Vesak

We write to you today on the most auspicious of days in the Buddhist calendar -the full moon day of May  – Vesak

The day, a little baby boy, named Siddhartha Gotama was born to Queen Mahamaya over 2,600 years ago (624 BC) in Lumbini, present day Nepal. By the age of 29 years Siddhartha came to the realisation that life in the palace with all its luxuries would not protect him from the inevitable sufferings that he had inherited as a result of being born –  old age, sickness and death. So, he renounced the palace luxuries seeking to find a true happiness – freedom from being born. 

For six years, he practiced extreme austerity to the extent of torturing and starving his body – in an attempt to rid by brutal force, energies that drive the cycle of birth and death. Yet, this did not bring him any closer to the truth either. 

Having the wisdom to see that neither the path of sensual indulgence nor severe asceticism led to his liberation, Siddhartha, rather unconventionally and revolutionarily, chose to practice the middle Path – which he called the Noble Eightfold Path.  His efforts soon bore fruit,  on the full moon day of May, under the Bodhi Tree in Bodh Gaya, India when He realised this truth – freedom from this cycle of being born (Samsara).

– Bodhagaya India

He thus became known as the Enlightened One, The Buddha, The Tathagata.

He then with great compassion teaches this Path He discovered to help countless beings free their own hearts from suffering

He does this for 45 years up until the full moon day of May , 544BC at the age of 80 years,  at Kusinara, when Gotama Buddha passes away – leaving the Dhamma, his teaching , to those who have since come to seek and realise this truth for themselves over the last two and half millennia. 

‘It may be, Ananda, that to some among you the thought will come: ‘Ended is the word of the Master; we have a Master no longer.’ But it should not, Ananda, be so considered. For that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone.’

- DN 16 - Mahaparinibbana Sutta

So where is the Dhamma today? Is it in books or monasteries or YouTube videos? Or is it here, with me, in the most mundane of experience, typing on my laptop – the experiences I try and escape from or ignore – habitually running away. The Buddha encouraged us to look at the present moment. Where is it, but just now? Nowhere special or exotic or fantastical and it is at this very door in the present moment that we find the end of our own suffering, as He did. We need to understand now to realise that which is beyond this perpetual arising and ceasing of experience that we call life. The Middle Path has been clearly laid out for us by the Buddha. It is still open and blossoming. Where this Path leads to is to be discovered by each one of us for ourselves by walking through the woods of our own experience.

To end with Lung Por Liem,

‘ If all of us truly and sincerely keep up our efforts in the training, with practice (Patipati), eventually there has to be liberation (Pativedi). That is why the Buddha praised this training, conduct and practice. It is because of this practice that the True Dhamma still exists as a counterpart to the world.’

-Santi -Peace beyond delusion; Teachings on Practising for Tranquillity and Peace

Wishing you all the very best in your practice

Happy Vesak