The Bungsukul Ceremony

Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu | February 2025

A Bungsukul Ceremony is a Buddhist ritual, particularly significant in Theravāda Buddhism, for making and transferring merit (puñña) to deceased loved ones. The term “bungsukul” (sometimes spelled bangsukul or bangsukun) derives from the Pali term paṅsukūla, which means dust heap or trash heap. 

In the early years of Buddhism, monks were not allowed to accept gifts of cloth directly from lay donors. Instead, they had to make their robes from pieces of cloth thrown away on trash heaps or in cemeteries. To make merit with finer gifts of cloth, lay people circumvented this prohibition by placing pieces of new cloth on tree limbs or other prominent locations near where they knew monks might walk. Because the cloth no longer had any owner, monks were allowed to take it. Even in later years, when the Buddha allowed direct gifts of cloth, the view remained that this was an excellent way of making merit through gifts of cloth, as even the strictest monks could accept the cloth.

Even today in the bungsukul ceremony, donors do not hand their offerings directly to the monks even though they face the monks directly. Instead, they place the offerings on a strip of cloth – usually attached either to the coffin or to a picture of the deceased – and the monks then pick the gifts up from the strip of cloth.

Key Features of a Bungsukul Ceremony:

1. Merit Transfer: The central purpose of the ceremony is to transfer merit – the happiness that comes from doing good through acts of generosity, observing the precepts, or develop thoughts of universal goodwill (mettā) – to deceased people. Strictly speaking, the merit isn’t transferred from one person to another. If the deceased manage to know of the merit dedicated to them and they approve of it, that act of approval is, in itself, a happy one, and that becomes their merit.

2. The Ceremony: A strip of cloth is placed in front of a number of monks, and the lay donors then place their offerings on the cloth. The primary item offered is usually cloth – either plain, unmade cloth, or cloth made into robes – although other items, such as flowers and incense, can also be offered in addition. Gifts of food or cash should not be offered in this way, as that would go against the Vinaya, the monks’ code of rules. 
   
   The monks then chant verses on the universality of death:

   Aniccā vata saṅkhārā Uppāda-vaya-dhammino.

   Uppajjitvā nirujjhanti Tesaṁ vūpasamo sukho.

   Sabbe sattā maranti ca Mariṅsu ca marissare.

   Tath’evāhaṁ marissāmi N’atthi me ettha saṅsayo.
   

   How inconstant are fabrications! Their nature: to arise & pass away.

   They disband as they are arising. Their total stilling is bliss.

   All living beings are dying, have died, and will die.

   In the same way, I will die: I have no doubt about this.

   The monks then take the offerings from the strip of cloth, after which they chant passages blessing the donors and dedicating the merit of the offering to the deceased.

3. Context: The ceremony is often performed during funerals, memorials, or anniversaries of a death, but it may also take place as a general act of merit-making for ancestors.

By conducting a Bungsukul Ceremony, practitioners express compassion and gratitude in the context of the Buddha’s teachings on kamma (karma) and merit.