Japanese Funeral Service in Switzerland and Germany – Traditional or according to your wishes
Zen master Marcel Reding from the Honora Zen monastery in Switzerland arranges the Japanese funeral service according to your wishes.
Master of Ceremonies - Father Reding
After ten years of monk training in the Zen monasteries of Japan and Korea, Zen monk brother Marcel Reding founded the Zen order in Switzerland in 2014 with the mutual trust of lay people and clergy.
In gratitude for the training as a Zen monk, he made a pilgrimage all over Japan in the traditional alms walk (3000 miles).
As founder and abbot, he presides over the rustic Honora Zen monastery in Reichenburg and the Eremita Zen temple in Einsiedeln.
Heart Sutra - Japanese Funeral
The Heart Sutra is recited in Japanese by the Master of Ceremonies, Zen Master Father Reding, at the Japanese funeral.
This is how I heard it: The awakened one was deep in the stream of perfect understanding. He explained the process that leads to the illusion of a limited personality. Realizing its emptiness, he overcame all suffering. Listen, disciple, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form is nothing but emptiness, emptiness is nothing but form. Likewise, sensations, perceptions, mental formative powers, and consciousness are empty of a separate self.
Listen, students, all phenomena are mutually dependent - they neither arise nor perish. They are neither pure nor impure, nor do they increase or decrease. Therefore form, sensation, perception, mental formative power and consciousness are artificial concepts. The eye consists entirely of non-eye elements. The same applies to the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. Therefore there is no form, sound, smell, taste, tangible, or object of mind.
Emptiness is form Since all things are indescribable in their identity, there is no arising and no cessation; no suffering, no origin of suffering, no end of suffering and no way; no understanding and no attainment. Because there is no attainment, the awakened, through their perfect understanding of integration, find no obstacles in their mind. Experiencing no obstacles, they conquer fear, rid themselves of delusion forever, and realize total cessation. All saints of the past, present and future attain full, true and harmonious enlightenment thanks to this perfect understanding.
Perfect understanding is the supreme Logos, the living Word transcending duality, nullifying all suffering - the indestructible reality. This Logos should therefore be proclaimed. And this is what he is: Gone, gone, already crossed, crossed to the other shore! Be this for the good of all!