Texts for Internment of Ashes
Dorothy had requested her ashes be placed near her two dogs, Husky & Karl at Ayle Cottage, near Alston.
Husky ~~~~ Karl
Limestone marker originally carved by Jon Imrye with the Tibetan/Sanskrit Script - Om Mani Padme Hum. The Mantra of Great Compassion and same mantra/script on Dorothy's Wedding Ring that translates simply to "Hail, to the Jewel in the Lotus". It relates to Universal Compassion expressed by the attributes of the Buddhist archetypical deity; Avalokiteshvara, Kannon/Kanzeon, Quan-yin.
Dorothy Bell
(circa 2012)Statement: Dorothy, you became a Buddhist in 1983, being ordained a lay trainee during JUKAI (Precepts Retreat) with the community of Throssel Hole Abbey in the Japanese Soto Zen Tradition of the modern Order of Buddhist Contemplatives. Your Teacher was Roshi Jiyu Kennett and your Precept Teacher was Rev Master Daishin Morgan.
You have trained well and widely in the teachings of the Buddha, studying in various schools with an active, inquisitive and open mind. Gaining insight, wisdom, compassion and a peaceful heart/mind.
Today, is the time to return your earthly remains to our nourishing and sustaining Earth from whence your body came. You have chosen your place of rest in this secluded and peaceful part of The Dell at Ayle Cottage.
We dedicate scriptures, poems, prayers, flowers from family and friends, in support of your journey from this life and in reflection of memories of your energy, support, teachings, compassion, wisdom and love. All of these blessings from you Dorothy, continue warmly in our hearts and minds.
Your Ketchimyaku (document given on ordination linking you through the teachers to the Buddha) and your Wagesa (“small Kesa” – layperson’s robe) are here today, representing physically your link to spiritual practice and teachings of great spiritual/religious teachings of the world that you have associated with. You have lived by the Three Refuges, The Three Pure Precepts and the Ten Greater Precepts.
Scriptures from Buddhist Funeral Service
The Litany of the Great Compassionate One
Adoration to the Triple Treasure!
Adoration to Kanzeon Who is the Great Compassionate One!
Om, to the One who leaps beyond all fear!
Having adored Him, may I enter into the heart of the Noble, Adored Kanzeon!
His life is the completion of meaning; it is pure, it is that which makes all beings victorious and cleanses the path of all existence.
Om, O thou Seer, World-transcending One!
O hail to the Great Bodhisattva!
All, all is defilement, defilement, earth, earth.
Do, do the work within my heart.
O great Victor, I hold on, hold on!
To Indra the Creator I cry,
“Move, move, my defilement-free One!
Come, come, hear, hear, a joy springs up in me!
Speak, speak, give me direction!
Awakened, awakened, I have awakened!
O merciful One, compassionate One,
Of daring ones the most joyous, hail!
Thou art all successful, hail!
Thou are the great successful One, hail!
Thou hast attained mastery in the discipline, hail!
Thou hast a weapon within Thine hand, hail!
Thou hast the Wheel within Thine hand, hail!
Thou who hast the lotus, hail!
Hail to The Who are the root of eternity!
Hail to Thee Who art all compassion, Hail!
Adoration to the Triple Treasure! Hail!
Give ear unto this my prayer, hail!
Terms:
The “Great Compassionate One” is Kanzeon/Kannon/Kwan-yin – anyone who takes refuge in his or her own Real Nature, even amidst fear, doubt or despair. Kanzeon’s weapon is the Sword of Wisdom, cutting through delusion and obstacles; the Wheel is the Wheel of the Dharma, or Truth, which turns by positive action. In the same way as the “Scripture of Kanzeon Bosatsu,” this scripture calls on Kanzeon to help the deceased, and everyone else, to find compassion within themselves.
Adoration to the Buddha’s Relics
Homage to the relics of the Buddha of Complete Merit;
Homage to the Body of Truth which is Truth Itself, and a Stupa for the World of the Dharma, for the benefit of our present body.
Through the Merits of Buddha the Truth enters into us and we enter into the Truth.
Through the excellent power of Buddha we realise the Truth.
