Body of a courtesan in nine stages
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
Dear friends around the world,
I found this to be interesting. Obviously people have had attachments to the body which causes us to take up actions that bind us for a lifetime pulling us away sometimes from higher spiritual attainments. We think we can do something for a while, but it just leads us deeper and deeper till we are stuck. The Buddhist practice of meditating on the body decomposing is not something to be morbid or fantasy or something that is whimsical. The decomposition of our body will happen one day. So when we fast forward and meditate on this eventual truth, it helps us to bring our lives into true perspectives immediately. A courtesan is a thing of beauty, refinement, art and pleasures. To meditate on a courtesan’s ‘truth’ body of eventuality is powerful to bring the eventuality home. The irony of this thing of extreme beauty ‘designed’ for sensory pleasure having the ability to decay into something putrid, horrid and unrecognizable is a reality of all our bodies. In fact everything in existence’s nature is this truth which is decay, decomposition and it’s final. So this makes it an object ‘perfect’ for meditation. Of course this can be substituted for anything we have attachments for. The female body is no worse than the male’s. But previous patriarchal societies tend to focus the female as more an object of pleasure be it right or wrong.
Actually if we think about it carefully, we have 9 actual obvious orifices on our bodies besides the thousands of pores. The substances that come out of these orifices are putrid, smelly, toxic, dirty and filled with germs. Whether it is ear wax, snots, eye mucus, saliva, urine, feces or just sweat from all of our pores, these are dirty and not clean in nature. If our body is left to its ‘natural’ state unmanaged, only impurities are produced from it. Why are we attracted to these foul discharges? Why are we attracted to the foul body that produces these discharges is the point of this illustration. This goes for male and female. So when a person meditates on these qualities of the body, it is to create a distance and space by using the truth of the nature of the body to focus on more higher purposes of the body than just eating, copulating, sleeping, dressing, indulgences of the senses. We get lost on the daily maintenance and pleasuring of the body. Our lives are spent in this way and just passes us by quickly. As a result of realizing this true nature of the body, one sees the body as an actual and perfect vehicle to pursue one’s spiritual aspirations and gain spiritual results that is related to the temporary body but not a permanent component of the body. The body is therefore used as a vehicle to house the mind to gain spiritual attainments. One’s pursuits and aims become spiritual and not maintenance based for the body. With all the maintenance we give the body, in the end it just abandons us and dies and decomposes. No amount of maintenance can prevent this truth. This meditation results in a person not being overly attached to the body and uses it for a higher purpose that goes beyond self indulgences.
The amount of work in exercise, medication, food, sustenance, sleep, cleaning, hygiene necessary to the body’s intact and well-being is already daily and time consuming. Never ending in fact. Why add to that? We end up spending all of our time to just maintaining the body and in the end we just discard it like we leave a hotel room. So the purpose of this meditation is to focus on the transitory nature of our bodies, and all the work we put into maintaining and pleasuring will end up just in a pile of bloating decomposition makes us think how we can spend our time better. We should use our temporary body for something more and better. Something that is useful in this life for ourselves, those around us and our future lives. We should maintain our bodies, keep it healthy and clean but for the express purpose of spiritual gains and not simply for the sake of maintenance and pleasure. We don’t over focus and get caught up with cleaning, fixing, decorating a hotel room which we are just borrowing. Why waste so much time on something temporary?
Tsem Rinpoche
Body of a courtesan in nine stages: A 19th century study of decomposition
BY STRANGEREMAINS on JUNE 24, 2014
Painting, handscroll. Body of a courtesan in nine stages of decomposition. Ink and colour on silk. Image credit: The British Museum
“Body of a Courtesan in Nine Stages” was painted on handscroll by Japanese artist Kobayashi Eitaku in the 1870’s. It’s not unusual for artists to study corpses and body parts because of their need to learn about the human form, and because of the historical connection between the science of anatomy and artistic illustration. What makes this style unique is that it’s part of a Japanese artistic tradition devoted specifically to the study of human postmortem changes that stretches back hundreds of years.
