Ashes to Ashes

[Seiryu]

Today is Ash Wednesday (at least in this time zone, in this now) and it always was a meaningful day for me, to see so many out and about, many in business suits, in restaurants, on the subway and streets, going through their day with ashes on their foreheads.

A finger dips into the ashes. A cross is drawn upon the forehead. “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Nothing to argue with here.

What is this body? A gathering of earth, water, fire, and wind. A momentary swirl of conditions, a wave rising in the vast ocean. It takes shape, it moves, it breathes, it hungers, it laughs, it suffers, and then, as surely as it came, it goes. Dust to dust. Ash to ash.

The fire burns, the embers cool, the wind scatters what remains.

Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes before and after…

Gassho
Sat/Lah

[Seiko]

I am only a novice priest here, so please take anything I say with a pinch of salt.

Whenever someone mentions ash or fire I am transported to my first Segaki Toro. A purification/confession/promise to atone/new beginning.

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Jundo]

I am only a novice priest here, so please take anything I say with a pinch of salt.

Whenever someone mentions ash or fire I am transported to my first Segaki Toro. A purification/confession/promise to atone/new beginning.

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

Segaki Toro ... you have really lit a match, opened a can or worms and stirred up those ashes now (pun intended)!

Let me explain what this is.

Segaki (which literally means "Feeding the Hungry Ghosts" 施餓鬼, also called "Sejiki, or "Feeding the Man Ghosts" 食人鬼) is a traditional ceremony that is performed as a closing for Obon (お盆), the Japanese holiday to remember the dead ancestors. Segaki and Obon are found particularly in Japanese Buddhism, although with roots in very similar Chinese festivals for the dead (that are not necessarily Buddhist), and also is very likely related to similar festivals in South Asia such as Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Both Obon and Segaki are most like not originally "Buddhist" as such, but rather, ancient ceremonies to remember the spirits of dead ancestors that became part of Buddhism, had Buddhist mythology added long ago, so that it is no longer clear what is "ancestor worship" or honoring the dead spirits, and what is "Buddhism." It typically is held for some days in summer, in either July or August depending on the part of Japan one lives.

Dharma Rain Zen Center has a nice description ...

The name “Segaki” means “feeding the hungry ghosts,” and the rituals and practices done for this festival contain a great deal of teaching about training in Buddhism. On one hand Segaki is a time for remembering the dead and resolving our karmic connections with those who have died, but it is also a time for resolving our own internal karmic difficulties and for letting go of the obstacles and blockages we carry around with us. The festival is said to have begun when Moggallana, a disciple of the Buddha, was plagued by dreams of his recently departed mother suffering in a world in which she could neither eat nor drink. Food would turn to fire, and water would turn to blood or pus whenever it touched her mouth. Moggallana went to the Buddha and told him of his dreams, which tormented him every night. The Buddha explained that Moggallana was seeing the suffering of his mother in the world of the gakis (pretas in Sanskrit), or hungry ghosts. Gakis are usually depicted as having long skinny necks, with throats much too small for swallowing, and the bloated, bulging stomachs common with severe malnutrition. This imagery is a fantastic description of a spiritual state which can be seen every day, right here in the world of living women and men. It is a condition which everyone suffers from, to one degree or another, at some point in life.
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... Moggallana’s dreams were due to his deep connection with his mother, and the Buddha’s advice to him was that he should make an offering to her of whatever food she could most easily accept and digest. This was to be done in a ceremony, dedicated in her name, at the time when the monks conducted their regular gathering to confess their transgressions. ... In China, the seventh lunar month is the month of the dead. Nowadays, during this festival, many Chinese believe all the ghosts are released from hell for the entire month; like a great vacation. During this time, people pay respects to all their ancestors and make offerings to them, particularly of food. They also make offerings of entertainment, like Chinese opera, puppet shows, spectacles, and circuses; anything people think the ghosts might enjoy. The entire month becomes a huge celebration, and a time of great happiness when people feel very close to their ancestors; whether they happen to be in the realm of the gakis, or elsewhere. This quality of celebration is the same as the offering of dancing and joyous music done at Obon in Japan. Rather than being grim or solemn, the whole affair is very joyous, even raucous. In China, popular legend also has it that after giving aid to his mother, Moggallana made a vow to once again enter hell. He vowed to do his own practice there for the sake of those suffering in that realm. “If I do not do so, who else will?” he said. He became a Bodhisattva, an “enlightenment being” dedicated to helping others before enjoying final enlightenment himself, offering Dharma to all those suffering in the nether worlds. To this day he is venerated for this act of great compassion.