Let us do only good for all living things that we may possess the True Mind;
let us only do Pure Deeds that we may enter the peaceful world which is unchanging, Great Wisdom;
Let us pay homage eternally to the Buddha.
The Scripture of Great Wisdom (Heart Sutra)
When one with deepest wisdom of the heart
That is beyond discriminatory thought,
The Holy Lord, Great Kanzeon Bosatsu,
Knew that the skandhas five were, as they are,
In their self-nature, void/pure, unstained and clean.
O Shariputra, form is only void;
Void is all form, there is then nothing more
Than this; for what is form is void, and what
*Is Void is form. The same is also true
Of all sensation, thought, activity,
And consciousness. O Shariputra, here
All things are void, for they are neither born
Nor do they wholly die; they are not stained
Nor yet immaculate; increasing not,
Decreasing not. O Shariputra, here
In void there is no form, sensation, thought,
Activity or consciousness; no eye,
Ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; no form, no tastes,
Sound, colour, touch or objects; vision non;
No consciousness; no knowledge; and no sign
Of ignorance; until we come to where
Old age and death have ceased, and so has all
Extinction of old age and death; for here
There is no suffering, nor yet again
Is there accumulation, or again
Annihilation, or an Eightfold Path;
No knowledge, no attainment. In the mind
Of the Bosatsu who is truly one
With Wisdom Great there are no obstacles
*And, going on beyond this human mind,
He is Nirvana. All the Buddhas True
Of present, past and future, they ARE all,
The perfect and most high enlightenment.
The Prajnaparamita one should know
To be the Greatest Mantra of them all,
The highest and most peerless Manta too;
*Allayer of all pain Great Wisdom is.
It is the very Truth, no falsehood here.
This is the Mantra of Great Wisdom, hear!
*O Buddha, going, going going on
*Beyond, and always going on beyond,
Always BECOMING Buddha, Hail! Hail! Hail!
Dedication:
The merit of the recitation of the Litany of the Great Compassionate One, Adoration of the Buddha’s Relics and the Scripture of Great Wisdom, are dedicated to Dorothy. We pray that she is now in her own true home in peace.
Homage to all the Buddhas in all worlds
Homage to all the Bodhisattvas in all worlds
Homage to the Scripture of Great Wisdom
The above texts were drawn from the Funeral Ceremony of a Lay Buddhist by the Shasta Abbey Reformed Soto Zen Church (1977), together with Zen is Eternal Life by Roshi Jiju Kennett (1976) and The Liturgy of the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives for the Laity (Shasta Abbey Press - 1990)
Continues with a more secular section to the ceremony.
Placing the Dorothy’s Ashes in the Earth.
A collection of a single small flower heads; dried, fresh or wilted, flower or tree bud, wild or cultured, given by friends and family are scattered around her wooden box and buried with her ashes. Essentially representing the cycle of life. Express our connection and love for Dorothy. The Flowers Poem was read at the funeral and repeated during the internment of ashes.
Dorothy had requested her ashes be placed near her two dogs, Husky & Karl at Ayle Cottage, near Alston.
Ayle Cottage, a cottage Dorothy bought with her sister Margaret in the late 1970s.
The garden area she called The Dell, is a quiet wild woodland valley on the south side of Ayleside Fell.
From this location there is a view to Cross Fell, the highest mountain in the North Pennines. Interestingly, also the source of two rivers, Tyne and Tees, that defines the area Dorothy lived within for most of her life. Born by the River Wear at Penshaw, brought up by the Wear at Chester-le-Street, started married and family life by the River Tees at Thornaby, lived, worked and died near the River Tyne at Newcastle. Her ashes lie a few yards from Robert’s Gill, which joins the South Tyne. She has in a sense, returned to the source physically and spiritually.
Connected to the continuous flow and circle of life.
Limestone marker originally carved by Jon Imrye with the Tibetan/Sanskrit Script - “Om Mani Padme Hum”. The Mantra of Great Compassion and same mantra/script on Dorothy's Wedding Ring that translates simply to "Hail, to the Jewel in the Lotus". It relates to Universal Compassion expressed by the attributes of the Buddhist archetypical deity; Avalokiteshvara {Skt}, Kannon/Kanzeon {Jap}, Quan-yin {Chin}, Chenrezi {Tib}.