“Body of a Courtesan in Nine Stages” is an example of kusozu, the illustration of a decomposing corpse, that was popular in Japanese art from about the 13th to 19th centuries. Kusozu was inspired by Buddhist beliefs that urged followers to meditate on the temporary nature of life and the physical world by contemplating postmortem changes. The below panels illustrate nine stages of death that include: (1) dying; (2) newly deceased or fresh; (3) skin discoloration and bloat during early decomposition; (4) leakage of blood in early decomposition; (5) skin slippage, marbling, and leakage of purge fluid during early decomposition; (6) caving of abdominal cavity and exposure of internal organs during advanced decomposition; (7) animal scavenging during advanced decomposition; (8) skeletonization; and (9) extreme decomposition.
Though the painting maybe religious and/or scientific in nature, according to the British Museum it also has erotic themes. Because the subject matter is a courtesan, the curator notes for this piece at the British Museum say that this handscroll also falls into the genre of erotic art, or shunga. The word shunga means picture of spring in Japanese. The word “spring” is a common synonym for sex.
Below are all 9 panels. All images come from The British Museum.
Source: http://strangeremains.com/2014/06/24/body-of-a-courtesan-in-nine-stages-a-19th-century-study-of-decomposition/
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The scrolls are indeed presentation of morbid female anatomy. But is an excellent meditation piece which can awaken the reality and the undeniable truth on impermance.
This is such an excellent teaching on understanding the reality of human bodies and to overcome our attachment to our own body and to curb our lust (attachment to other’s bodies)
It’s a good reminder of what we should be using our bodies for. Instead of using our bodies for pleasure, beauty & glory, we should be using it for a good cause and to benefit others. After all, at the time of death, our body will betray us. It won’t matter if we have the most beautiful, well-groomed body because at the time of death, the only thing that can help us is the Dharma and all the virtuous deeds we did when we were alive.
These pictures reminded me of Kawang, https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/buddhas-dharma/kawang-a-dorje-shugden-confessional-practice.html
This wrathful Confessional practice is extremely powerful when done correctly.
For people who don’t believe in karma and reincarnation, they will think they only have one lifetime so they have to enjoy it to the maximum. That is why people chase after money, wealth, fame and comfort. People tend to think for themselves before anything else.
When we learn Dharma, we understand that we will take rebirth again and again and be stuck in this cycle. If we have the merits and karma, we will take rebirth in a human form and continue to practice Dharma. But if our negative karma is too strong, we will take rebirth in the three lower realms and we have to suffer for a very long time until our karma exhausted.
However, accepting rebirth and karma is one thing, to realise it and do something for our future life is another thing. In order to push ourselves to practice, death meditation if done correctly, will help us to transform our mind and optimise our precious human life. Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this with us.
All attachment is the roots of sufferings. Letting go of it , do more meaningful things in life to benefit others before times up. A profound teachings and reminder of how impermanence of our body are which sooner or later eventually will leave and decomposed . Practising death meditation will helps us to realise the importance of this human life and to do more virtuous acts. Thank you Rinpoche for this sharing.
Thank you Rinpoche for this teaching and reminder. We always think we have so much time and concentrate so much in making our body look good and using it to generate wealth which in the end didn’t bring us anything happiness that can last long. We should in fact use our temporary body to work on bringing benefit on others and to generate more merits that can help ourselves and others. Hence we should do more dharma and not waste our time on unnecessary things that will attract us into more worldly actions.
Thank you Rinpoche for this article. Recently I’ve been thinking about death a lot but now I realise there is no point in me thinking about it, my body will eventually decompose but this doesn’t mean I should waste my life. Thank you for this awakening I should now focus on practicing the Dhamma and helping others. Although I’ve been going through a tough time this has inspired me. I wish you a life free from suffering, and may we all attain Nibbana one day.
Thank you Rinpoche for the wonderful artile. Realising that we should not attach to our body so much, it is because in the end, it will decompose and back to the nature. However, we need to remain healthy so that we can use this body to conribute more in Dharma, it is because we are very fortunate to be born in human form this life, with complete body and wisdom to think and make decision. Thus, we should use this body to do more Dharma.
Thank you again Rinpoche for the article.
