Auto Mummification

Sokushinbutsu was denominated to the Buddhist monks who underwent a process of mummification in life. This was a slow and painful process that lasted for up to ten years. There is evidence that this custom was practiced for 900 years and their methods were different but there are three basic stages with a duration of 1000 days each.

The Process

In the first phase the monk adopts a particular diet which drastically reduces body fat, which will prevent the rapid decomposition of your body. The second stage diet becomes even more limited, drinking a tea that produces vomiting, sweating and urine constantly, drastically reducing their body fluids. This makes your body poisonous against the worms and beetles that will try to eat your body after you die. The third stage is to build an underground shelter three meters underground and a coffin is built in which the ascetic is entered in the lotus position, continuing with his prayers and mantras. The monk continues to breathe through a bamboo tube and sounds a bell every day until the moment of his death. When the bell no longer sounds the other monks remove the bamboo tube and bury the ascetic completely and wait a thousand more days to dig it up, if the ritual was performed correctly the body will remain incorrupt and will not decompose by being mummified in a "natural" way.