lives a chipmunk--see him frisk about and vanish into his hole. We are briefly cheered and then plunged in doubt, for why should we lament the extinction of life and hail its uprising and its repetition? We grow weary of sentiments careening back and forth and wish for equilibrium within the volatile universe. Samsara, we are told, is the terrible round of birth and death, but this disquiet, this rotation of doubt--is it not samsara as well?
Hardly can we set a foot down for fear of treading wrongly, so crowded is this cemetery. We walk narrowly, wobbling on over the beautiful, terrible hills. Here where the path straightens for a moment let us pause and experiment by closing our eyes. At once the world collapses into red darkness and the pressure of wind and sun. Now we shall take a step, hesitantly, feeling the gravel underfoot, imagining boundaries and perils. We move further. Somewhere the ground drops off, but where? Anxiety throws its coils around us, and we are walking through our minds--with danger unseen but guessed on every side. Open, eyes! The world blurs back to us, green and lovely, composing itself slowly and almost mockingly. Are we quite sure what is real? Are we quite sure we understand death?