Flesh Body Buddha

Recently there was a report of an undecaying body of a monk in Lingquan Monastery, Anyang, Henan province of China. The monk's name is Wu Yunqing and he had passed away in 1998, but his body remains intact 8 yrs later. One of his disciples in Anyang, a certain Su Huaren spreaded the rumour that the Master was 160 yrs old at the time of death. However this has been refuted by the villagers who came from the hometown of Master Wu. They verified that he is around a more believable 102 yrs old.

Master Wu's body has since been put up in a crystal casket for display & veneration. Tickets to the monastery has been raised to 20 RMB, worthy of a tourist attraction. The disciple Su unashamedly used the body as an advertisement for the "Longevity Nei-dan Chi-gong" course that he is conducting for 280 RMB. Regarding the undecaying state of the body, a doctor from the Chinese Medicial College in Henan suspected it was preserved with formalin because the colour of the body is consistent with that kind of "treatment". But he is not able to verify it as the monastery people do not allow anybody to examine the body up close.

I tend to believe that it is not a real undecaying body, for after seeing the undecaying body of LP Tong in Thailand, as well as in other places, I have little doubt that Master Wu's body is a more likely to be a well-preserved mummy. In any case, putting up the body, which is merely a stinking sack of skin for worship as though it is the Buddha is inconsistent with the true teachings. The Buddha is not to be found in a corpse, undecaying or otherwise. He is only to be found in our own mind. The same could be said for holy relics. The relics of the illusionary body are easy to see, like seeing form relfected in a mirror. But the true relics, the relics of the Dharmakaya are hard to see indeed, as hard as trying to catch the moon in a lake. Worthless is the pursuit of outer forms for enlightenment. What more for trying to preserve it with Taoist chi-gong in life, & with formalin in death? Verily, that foolish man Su is a corpse-horder who puts his Master to shame.