Asia's Three Paths of Departure

While Sky Burial represents the extreme environmental adaptation, it fundamentally shares the core East Asian Buddhist belief in impermanence. Even in less resource-constrained areas of East Asia (like lowland China, Korea, and Japan), other distinct practices exist, such as the burning of vast quantities of paper effigies and "spirit money" (joss paper), ensuring the deceased has material comfort in the afterlife and highlighting a shared cultural focus on the spiritual transition beyond the physical event.