Happy Vesak Day 2024!

Happy Vesak Day to all Buddhists who follow Buddha's teaching. On this day, I spent about an hour meditating and thanking Buddha for his teaching after he was enlightened and awakened on this full moon day. Yesterday after work, I went to temple to pray. I am grateful that Buddha' teaching is still available now even though Buddha (Buddha means Awakened) already entered parinirvana about 2500 years ago. Buddha said everyone has Buddha nature. 

On Vesak day,  Buddhists commemorate  the birth, enlightenment and parinirvana of Gautama Buddha. The compassionate and kind Buddha spent 49 years teaching the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold path to end samsara. Buddhism or Buddha's teaching is not about pessimism. There is a way to end suffering and that is to follow the Noble Eightfold path which helps to end rebirth. 

Before enlightenment, Buddha spent 6 long years practicing asceticism and long fasting, causing his body to be weakened and he almost lost his life. While meditating one day, he heard someone playing a string instrument and came to the realisation that the Middle Path is the way for achieving the liberation of body and mind. 

"Cultivation is like playing a musical string instrument. The string will snap if it is too tight, or not make any sound if it is too loose. Indulgence in sensual pleasure or extreme penance are attachments. The Middle Path is the way for achieving the liberation of body and mind." 

After attaining enlightenment after 7 days of deep meditation, Buddha had compassionately taught sentients being the Four Noble Truths. Buddha reminded us to think and investigate his and others' teaching before accepting it.

The Four Noble Truths are

1) The truth of suffering. Like it or not, both rich and poor go through suffering. The suffering of old age, not getting what you want, separation, sickness. 

2) The truth of the  cause of suffering (craving, anger and delusion) 

3) The truth of the end of suffering. (There is a way to end suffering) 

4) The truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering is the Noble Eightfold paths.

The Noble Eightfold paths which helps to develop Sila (ethical conduct), samadhi (mental discipline or meditation) and panna (wisdom) 戒定慧 are as follows

1) Right Thought (be aware of your thinking with good intention. Eliminate greed, anger and delusion)

2) Right View (understanding of cause and effect, 12 links of dependent origination)

3) Right Speech (Refrain from lying, gossip, idle, harsh speech. If one has nothing helpful to say, be silent) Hmm, this is something I might need to work on it but hey I'm just stating the truth and my intention is to warn people. Not instead of me warning, people are complaining about the person.

4) Right action (moral, honorable and peaceful conduct). Hmm sometimes I'm quite mischievous. 因果真实不虚.

5) Right livelihood (Honest living, Refrain from making a living that harm others like selling weapons, intoxicating drinks, and toxins) This is why I don't support people making use of Buddhism  to make money especially in places like night clubs that sell alcohol. Buddha warned his disciples not to drink alcohol as it might cause them to be careless in their action and thus create bad karma. If that dj wants to perform, don't wear monk robe as real monks and strict Buddhists don't drink alcohol. Not drinking alcohol is one of the five precepts for lay Buddhists.

6) Right effort (prevent unwholesome state of mind)

7) Right mindfulness (be aware and mindful of one's thoughts and feelings

8) Right concentration (meditation)

On Vesak Day, this is the day for me to remember Buddha's teaching and to remind myself to be mindful. There were some days when I was not mindful and I reacted.

I like this story about how Buddha interacted with an angry man and was not affected by his insulting words. From my workplace, I see a lot of angry outburst because people tend to be affected by what others say and thus they kept thinking about unhappy thoughts. I was affected for a while but will just let go since I don't accept what they said after learning from this story. 

In this story, as Buddha was walking in a village, a very angry man insulted the Buddha and said that he had no right to teach others. Buddha was calm and serene as usual and he asked the man,  “Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?”

The young man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, “It would belong to me, because I bought the gift.”

The Buddha smiled and said, “That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy.  All you have done is hurt yourself.” 

On the night of enlightenment, Buddha attained the ability to recollect his past lives at dusk. In late night, Buddha attained the second knowledge which is the passing away and rebirth of beings according to their actions and closer to dawn, Buddha attained the knowledge of the destruction of mental defilements and came to be the fully self-awaked Buddha. Buddha had compassionately spent the next 49 years teaching sentients being the path to end suffering with the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold path. More than 2500 years later, with the advance of technology and past lives regression, it verified what Buddha had taught about rebirths and karma- cause and effect.  If you want to read about rebirths, you can read Dr Brian Weiss's book like Many Lives, Many Masters which touched on individual and collective karma and rebirths. 

Noble Eightfold paths

Be mindful of your action. Many people who died and returned back to their body shared that during their life review, they experienced the other person's emotion caused by their action.