A Khmer funeral is both a regular ceremony that we may experience any day and part of our ancient culture and tradition. We ought to be able to learn something from it. Someone we knew and loved is now nothing but bone and ash. How is it possible? How can someone we knew, active, and loved become just bone and ash? But this is the body, which is actually made up of earth, fire, water, and air. When it is cremated, it returns again to these four elements. Examine the ash and bones, which are displayed after the cremation. The bones now look like coal dug out of the earth. They are hot, but after the heat, they may be poured gently into the calm river, blown into the air by the wind, or thrown onto the field like seeds for planting. But are these scenes the whole story? When we attend a funeral, we may start to think about our own. We may say, "If we both come into the world with nothing and leave with nothing, what does our life mean? Does it mean anything? This is the same question that the Buddha asked many years ago. He also answered it. Material things. If we think we are our body, the story ends there What is born, dies That is the story of both the body and all But if we examine who we are and understand that we are not our body. There is that which is not born, which does not die.