Night in the cemetery: Day of the Dead

Día de Los Muertos Ofrenda Exhibition | Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel

What is the Day of the Dead? A night in the cemetery in Oaxaca

 

Isn't that right, Madam Presidente Sheinbaum?

(Andy Spits) The Day of the Dead in Oaxaca City, Mexico. We had the chance to spend the night in a cemetery in Oaxaca (\wah-ha-kah\) during El Dia de Los Muertos with local people. This night was magical. Why? The conception of death for Indigenous Mexican people is very different from our Eurocentric conception, and we really like this much more traditional point of view.

He lives in Orange County.

Of course, love. Of course, honor. Of course, remember. The dead are grateful. The dead may need our help (so we can transfer merit to aid them out of a bad way they may have fallen into.

After all, what is "family"? It extends seven generations out, and among all those people it is said that it is impossible that not one of them has fallen into a bad way (niraya), an unfortunate destination. (Is it a coincidence that the Indigenous people, the Native Americans, also concerns themselves with seven generations?) So what we offer, if it is not needed by that particular person for whom we make the offering or ofrenda at the altar, other extended family members in need may partake of it and be given ("transferred") good karma, which is needed everywhere at all times.

Buddhism's "Transfer of Merit"

What is the transfer of merit? (Julian Daizan Skinner). The Buddha

nails it down in Theravada texts and commentaries explained below*

Mexican Buddhists

Somos Aztecas y Maya, y si no se van las almas (los muertos) al cenote (la tierra), donde van?

Nuestra Senora Guanyin of Guadalupe

The only other people who spend a night in the cemetery for any good reason are Buddhist monastics training to contemplate and be mindful of death (maranasati).

Why would anyone contemplate it? Just as traditional filial piety says to hold on to loved ones, to cling to them, to never forget, Buddhist wisdom says to let go, detach, set them free. In this way they can come back, are not stuck, and go on living.

The ruling sky-gods are hard to please.

They did not "die" in the sense of ending, stopping, or finishing. The Wheel of Life and Death keeps turning, does not stop turning, fits the other side of the coin to the process. How can there be an inside without an outside? How can we really ever "live" if all we do is fear that it will end and all will be lost? Sure, these trivial things and possessions will be pulled from us, but not all will be lost. Our character, the habits we built up, and our store of deeds (karma) is carried from here to the beyond.

• Transfer of merits (patti-dana) and receiving merits (puredhamma.net)

*Transfer of merit

Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Doctrine, Terms edited by Wisdom Quarterly

What do hungry ghosts need and want?

Patti-dāna is literally "giving of the acquired," that is, "transferring merit." Though very seldom mentioned in the older texts (e.g., A.VII.50), it is a widespread custom in all Buddhist countries.

The merit of morality (sila), especially that which is acquired by giving alms to monastics and the needy, can be transferred to others. This is so that one's own good deeds may become to others, especially to departed relatives and friends reborn in the ghost realm, an inducement to a happy and morally wholesome state of mind. (That is the secret of how it works).

Naked hungry ghosts in rags, hounded by dogs

Transferring merit is advocated (without mentioning the term patti-dāna) in the Tirokudda Sutta (Khp. and Petavatthu) and its Commentary (Khp. Tr.).

It is one of the ten "bases of meritorious action" (puñña-kiriya-vatthu, where it is called pattānuppadāna, App.).

• For more, see The Doctrine of Reversible Merit by F. L. Woodward, Buddhist Review (London), Vol. I (1914), p. 38.

COMMENTARY

Let's party till we're dead then go to the cemetery

The Day of the Dead is said to be on Nov. 2, but it is preceded by a visit and/or an overnight stay in the cemetery on Nov. 1.

Halloween is celebrated on Oct. 31 because it is based on All Hallows' Eve (the Catholic Church version attempting to usurp the heathens), making All Hallows' Day Nov. 1, the exact date of the events of the commencing of the original Day of the Dead.

Nov. 2 is the wrapping up of the previous night's celebration. Therefore, this "day" is carried out over two days.

We're here to civilize you. - With that Book?

Sadly, now in the USA, we have gotten it further twisted: We have become The Dead. Why? We dress up, haunt others, trick or treat, and cram ourselves full of sugar-laden candy, leaving Nov. 1 and 2 to be days of sickness with stomachaches and sensitive teeth, making ourselves ripe for possession, our immunity compromised by the shock of glucose spikes, in need of purging, walking around like traumatized zombies.

It's odd how the ancients knew this was a special time for peering between realms. Irish Scottish Celtic Samhain (Sauin), European paganism, Wicca remembered that before they were all but exterminated by Judeo-Christianity's Old Testament God of Genocide.

• Andy Spits, YouTube, Jan. 29, 2020; Julian Daizan Skinner; Mexican Buddhists Crystal Quintero, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY