Reducing the body to ashes and annihilating consciousness
reducing the body to ashes and annihilating consciousness)]
灰身滅智 (Jpn keshin-metchi )
Also, "annihilating consciousness and reducing the body to ashes." A reference to the Hinayana doctrine asserting that one can attain nirvana only upon extinguishing one's body and mind. Hinayanists defined the eradication of all earthly desires, which requires the extinction of both the mind and the body, as "nirvana of no remainder" (complete nirvana). This contrasts with "nirvana of remainder" (incomplete nirvana), in which the body still exists. Body and mind were regarded as the sources of earthly desires, illusions, and sufferings, and the extinction of body and mind as release from the sufferings of the endless cycle of birth and death. Mahayanists derided this Hinayana teaching as "reducing the body to ashes and annihilating consciousness." They asserted that, in pursuit of this concept of nirvana, Hinayana practitioners became occupied with eradicating their body and mind and abandoned the salvation of others.