Best regards,
TekLee
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for this article, and a stark reminder to something that we take for granted. We treasure our bodies tremendously, we fit it in the best clothes, the best jewellery, the most expensive bags and shoes, we take it to travel the world, and give it the best foods (sometimes at the expense of the lives of other animals!), but yet, everything that comes out from our body is putrid – from sweat, to blood, to mucus, phlegm, wax, faeces etc, no matter how much resources we spend on our bodies. We spend so much money, time, energy and effort, to take care of our body, which is decaying to something that would be indistinguishable from one another eventually. From the moment we are born, we are closer to death. When we are able to realise that, it wakes us up to ‘using’ our bodies for a bigger purpose – to help and benefit others more than ourselves through our actions, deeds, thoughts, speech. Most of us are given a golden opportunity with our body’s faculties fully intact, our senses, and a precious life, so what do we do with it? We can spend our whole lives acquiring and obtaining, and beautifying the body which will result in not much, or we can maintain our bodies, as we need to, but use it to collect merit, like an offering to the Buddhas, by doing Dharma, or even beneficial works for others. Our choice makes the difference and our realisation of our eventual decaying body propels us to that.
Carmen
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this teaching. What strike me the most is that it is very rare that we take rebirth as a human form in our samsara cycle. It is precious for us to seize this rare chance of collecting merits and continuing my spiritual practice because after death, my karma follows me like my shadow and i will not have any control to it.
Whatever we did to our body during the life time will have no value and will not help us in our karma (in fact it will only create more negative karma for us because of over indulgence on our body). Our body will just rot away and all the effort and money we invested on this ‘vehicle’ this life will not matter anymore. What matters is that what we did with our body form to benefit others, as a vehicle to collect merits and develop our spiritual paths.
As the chance of taking rebirth as a human is rare, we must make use of this chance to develop our spiritual path and not to waste this opportunity. Thank you Rinpoche for keep reminding us about this, showing us the reality and serve us this beautifully honest wake up call.
隨著時代的變遷，人在短暫的年華裡，把大部分精力都投注在外在而非內在，結果演變成人心的空蕩。追求美麗的事物是正常的，但絕不應過度。如今，『華而不實』已成普遍，理所當然，而沒有人察覺其實身體正在出賣自己。當你“裝飾”她，她給你外在的美麗，但身體裏頭卻悄悄地腐蝕，包括身理與心理。
仁波切利用『飯店』來比喻人類的身體，真是恰當，將謹記於心。
Thank you Rinpoche!
I remembered Rinpoche spoke about how we are so attached to our body using the examples of the substances that come out of the 9 orifices. Imagine we have an empty pail in front of us, and slowly we put in the smelly, toxic and dirty substances i.e urine, saliva, feces and sweat produced by our body, and now the pail is full.
Then we carry this pile of substances everywhere with us, to travel, work, bedroom, restaurants, clubs etc. It may sound gruesome to some, however Rinpoche said before it’s exactly how we spent so much time maintaining our body on daily basis. We go for facial, hair salon, plastic surgery just to look good. Then we go travel/eat/play/work and make sure we fulfil our desire and be happy about it.
When one is overly-obsessed by the beauty of our body, the above analogy is a great reminder for us to refrain from wasting time/effort/money on unnecessary indulgence/desire/attachment that is contrary to the core teaching of Buddhism.
We will age, this is a natural process. We cannot stop the aging process, our body, our appearance do not stay the same, spending so much time and effort to hold on to something impermanent is a waste. It is better to cultivate our mind, our good qualities because these are something we bring along with us when we die. Our lives are short, it is better to spend the limited time cultivating a positive mind and attitude than to find ways to maintain the look or the body that eventually will betray us.
Thank you Rinpoche for the informative article. This article teaches us not to be attached so much with our body and also with the worldly things. This is because one day this body will degenerate and won’t last. We will die and we will leave this body. So, might as well we use this body to do something good and meritorious that we can bring to our future lives. Thank you _/\_
Regards,
Vivian
感谢仁波切的教诲与开示，
人生，我们需要注重我们的仪容与身体，那是因为我们必须互相尊重与出于礼貌，但是我们却不能这样却物极必反，如果过了头，那么就会变成是一份执着，而这份执着将只会带来“痛苦”…..
每一个人，无论您是什么样的身份地位，也无论你在生前多么的美丽与俊俏，即使我今天是一位贵妇抑或是一位妓女，当死亡来临的那一个，其实大家所面对的过程，其实是一样与没有分别的，每一个人都必须经历生老病死的过程，我们听的多，我非常感兴趣的读到这篇贴子关于死亡后所面对的整个过程其实大家都是一样的…
即使今生我们因着不同的因果而受生不同的身份地位，我们也因着不同的因果而对与不同的人事物“执着”而沉沦与痛苦，其实到生命结束的那一刻，大家是一样的，我们善待彼此吧….
