| Endless quest for enlightenment
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| Driven to extremes to become one with the exalted, reach immortality
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| Stemming from Shingon doctrines
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| Bizarre customs emerge
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| Practice of living embalment baffling
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| Uninitiated minds
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| Persevere to preserve (Your earthly vessel)
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| Your earthly vessel becomes a monument of spiritual sublimity
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| Sublimity achieved through acts of self-denial
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| Endurance beyond humanity
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| Stage 1
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| Meditation beneath icy waters
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| Self imposed hardships to drain body fat
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| Merciless reduction of food intake
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| Deprived of all earthly pleasures
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| Stage 2
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| Bark and roots, your sole nutrition
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| Toxic substances cause rapid loss of body fluids, vomiting
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| Arsenic ingestion corrupts
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| The little meat left on your bones
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| Stage 3
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| Encased alive in your tomb
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| Engrossed in spirituality
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| The bell rings for 13 days
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| Until silence signals transformation
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| Strengthened through excruciation
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| Body fat extermination
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| Deliberate contamination
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| Flesh now unfit for consumption
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| Torment chocked through meditation
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| Locked tight in Lotus position
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| Successful mummification
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| Postmortal idolization
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| Sacred site of admiration
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| A dead body’s exhibition
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| Visitors confronted with greatness |