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By John Ballen
There are many extreme religious practices and rituals out there. But, there may be none more extreme than the Buddhist monk practice of Sokushinbutsu. This brutal ritual was created in 835 A.D. and, since then, over a thousand years countless monks have tried to do it. However only 24 have ever actually been successful.
Buddhists believe that human life is a constant cycle of birth suffering and then death, and then you're reborn you suffer again. You die again over and over and over again forever unless you're able to achieve enlightenment or Nirvana. As it's called however no one really knows what Nirvana actually is. What it looks like. What it feels like. Where it is. Buddhists will say that the only way to actually understand Nirvana is to experience it yourself. It's kind of like trying to describe to someone what chocolate tastes like. You can use any number of superlatives to describe the flavor, but until that person bites a piece of chocolate, they won't really fully understand it. And so, the goal of all Buddhists is to try to attain Nirvana. Every day hundreds of millions of Buddhists all around the world try very hard to do just that. But within Buddhism there is a small subset of practitioner owners who have effectively dedicated their entire existence to attaining Nirvana.
These people are the famous Buddhist monks it is extremely difficult to become a Buddhist monk because the sacrifice is enormous. You have to leave your family, your friends, society, all your possessions, your name, your status, everything and go live in a monastery, which is a kind of isolated place where monks live. There you will spend your life living this very simple very strict religious life, where basically, all you do is try to attain Nirvana as a result of this extreme lifestyle that Buddhist monks live. They have developed a reputation for being some of the most disciplined people on the planet, but even by Buddhist monk standards, their sacred ritual of Sokushinbutsu takes discipline to a whole another level.
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