谢谢
Jerry
The depiction by this artist of the courtesan is very interesting. Is true that our body once we are born will just continue to degenerate as we age. And that cannot be stopped even if we have all the money in the world to do any from of surgery. It will just degenerate until we die.
We see this all around, from our own parents to ourselves that nothing we can do to stop death or aging. Therefore, Rinpoche often teaches us to contemplate on death, not because we are morbid but because by accepting death, we will let go of our attachments, the very reasons that brought us down in this life.
“Age gracefully” is not how you look, but what you are doing and have done that makes a person beautiful and that cannot be erase with age.
谢谢仁波切的分享
仁波切也曾经多次在不同场合给予关于我们身体本质的法教。
我们身体就是我们最大的“叛徒”。 无论我们如何照顾、保清洁我们的身体或外表， 我们还是一样会变老、皮肤失去光泽、皱纹细纹等等都会出现在我们脸上。 姑且不说这些长期的老化现象， 就算是我们今天早上已经洗澡， 把身体洗刷一番， 出门之前还喷香水， 一天结束过后我们的身体还是一样会肮脏， 发出臭味。 这就是我们身体的本质， 所有排出我们身体的汗、尿等等都是肮脏的。
所以我们应该好好利用我们有限的身体利益别人， 修行佛法。 我们的身体总有一天会坏， 唯有我们所做的功德会随着我们死后决定我们的下一世。
谢谢
It is true that there is a lot of work needed to maintain our body and all it does is to deteriorate as the days goes by. If we do not take care of it, then it will degenerate faster. So, all that we do and spend in taking care of our body, to beautify it will end up in a decomposed pile when we die. Hence, we will need to meditate on death so that we will not be so attached to our body that we lose focus on what is important.
The fact that we have a human body is the most fortunate thing we could have this life because it allows us to study and practice Dharma to gain enlightenment. It is the most conducive of the six realms. And we will not know when we will have this opportunity again.
This is an interesting way to meditate on death. As how Rinpoche explained it, the body of a courtesan is defined as an object of sense pleasure, and by seeing how a courtesan’s body decaying, it acts to help us to see what are the truly essential things we need to do.
Asian culture is greatly influenced by Buddhism. This art piece clearly depicted no matter how beautiful we are, we will die one day. We cannot escape the process of decomposition which our beautiful face and body will rot and smell, eventually what remains is a pile of white bones.
Realising it, it is important to prepare for our death while less obsessed in making ourselves look beautiful all the time.
Buddhism in Japan used to be very popular and widely practised. It is a pity that not many young people in Japan are practising Buddhism now.
Thank you Rinpoche for this enlightening post on IMPERMANENCE and a great reminder of what we are made off. To remind us that we should be less attached, not just our temporary shell (our body and beauty), but to also the desires of the senses.
The artist have beautifully illustrated this singular powerful truth of our state and by using the courtesan as the object representing “desire” is very clever. A courtesan is trained from young to be an artist of pleasure in all aspects of art and intellect, she is admired, desired, and sort after by many. However she is merely an illusion, moulded to enhance attachments. Truth is even something as beautiful as a courtesan will one day wither, die, decompose, smell, rot and be eaten my maggots.
The illustration of the process of how she decays highlights the ultimate truth of our human body. This meditation helps us not only to appreciate life, it also helps us cut our desires and attachments and on top of that remind us how we should use it… that is with purpose and not of the samsaric kind. To be wise and not be fooled by the courtesan (samsara), for it is all but a temporary illusion. Samsara uses and plays with our desires to latch us on to creating more negative karma, more vicious cycle to be stuck in samsara.
The courtesan reminds us of our immortality so we can choose the right path to take. The only path where we can rely on, the one true path that is permanent – the Dharma.
Some people may find the illustrations slightly gruesome, I must say that I was pretty shocked when I first saw these pictures. It’s normal to feel disgusted or shocked but I think that we also need to realise that this is the nature of our bodies, what comes out from our bodies are either smelly or dirty. We all will have to come to this point when we are dead, what’s important is that all the things we did when we were alive was not a waste of time.
This is just my personal views and I am not judging anyone, I am really sorry if it disturbs your mind. People party, drink and have all the fun they want, they definitely have the rights to do all these. But if we were to think about it carefully, are these activities beneficial? What’s important is that does it benefit us and others? When we go out have fun and drink all we want, we make our parents and friends worry, this is definitely not benefiting them nor us.
