“Yes, master, put the first iron pot into a second iron pot.”
“After that, build a fire (put lots of perfume in it obviously) and burn me in my pot-within-a-pot. After all that, build a shrine to me. Anyone who leaves flowers at my shrine will be rewarded.” (MPB 5:11)
“Will they become gods, master?”
“They will simply ‘receive benefits,’ Ananda, I’m not going to be any more specific than UUUHHHHHHHH …” Once again, I was suddenly overcome with pain and blacked out.
By that evening, I was moments from death. Before I left this world, however, I had one final disciplinary action to carry out. “Chandaka, my old friend and charioteer?” I whispered to my monks.
“Yes, Tathagata?”
I thought back to the day Chandaka had accompanied me in witnessing the Four Sights—the night he had helped me escape Father’s palace—the day he had joined my sangha. “Punish him,” I croaked, fading fast.
“Punish him, Tathagata?”
“Give him the worst possible penalty.”
“But why, Tathagata?”
“Because he has favored women. Ostracize him.” (MPB 6:4)
“Yes, Tathagata.”
I looked around at my monks; their faces were pained, many of them were struggling to maintain composure. I was a minute or two from death, I knew that. “Any final questions for the Tathagata, bikkhus?” I whispered. “Anything at all?” A few of them sniffled, but none spoke. “How wonderful that your monks have no questions for you, master,” Ananda piped up. “It means they feel no doubt!”
I didn’t want to be annoyed with Ananda in the last ninety seconds of my life, I truly didn’t, but what he’d said was impertinent. “Understand, Ananda,” I rasped out, “that you speak merely from faith while I know for certain that my monks have no doubt.” Ananda nodded sheepishly. (MPB 6:6)
I could feel the final darkness closing in on me. Before I died, I spoke to my monks one final time. “Everything dies,” I whispered. “But work hard.” “Perfect,” I remember thinking as I died. (ANG 4:76)
My death occurred in several stages; I moved from one jhana to another until I entered the sphere of Infinite Space, Infinite Consciousness and Infinite Nothingness and then after that the End, which is the Cessation of All Things.
“My master is dead,” Ananda moaned miserably at that moment.
“No, Ananda,” Anuruddha quickly replied, “he’s not ‘dead,’ he’s merely attained Cessation.”
At that moment I turned back from the End and reentered the realms of Infinite Nothingness, Infinite Consciousness and Infinite Space. I then proceeded to travel back and forth between the Realm of Cessation and the Realm of Infinity several times. To be honest, I’m still not totally sure why I did it. Finally, however, I did die. (MPB 6:8–9; SY 6:15)
29
Not long after my demise, my monks started singing and dancing around my corpse, throwing flowers and dumping perfume all over me. I had never been in favor of singing and dancing in general, obviously, but having these things done around my dead body, well, it was highly undignified, that’s all I can say. The monks sang and danced for such a long time that by the time they were worn out it was too late to cremate me. “We’ll do it tomorrow,” they agreed. But the next day, they instantly started singing and dancing again—and still no cremation. The day after that was the same, as was the next and the next and the next. My monks just kept singing and dancing around me day after day! I was starting to look hideous by this time, a real decomposing mess. Finally someone yelled out, “We’ve sung and danced enough, let’s cremate him!” But before they could do it they all started singing and dancing yet again. This time they were joined by the gods, who started doing bizarre “god dances” around my corpse. (A lot of hip gyrations and sinuous arm movements.) (MPB 6:14–16)
Finally, after a week of this nonsense, someone asked Ananda, “What should we do with the Tathagata’s body anyway?” “We must wrap the Tathagata in linen,’ Ananda informed them, “then cover the linen with wool, then alternate linen and wool a thousand times—”
“A thousand times?” someone asked.
“Yes, then after that we must put him into an iron pot, burn him up and build a shrine to him.” “Not bad, Ananda,” I remember thinking to myself, “but you forgot to tell them to put the first iron pot into a second iron pot, which was the most important part!”
After the monks finally cremated me, what was left was nothing but perfect white bones; my flesh had melted away like butter. Even then, however, somewhat unbelievably, my monks started dancing around my skeleton—they did it for a week! They posed my skeleton with spears and sang to it. (MPB 6:23) Then they started arguing over my bones. “We want the Perfect One’s skeleton,” one group demanded. “No, we want it,” another countered. “The Perfect One’s skeleton is ours,” a third protested. Finally, they decided to break my skeleton into eight pieces (Head/Torso/Right Arm/Left Arm/Right Leg/Left Leg/Right Foot/Left Foot) and divide it up that way. (Somehow during the process of my body being sawed into pieces, one of my teeth got knocked out and ended up in heaven—which I had no problem with. Another part, however, ended up with a bunch of snake-kings, which I did have a problem with.)
After the dismembering of my skeleton was done and the pieces were distributed, a final group showed up demanding a piece of me, but since there was literally nothing left they had to settle for some embers from the fire I’d been burned up in, which I thought was pretty sad for them, honestly. (MPB 6:24) At that point I was ready to move on to my final reward: Nirvana. Before I went, however, there was one last thing I needed to witness: Ananda’s public humiliation. (CV 11:1–10; SY 16:11; THR)
The charges against Ananda were as follows: (1) He had not asked me nearly enough questions (true); (2) He had once accidentally stepped on my robe (also