... Here at Dharma Rain Zen Center, the main Segaki ceremony, which is done in the morning, features an altar laden with food. The ceremony involves an invitation to all ghosts of every stripe anywhere to come join us, in effect asking all the unhappy, unresolved karma in the universe to come to the altar to receive the Dharma in the form of food. During the chanting and procession we offer incense and the names of people who have died in the past year are read. After the ceremony we help the gakis by eating the food on the altar ourselves! Next, a live gaki visits the Dharma School Children; this annual visit always brings joy (and a bit of apprehension) to the little ones, who must teach the ill-mannered gaki the way to behave in a temple, and a little of the Dharma if possible. The closing ceremony, Segaki Toro, is done in the evening. It is an intense, symbolic ritual of cleansing. During the ceremony a fire is lit in the fireplace, and slips of paper with the names of people who have died in the past year, along with the year’s transfer of merit cards, are fed to the fire. Anyone who wishes can write down some karma or problem that they wish to let go of or cleanse, and one-by-one, they put them on the fire themselves.

The themes of death, change, and spiritual transition have for centuries in the West been remembered in the autumn, at the time of change from light to dark, from heat to cold. In adapting Buddhist traditions to our culture, Dharma Rain Zen Center celebrates Segaki on or near Halloween or All Souls Day, [in October] when all the ghosts and goblins from the past come out of hiding. What better time to offer them merit and put them back to rest?

LINK

At Treeleaf, we do not celebrate Obon, but have a remembrance of our family, friends and everyone who is passed that is combined with our remembrance of the Buddha's passing from this visible world, the Nehan-e, in February, We just celebrated last month (LINK). In my opinion, and Nishijima Roshi's, Obon is more about Asian concepts of Ancestor Worship, and appeasing spirits and ghosts who might come back to haunt one if ignored, than Buddhism. I agree (It is a VERY strong feeling in Japan, and much of Asia, that if these ceremonies are not performed for the dead, they will be upset and come back to curse and haunt.) As you can read above, nice Buddhist meanings have been added to the ceremony, but I think it remains primarily that, so we do not celebrate Obon or Segaki here. If you would like to read a little more about some other reasons why not, you can read here:

https://forum.treeleaf.org/forum/treeleaf/weekly-daily-zazen-sitting-netcasts/about-our-treeleaf-chants/14950-about-the-holidays-we-don-t-mark-at-treeleaf#post14950

Most western Zen centers do not particularly celebrate Obon or Segaki. Those with Japanese native membership do. There are some exceptions, like the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives and Dharma Rain (which is derived from OBC), as well as Upaya and SFZC. A version of the Segaki ceremony was adapted by Bernie Glassman Roshi (and Upaya) for remembering the homeless and hungry in this world today and, while I was tempted to adapt such a ceremony here, the way it is written is filled with magical and esoteric elements such that I decided that the ceremony is not appropriate for this place, where I tend to avoid overtly magical and mystical incantations (Dharani) and such.

However, it is a lovely ceremony. Here is a video of a Segaki fire, performed by an OBC group (interestingly, with their signature, very non-traditional chants based on Christian hymns) ...
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Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Seiko]

Segaki Toro ... you have really lit a match, opened a can or worms and stirred up those ashes now (pun intended)!

Of course I am happy to be corrected by you Jundo. I will serve my time on the "naughty chair" with glee.

Jundo I agree with your views, but also I am laughing.

Yes, I mentioned Segaki Toro - as for me it's a fond memory of a past life, a life with OBC. I have no wish to go back to those days, but the past shapes us, and I am grateful to them. Fire destroys, but new growth comes. Ash becomes the soil for new trees and leaves.

My personal understanding of the version of Segaki Toro I have witnessed is :
Confession (Admission)
A Promise to atone

And in my mind, the ghosts are symbolic not real beings. My hungry ghosts are Longing, Regret, Unfinished Business, Procrastination. Anyway, logically speaking, there are far more dead people in the world than living, so if I believed in ghosts, we would be terribly outnumbered. It would be impossible to move around without continually bumping into them. Ha! Yep, I know you can't literally bump into a ghost.

As an aside - it's interesting how humans have a fascination with those primal elements - earth, wind, fire, water.

Screenshot_2025-03-07-16-33-31-30_4641ebc0df1485bf6b47ebd018b5ee76.jpg

Gasshō, Seiko, stlah

[Jundo]

Yes, I mentioned Segaki Toro - as for me it's a fond memory of a past life, a life with OBC. I have no wish to go back to those days, but the past shapes us, and I am grateful to them. Fire destroys, but new growth comes. Ash becomes the soil for new trees and leaves.

My personal understanding of the version of Segaki Toro I have witnessed is :
Confession (Admission)
A Promise to atone

Oh, it looks like a lovely ceremony.

What has happened in Buddhism is that many magical elements are reinterpreted in modern "psychological" terms so that people can keep them around in these skeptical times. So, even at Treeleaf, we talk about "Hungry Ghosts," but most Western Buddhist groups see them as symbols of the "inner greed" within us all. I think that, in the past, they were seen more as actual creatures. There are many other examples of this psychologizing of traditional things.

However, around here I tend to avoid actual ghosts and mythical creature, otherworldly Buddhas, literal spirit possessions, curses and magical incantations. In past centuries (and even today) people tend to believe in those things. Sorry, I try to avoid them.

So, the Hungry Ghost Feeding Ceremony is on the borderline. If expressed in symbolic, rather than literal, terms, I see its beauty and power.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah