During the inauguration ceremony, the ashes of Master Tung Tzu, who was the teacher of Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association’s founder Master Sheng Yen, and another nine deceased people were the first to be buried in the life garden.

In view of the growing shortage of land lots for burial use and the increasing demand for environmentally friendly burial services, the Taipei County Government has designated a piece of land in Jinshan Township donated by Dharma Drum Mountain as an environmentally friendly life garden to meet the demand for natural burial services.

This is Taiwan’s first non-cemetery garden for housing ashes of the dead, which features no tombstones and no worship rituals, and will be available to the deceased people of any nationality or religious belief.

All the bone ashes will be put in environmentally friendly paper containers, which will then be placed in caves readied in the life garden.

The inauguration ceremony was jointly presided over by Deputy Taipei County Magistrate Chen Wei-jen, and Master Guo Tung, currently leader of the Dharma Drum Mountain, yesterday morning, with more than 100 representatives from the Buddhist and other religious groups and family members of the nine deceased people serving as witnesses.

Chen said at the ceremony that traditional burial services usually involve heavy spending, and furthermore the growing depletion of land resources could lead to “competition” between the dead and living for land.

Given the circumstances, the Dharma Drum Mountain has done a good job in promoting natural burial services, returning the love for life back to the love for earth, Chen said.

For his part, Master Guo Tung called for local people to support the environmentally friendly natural burial method, allowing all their family members to experience life education.

Taipei County officials said those who are interested in having the ashes of their deceased family members buried in the newly inaugurated life garden are welcome to contact the Dharma Drum Mountain at (02) 2893-9966 ext. 6119 or contact the service department of the life garden at (02) 2408-2665.

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