By the marker stone is a statue of Amida Buddha, the archetypical Buddha of the Lotus family that represents mercy, wisdom, peace and tranquillity. A popular iconic Buddha of “Boundless Light” whose name is called upon at times close to death (mantra; Namo Amida Butsu {Jap}).
In the hands of Amida {Jap} / Amitabha {Skt} is a small statue of the Thousand-armed Kanzeon/Kannon/Kuan-Yin/Avalokitesvara that represents the active aspect of Amida. One who has a thousand eyes to see, and thousand hands and skilful means/tools to help all in distress/suffering. The inscription on the marker stone is Kanzeon’s mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”.
Dorothy, You are the Flower
(Adapted from a Japanese poem, author unknown)
The world is a flower.
Gods are flowers.
Enlightened ones are flowers.
All phenomena are flowers.
All of the different kinds of the colours of flowers,
all the different kinds of love shining forth.
Life unfolds from life and returns to life.
Such an immense universe! Oh many lives!
Flowers of gratitude, flowers of sorrow,
flowers of suffering, flowers of joy,
laughter’s flowers, anger’s flowers,
heaven’s flowers, hell’s flowers.
Each connected to the others
and each making the others grow.
When our real mind’s eye
opens to this world of flowers, all beings shine,
music echoes through mountains and oceans.
One’s world becomes the world of millions.
The individual becomes the human race.
All lives become the individual --
billions of mirrors
all reflecting each other.
Dorothy, there is death and there is life,
there is no death and no life.
There is changing life, there is unchanging life.
Flowers change colour, moment by moment.
Such a vivid world! Such a bright you! . . .
Dorothy, you were born out of these flowers,
you gave birth to these flowers.
You have no beginning and no ending,
you are bottomless and limitless,
even as you are infinitesimal dust . . .
Dorothy, you are the flower.
You are love.
All beings shine out of their uniqueness,
all melt into the oneness of colours.
You are one, you are many,
only one moment, only one unique place,
only the unique you.
Beside you there is nothing:
you dance, appearing in all.
From nowhere you came, to nowhere you go.
You stay nowhere. You are nowhere attached.
You occupy everything, you occupy nothing.
You are the becoming of indescribable change.
You are love. You are the flower.
Source of inspiration and adapted from: The Zen of Living and Dying by Philip Kapleau, Shambala Publications 1998
Concluding with:
Two Poems by Dorothy's friend Annie
(Left by Dorothy in the book – Tibetan Book of Living and Dying)
New Life
When my life is over
and my jobs are done
I know there is a place for me, behind the shining sun.
I’ll float across the midnight sky,
I’ll dance around a star,
yet stay so close beside you
“I haven’t travelled far”.
I’ve lost the shell I lived in,
yet still remain the same.
Every moment passing, a loving strength I gain.
Like a new born baby
Fresh, and bright and new,
yet every ounce of knowledge, I’ve taken with me too!
I stand beside you lovingly
each and every day.
Watching you, guiding you
in my special way.
Just because I’m out of sight,
please don’t think I’ve gone.
We never see the wind that blows,
and yet we hear his song.
Time
(Read at the internment of ashes)
A man whose heart, now broken
reflects a bird with injured wings,
The man has lost his meaning,
the bird, he never sings.
But time can be the healer
and ease the hurting heart,
chase away the ache inside,
to give a brand new start.
Time will rest the wings,
of the gracious bird.
Magically to mend them,
without a spoken word.
Concluding the texts, poems, scriptures and dedications for Dorothy the above card was read. Card sent to Dorothy before she moved from Newcastle to Bath from Gail and Jon in 2003
She received another copy for her eldest granddaughter Kirsty in 2018.
The words are so appropriate again at this time.
(Tree of Life Inspirations, Cumbria)
Recitation of Om Mani Padme Hum whilst covering with earth.
Dorothy's ashes interred on 13th July 2022. 
Last Updated: 13 July 2022