So why spend our whole life doing all these when we can actually use our time to help others instead? When we have done something beneficial, we will realise that the happiness we get from benefiting others very rewarding and encouraging, it inspires us and others to do more and benefit more people. I think that this is what happiness is all about, it is not something we feel great about for a moment and then nothing happens.
We may not be able to do much for now, but if we start off with doing small things or making tiny little changes, we create the cause for us to do more in the future and more people will be inspired to do the same. Do you know why? Because they see the positive transformation in us, and IT IS inspiring. 🙂
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the paintings. Having a human body is so rare and so precious because this body enable us to have the desire to liberate ourselves from samsara and attain Buddhahood. Unfortunately, we misused our body for more samsaric activities such as making money, enjoying the body, cheating others, killing each other and etc instead of using it to practice Dharma. We turned it into a vehicle that create more negative karma and we forgot about impermanence. We wasted the beautiful body that we received due to our effort and practice that we have done, the positive and merits that we accumulated from our pass lives.
The art work is so beautifully drawn.
What is amazing is that what Rinpoche teaches on impermanence and non-attachment to our bodies because it is temporary.. is also being illustrated hundreds of years ago in the 19th century.
Whether it is in Malaysia, Sinagpore, India, Tibet or Japan, the essence of Dharma teachings are same.
How true it is to depict our body as hotel rooms, and we are only “using” or “borrowing” it temporary to achieve higher and better useful means for ourselves and others in this lifetime and future.
The 9 stages of the drawings are indeed mind opening.
What an impact on my mind about the excretion from our major orifices and the thousands of pores are substances that are most unclean and contaminated.
Yet in our ignorance we hold onto the body which will age and create issues for us if we hold on to it.
The illustrations from these paintings are so profound that it makes us silly to even be bothered to be attached to our physical form of the body. It will fail us, unlike the care of our mind which well nurtured will bring great benefit to us.
We take nothing with us when our body fails and decay on death but only our Karma and the mind.
Protect not the physical form but the mind and karma.
Our body is indeed just a temporary vehicle that we reside in for this lifetime. It constantly betrays us despite the constant care and love that we shower it with. Betraying us through illnesses, and other things that it does that will consume our time just to maintain and make it pleasant.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing with us these illustrations. It very obviously shows us what happens after death. No matter how much effort we put into making it look good or even caring for it, the body still betrays us. There is nothing that we are able to do when that happens.
Through the illustrations it shows us very clearly why we should not constantly be so hung over about making it look good. We should be focusing on the things that will benefit us in the long run and not something that is so temporary that changes and betrays us constantly.
The illustrations have made it even clearer to me that we came with nothing and will definitely leave with nothing. What will happen to us is that the body decomposes and then we will be back to ashes that will only go to the ground. People forgetting who we are as time passes.
Incredible teaching on the impermanence of our bodies. The incredible thing is that we know this intellectually but our attachment to the pleasures of the senses blinds us. We don’t realize the futility of many of our actions of just pleasuring this body and using it to create more negative karma. Such rare art forms goes against mainstream culture of only seeking pleasure. Thank you rinpoche for an incredible experience of reminding ourselves of our mortality before it is too late.
Thank you Rinpoche for reminding that
everything is ephemereal and is simply vibrating at a level which we see & perceived as real
but there’s actually nothing there, but energy.
Just Emptiness.
With folded hands.
How deceiving and how sad but how liberating. Thank you Rinpoche.
Thank You Rinpoche for sharing the Kusozu by Japanese artist Kobayashi Eitaku. The images of a decomposing body is a vivid interpretation of impermanence. I agree with Sharon that this is a very good reminder to ourselves that our body is nothing but an empty shell after our death. We should make good use of it now before it is too late.
With folded palms, sincerely and humbly,
Stella
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing. This had reminds me how impermanence of our body are which eventually will leave and decomposed at its will.
Tashi Delek, Tulku
this is a wonderful reminder of this bag of bones we work so hard to make look good. When i lived in Malaysia i had attended Ven Mahinda’s contemplation of the body meditations… powerful.
Dear Rinpoche,
The graphic images are a good reminder of how our bodies are just an empty shell after we die. It is a good note to myself to use this temporary vessel meaningfully to the best of my abilities in this short time that I have left.
With folded hands, thank you for this post.