Personally, it is never too early to plan for your own funeral, because we never know when we are going to die. But of course, funerals are meant to "appease" the living, and has nothing to do with us (we will be dead, so why bother about what is going to happen).
While, I am still alive, so am attached to the outcome of my funeral. Yes, it is an delusion which i have been struggling with. But I would like friends and relatives to benefit from my death too.
In Taipei's Dharma Drum Mountain, they have a small plot of garden which is called the 生命园. The deceased are cremated and the ashes/bones grinded into powder form, and buried within the garden.
Even in death, our "physical bodies" can be of use as fertilizers. There is no use in leaving the ashes in a jar and praying to it on important festivals. If we have done good during our lifetime, we will be remembered, whether or not there is that jar of ashes.
Even if we are forgotten, so what, you are no longer around.
Another reason for me wanting to become fertilizer is coz it can (hopefully) reinforce the fact of impermanence, of change, of conditions arising, of ever present existence.
If I go into the ground as fertilizers, I will be "reborn" everywhere else. In the grass, in the flowers, in the honey even.
That is one way to see it, but from the Buddhist perspective, all form is empty anyway, so why would it matter.
I dont want any tablet, any joss stick, any burning of incense paper. That really adds to pollution, and I wont be able to use any of it anyway.
Just a simple wake with 佛友 to chant (for both our benefit), and than a cremation with my powder ashes buried at home.
Simple and sweet.
I have no control after death, and truly should the living require more, than let more be done.
Amituofo
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