Happy Birth-and-Death-day Buddha!

Today we celebrated Vesekha Puja, also know as "Buddha's Birthday". The birthday aspect is actually a western focus, since we are so much about birthdays. Vesekha is also the celebration of the Awakening of Siddhartha Gotama, the birth and the death. "Happy Buddha's Death Day" doesn't have such a nice ring to it however. Interestingly enough, the man known as "The Buddha" was actually not called that in his lifetime. He was called the "Tagathata" (one who has come, or found truth) or "Bhagava" (one who is blessed). Once he died, he was freed from the attachment of being a human and all that goes with it. Once he was freed, he was known as the Buddha. Vesekha celebrates all of those things that made Siddartha Gotama into the man we know now as "The Buddha".

It was interesting that during the Dharma talk today, Sunim spoke about the story of Siddhartha's birth he spoke about the difference between the reality of the story and the fictional version, or the poetic version of the story. The fictional story was from the Buddhacarita which was writen by a poet and dramatist. The fictional story goes something like: His mother was visited by a white elephant in her dreams, the elephant had six tusks, and a lotus in his trunk and he put the lotus into her womb. Later, as she is heading to her parents house while pregnant, she give bith in the Lumbini garden, and the tree branches bend to help support her, and when Siddhartha is born, flowers fall from the sky and it rains sweet tea over his head and a stream of water flows to wash Maya (his mother). Siddhartha takes sevens steps and lotus flowers bloom under his feet and he says in a clear voice "I have arrived to bring truth to the world". Then I'm sure more flowers rained from the sky and dogs and cats started living in harmony and the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars. Oh, whooops, that is the age of Aquarius...my bad.

The reality is actually that Maya was a real person, who was married to King Suddhodana of the Shakya clan (Kapilavatthu was the place, now in Tibet). She was pregnant and did travel to her parents house and along the way, gave birth to Prince Siddhartha in the Lumbini Garden (this is a real place). She most likely did hang onto a branch of a tree as standing birth was the custom of that time. These were real people, in a real kingdom in a real place 2553 years ago.

So why all the added hooha?

I think its hard for people to hear of great accomplishment and think they can do it themselves. Its hard to achieve big things. When people can't live up to the expectation, they have to believe that those who do are somehow above them, somehow destined to do so, otherworldly, god-like. It takes the burden off of ourselves. Its much easier to believe that Siddhartha was destined to be awakened, was blessed by spirits of white elephants, rained on by the heavens. Since that shit didn't happen to us at our births, we are somehow let off the hook. That can't be me, I didn't walk the minute I was born, lotus flowers didn't bloom under my feet, must not be me.

The truth is the Buddha was a man, a regular person like us all. He worked hard to understand the truth, worked with many teachers (was not self taught), went through great hardship (lived in the jungle with no food and clothes for years) and ultimately, through his own trials became awake. It wasn't easy and it didn't happen overnight. By the way, once he achieved awakening, he struggled the rest of his life, he lived for 80 years. Awakening was just the start, it took the rest of his life to explain and teach. He was a man, he made mistakes along the way. That is the nature of being a person, including the nature of Siddhartha. Once his body died, and he was freed from his final attachment, he was able to be a Buddha.

We all have the ability to wake up, all have the ability to be a better person. It doesn't take elephant visits in the night or flowers under our feet.

So as we celebrate this weekend the birth, life and passing of Siddhartha into Buddha-ness, I think its important for us all to stop for a moment and wonder: "what the hell have I have done lately?"