Death and Life: The Eight Great Charnel Grounds
Death is the mystery that must be discovered on the path to the Deathless. In the tradition of the Mahasiddhas, the Charnel Grounds were places where these mysteries could quicken, due to the blessings and auspiciousness of these secret lands.
Mandalas often include a ring around the periphery called "The Charnel Ground." Beyond this ring there is usually a ring of multicolored flame: which is emblematic of the principle of the fractal--the flame border is no different than the bindu at the center of the mandala: the mandala is a circle whose circumfrence is its center.
If the center of the mandala is the dharmakaya, the realm of openness beyond limitation, like a black hole of infinite density, emitting no light because no distance exists in infinity; then the next designated space of the mandala is the sambhogakaya, the realm of light emitting as energy. Energy that is differentiated into the various colors of the rainbow, but like a rainbow, visible but not as a solidified object. Then the next layer is the Nirmanakaya, the realm of tangible appearances, where energy takes the form of objects that have dimensions and solidity. This layer of reality is the Charnel Ground, the actual phenonmenological horizon, the finite edge of this unimaginable fractal called life.
The Charnel Ground has its own lexicon of iconography that is an integral part to the expression of the mandala. Mandalas often are drawn as palaces, they are represented as palaces of light. Each quadrant of a mandala usually has its corresponding color, and there are various gates and retinues of deities. But the Charnel Ground is a completely different place: a place of corpses being eaten by wild animals, a place inhabited by vultures and tigers. A place of stupas and rugged mountains. These images are quite sharp in contrast with the deity palaces with its ornate and beautifully wrought metalwork and well-dressed retinue, so there is a sharp contrast in images here that begs the question, "What is the relationship between these layers and how can these different realms be part of a complete mandala?"
Stories of Tantrikas of India tell of how yogis used to frequent these frightening haunts. Charnel grounds were even more horrible than cemeteries; at least cemeteries were orderly, where bodies were disposed of in a way that hid them from view. Charnel grounds were like palaces of wild death, they were places where death paraded, unmasked. Bodies were strewn or hacked up to make them easier to be eaten. Animals lay in wait until sundown where they knew the bodies would be waiting so patiently for them. These were frightening places, places people would avoid, places where death had no dignified posture: no hands folded across the chest, no flower in a breast pocket. This was a place where one glance might never be forgotten, the splayed bodies in such uncomfortable positions for the living, so undignified, so grotesque.
These were the places where yogis and yoginis would come together for feast gatherings on the tenth and twenty-fifth day of the lunar calendar to sing and dance and play music and cavort throughout the night. They didn't have to worry about anyone coming who was not invited to their sacred feast because everyone else was too afraid; everyone who was not willing to acknowledge the reality of death was too spooked to go anywhere near there at night. But the feast celebrated was the Ganachakra Puja, the Ceremony of the Wheel of Bliss: somehow a joyful celebration was always going off on these evenings, amidst this gruesome scene. How could that be, and why there? What does the Charnel Ground have to do with our day-to-day lives today?
The Charnel Ground is what we see when we shine a light on our lives: there are so many messes that need to be cleaned up and so many others that just go on rotting. We treat the unfinished business of our lives like corpses in a charnel ground. We're running along a path that goes near the place and we hustle by trying not to look at the face that is staring in our general direction. We can't look up because we know that it has something to communicate to us but we are too afraid to look and yet, even though we're hurrying along we can't pretend that the smell is not there. In fact we have to blow our nose a few times even a mile away to get that smell out as we continue to stubbornly avoid what we can't help but be: in this edgy series of dichotomies, these forays in an endlessly unfinished and see-sawing work called life, in a place called the third dimension: this realm of opposites which never get squared away.
Look: there's a yogi in the Charnel Ground. He is sitting on a corpse, he's naked and covered with ashes from the cremation fires. He raises a thighbone trumpet to his lips, he is playing a massive double-sided drum made of human skulls and looking up into the sky. He turns to you, and waves you over as he continues to play, the horn blaring in a high-pitched warble. You wonder who this music is being played for. You see him stop playing and look down at the body. He cups the face in his hand: it is the face of a young girl, her eyes are almost shut with such a faraway look. He traces her eyebrows, his hands follow the contours of her cheeks, her forehead, his hands run through her hair with such tenderness and attention.
This is the challenge the yogi brings to his everyday life. The challenge of looking closely at every inch of that which we try to hide from the world, that which we try to hide from ourselves. The charnel ground is most fertile ground, and isn't that the way it is? Death feeding life feeding death? Our countless failings, our myopias, our schemes, hidden from view. These are our teachers on the path. We must somehow hold this ambiguity within ourselves in order to be truly human; we are free only to the degree that we are able to acknowledge our lack of integrity in any moment. Without an unflinching and gentle desire to look into the face of everything we try not to be, these unsavory qualities of our character, these human failings, become our keepers, and we blindly go on hurting ourselves and others, ignorant of what we are actually doing.
The Charnel Ground is the place where the Wheel of the Law, our spiritual practice, actually hits the road. It is not easy to continuously put ourselves in such a raw vulnerable and inconvenient place as the Charnel Ground, but there actually is nowhere else to go. This messy world will continue to spin agitating the messes and stirring all kinds of shit up, and if it ain't going to be one thing, it'll definitely be another. We constantly have this powerful choice to make: are we going to take ourselves so seriously that we can't admit our mistakes to ourselves, our dear friends and everyone else? What kind of foundation are we actually creating for our life if we can't do this simple thing, this gift of total honesty?
It is at this point where we might begin to think that the yogi's foundation, as he sits on the body of the dead corpse might not be that bad, metaphorically speaking. Especially if we consider that in the realm of the Charnel Ground, the only other way besides the yogi's way is the path of the living dead, the zombies. Zombies are symbolic of those who have decided that consistently lying to yourself is better than a moment of discomfort and the gift of today's truth, and so they are the living dead. They are beings whose "hearts smell like farts." Under the spell of the undead, they have somehow gotten so used to living a lie that they can't smell themselves anymore. But althought they seem to be blissfully oblivious to the smell of theirn own rotting flesh, zombies keep the company of other zombies most of the time, and they often suffer the stench of their rotting friends. Sometimes, at risk to the longevity of their own lies, they even let them know, but unfortunately, these type of conversations always end badly.
