(from wikipedia)
Śarīra is a generic term referring to Buddhist relics, although in common usage it usually refers to pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters. Relics of the Buddha after cremation are termed dhātu in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta.[1] Śarīra are held to emanate or incite 'blessings' and 'grace' (Sanskrit: adhiṣṭhāna) within the mindstream and experience of those connected to them.[2] Sarira are also believed to ward off evil in the Himalayan Buddhist tradition.
Terminology
Śarīraḥ (pronounced sharirah) means "body" in Sanskrit. When used in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts to mean "relics", it is always used in the plural: śarīrāḥ. The term ringsel is a loanword from the Tibetan language. Both of these terms are ambiguous in English; they are generally used as synonyms, although according to some interpretations, ringsels are a subset of śarīras.
Relics of Sariputta and Moggallana
A quick bit of background information about me so you understand my attitude about relics, superstition, blind faith, and devotional aspects of spiritual practice (of any religion). I'm focused on the bare essentials of core Dharma principles and instructions on liberation, and have no interest in spiritual practices that don't directly address that goal, nor have interest in collecting any religious paraphernalia or material possessions beyond the barest essentials for survival. My idea of the perfect house, is a small empty hut, a yoga mat, fresh clean air, big trees and big rocks near by. That's it. No Buddha statue, no amulets, no cumbersome material possessions to look after. I came into the world with nothing, I'm going to leave with nothing, and see no reason for things to be any different in between.
About 10 years ago, my friend gave a gift to our family of two sarira (bone relics from cremation). One from each of the Buddha's chief disciples, Sariputta and Maha-Moggallana. The 2 relics were contained in a miniature crystal container, and placed next to the statue of the Buddha in our meditation room.
When I first got the relics, I was excited for about 5 minutes. Then I thought, "even if these are the real thing, genuine relics of the 2 chief disciples, so what? Is that going to make me attain arahantship any faster?" So mostly I forgot about it. Maybe over the 10 years, 2 or 3 times I vaguely recalled that I possessed relics from the two Chief Arahants. But otherwise, I never looked at them, never worshipped them, never thought about them.
1. Strange sound with only 1 drop, no followup bounces
Yesterday morning, as I as sitting in my family's meditation room meditating, I heard what sounded like a tiny object dropping and hitting something hard. I thought, "is that a bird or chipmunk on the roof?"2. A thought pops into my mind that doesn't feel like something I would think
Then I thoguht, "did one of the sarira just multiply and make that dropping sound?"If it was a pebble dropping on the roof, the eerie thing is there was no followup sound of the pebble bouncing a few times. It was a single drop sound, and completely silent before and after that. And it was not the sound of birds or chipmunks running across the roof which happens at times.
After my meditation, I went up to the altar to check. My parents have all kinds of tibetan and mahayana religious artifacts up there. I couldn't tell what was what, and couldn't tell if any artifacts were the Arahant sarira. I didn't even remember exactly what was given to us originally. Was it the Buddha and Sariputta's sarira? Or the Buddha and both disciples?
As I stated earlier about my views on the purpose of spiritual practice and religious artifacts, even though I was curious to look at the relics, I wasn't even motivated enough to mention this incident to my parents and find out from them which artifact was the sarira, to check and see if they multiplied.
This should have been the end of my story.
3. My mom has a thought pop into her mind that she rarely ever thought
Later that day or the next morning, after my parents did their meditation, my mom suddenly had a thought to look at the Arahant sarira and show them to my dad.When she looked, she was surprised to see there was an extra relic. My dad took a look, then noticed there was not just one extra relic, but two.
4. Teleportation of extra guest relics by devas (Guardian angels, Dharma protectors)
That would be the devotional Buddhist explanation.Skeptics would say, the 2 extra relics are just the result of natural crystalline growth. I don't know much about rock and mineral science, but you can see from video clip and pictures, the two extra ones were in ambient room temperature for 10 years with no exposure to volatile chemical catalysts, they don't have shared crystal surface walls that look like fractured pieces grown from the original.
30 second video showing the sarira that are there now (4 of them)
cel phone cameras don't seem to be able to take detailed pictures of very small items
A note from my friend describing what was originally given to me 10 years ago (2 items: 1 sarira belonging to sariputta, and 1 belonging to moggallana).
Email response from my friend confirming note above, that they gifted me with just 2 relics, not 4:
Congratulations to you and your family. Yep, we heard similar story before that relic would grow when people practice diligently (and relic may disappear if people do not practice hard). Seems like we also had 1 relic increased long time ago. I think the relic that we got nowadays are not the origin and are probably “duplicated”.
Yep, the note was written by me, it describes the white yellowish one is Sariputta and the brown one is Moggallana.
the crystal container in which the sarira are stored in,
placed next to a buddha statue in a meditation room.
Packaging material of the crystal container,
and small silk bag that held the 2 original sarira.
crystal container opened, showing contents with 4 sarira today.
4 sarira removed from container
1. The first one on left, is Sariputta. You can't see the detail from the picture, but it's kind of white yellowish bony color.
2. next one, brown, is moggallana
3. 3rd one, is white, and it's not a broken fragment of #1.
4. The last one is translucent, maybe just slightly green tint, not quite a perfect sphere shape but pretty close. This one doesn't resemble any of the original two at all.
Just out of curiosity, I sniffed each of the sarira to see if at had any odor. One of them smelled a little of what you would expect earth or gravel to smell like. My mom said it was very disrespectful to the Buddha and arahants for me to sniff. I disagreed.
So the question is, what is the meaning of this?
Is there a coded message by Dharma protectors and devas, giving our family encouragement to continue practice diligently?(to be continued)
Related
A skeptic responds with an explanation of how my 2...
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I read in a book by ajahn Lee Dhammadharo that relics appeared out of nowhere when he was conduing a meditation session with lay followers. Also i heard a story where an eminent Thai Forest monk was climibing up Adams Peak in Sri Lanka (its a very spiritual place supposedly the homeplace of Sumana Deva) and on his descent, there were relics in his shoulder bag.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing.
btw, the colors of Sariputta and Moggallana's sariras here seem to match the descriptions of their skin colors in the old tales. Sariputta had a "golden complexion", while Moggallana had dark skin.
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