VESAK CELEBRATION

 Salutation of Vesak

            Vesak is a significant Buddhist celebration for more than 25 centuries, commemorating first,

1) Buddha’s birthday more than 2500 years ago,

2) His enlightenment under the Bodhi tree at the age of 29 and

3) His death and passing into Nirvana at 85 years old.

Vesak festival usually falls sometimes during the month of May, the time of which correlates to the Full Moon of the fourth month on the Lunar calendar. This year Vesak is being celebrated worldwide on May 21^st, 2010. Here in Virginia Beach, at Dong Hung Temple, we are observing this greatest festivity on May 23^rd 2010. We are pleasantly and greatly honored to cordially invite you to celebrate the most joyous time with us.

 Dialogue on the meaning of Vesak

             The Buddha was born a royal prince to the Shakya clan of the northern Indian territory, now Nepal, in the 6^th century BC. His father was the King Suddhodana Gautama, and his mother the beautiful Queen Mahamaya. The day the prince was born, flowers bloomed, birds sang, people rejoiced, sun and moon, winds and clouds all delighted in the jubilation. It is said that the prince was born fully awake, he could speak, he could stand, and he walked a few steps in each of the four directions. Lotus flowers blossomed under each of His footsteps. He declared that He has come to free mankind from suffering. He was named Siddharta, which means “he who has attained his goals.” The Queen Mahamaya died 7days after giving birth, He then was raised by his kind aunt, queen Mahaprajapati.

            Buddha is considered the Blessed One, the Enlightened One, the super human being, the incarnate, the descendant of numerous previous lives who has realized the true nature of life through his own knowledge and virtue, and who has come up with a solution to end sufferings, and attain true happiness. It is our greatest honor and privilege that He came to help guide us and lead us to the correct path to seek our own salvation. It is to His honor of being a great religious teacher that we have to draw insights, lessons, inspiration, and motivation from his fundamental teachings. And to His effort, everyone and anyone of us can discover our own potentiality, our own power in finding lasting solutions for the samsaric problems we are faced with, and in turn reach the ultimate truth readily awaiting us if we truly believe in our own ability.

            Throughout his youth, He was living among riches and luxuries, in grand palaces, surrounded with beauty and elegance, well-shielded and protected from all misery, poverty, and sufferings of the ordinary life outside the castle walls. But He always sensed a restless and inadequate competence. He knew that gratification of the five senses and a life in abundance was not enough to bring about the answer. He left the kingdom, seeking an ascetic life of rigorous self-torturing and harmful practices to the point of almost wasting away. He then realized that neither extreme – whether of rich life or of self-mortification – would bring forth the solutions; leading him nowhere. Finally He discovered the Middle Path (Majjhima Patipada), the solution to cessation of all human sufferings, the answer to reaching and obtaining true happiness, and the ultimate way to Nirvana.

            The Buddha then vowed to propagate this Path to all human kind; with an unsurpassed compassion, He spent the rest of his life preaching, teaching, guiding, helping as many people as possible, so that, they too, with their own intelligence, will, and perseverance, can realize enlightenment just as He had…..

 The Path that Buddha taught specifically pointed out that all sentient beings live in ideological bonds, slaveries, sufferings through their own insatiable greed and cravings, troubling hatred, and delusional ignorance. It is an ethical path which leads human beings to cleanse and purify their inner self, and thereby achieve inner peace and harmony.

The Path and the Teachings is open and available for everyone and anyone, disregard to any race, age, or gender distinction, and irrespective to any social, religious, or ethnic diversion. (note: India at the time of Buddha was religiously complex and socially tense with the caste system that divided the human race into various pre-determined levels and that there was a great distinctive status between men and women). In this way Buddha is a universalist, and his teachings carried the form of universalism.

The Path also taught that as long as human beings have a dedication and determination to persevere in following their practice, they can discover their own tremendous potentiality and thus reaching enlightenment, achieving pure happiness. Because according to the Buddha’s teachings, all beings are equal in samsara existence, all have this intelligence, this same potentiality – also called the Buddha nature, just only at times we don’t recognize it, we don’t see it. For this Buddha is a humanist par excellence, and following his Path will lead to a total purity by eradicating all the defiling factors in the human mind.

Buddha entered Nirvana at the age of 85, after 45 years preaching on-the-go, reaching many parts of India teaching His Path. His order of followers called a Buddhist Sangha, which includes Bhikkhus, Bhikkhinis, upasaka and upasika (both male and female monastic members and both male and female lay followers) grew in great numbers. Buddha’s role was not that of a Savior but that of a guide, a leader. The last statement Buddha made before passing away was that “you must strive for yourself; I only showed you the Path” (‘tumhehi kiccam ätappam - akkhataro tathagata’). Buddha showed us the way. It is our responsibility to follow through and attain that ultimate human liberation. No Devine Savior can do it for us, or do it on our behalf.

 The meaning of the Bathing ceremony

 On Vesak day, it was customary to hold this elaborate ceremony of bathing the Newborn Buddha.  A statue of a newborn Buddha with his right index finger pointing to heaven, and his left index finger pointing down to the earth, is usually placed in a large bowl filled with fragrant water and flower petals.  While the Bathing Buddha Gatha was chanted aloud by everyone, first the monks and nuns, then followed by the procession of devotees young and old, all lined up and took turn one by one, ladle the fragrant water onto the statue of the infant Buddha in a revered, ceremonial performance of this auspicious ritual.

The significance of this solemn ceremony stemmed from the story of when Buddha, as Prince Siddharta, was born. On that day, the heavens offered flowers, brilliant and splendid lights shone bright, animal and human rejoiced, birds sang and praised, heavenly beings held jeweled parasols and fans over his head, and the nine celestial dragons washed him with fragrant rain cascading from their mouths. After the bath, the young prince was purified both in body and mind.

The reverential act of pouring the water over the shoulders of the Buddha should serve as a symbolic reminder that we have to purify our heart and mind and eradicate the three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance, and cleanse our body, speech and thoughts to cultivate merits and wisdom.

                                                Prepared by Viên Minh - giangkiettuong