Wesak festival and Buddhism

Yesterday, the full moon day of the Indian month of Vaisakh (Wesak), Filipino Buddhists, with some 350 to 550 million other followers of the Lord Buddha the world over, celebrated “The Appearance of the Reflection of the Buddha.”

On this anniversary of his birth, Enlightenment and physical death, the Lord Gautama Buddha appears with the full moon high above a plateau on the northern side of the Himalayas near the frontier of Nepal.

As the momentous day approaches, pilgrims from all over Asia pitch tents and numerous adherents of Buddhism gather to participate in this wondrous ceremony. A half hour before the full moon, a select group of Adepts and Initiates composing the “Great White Brotherhood,” form a circle in front of an “altar,” a huge block of grayish-white stone with some glittering substance.

As the assemblage chants Buddhist scriptures in the Pali language, the Lord Maitreya materializes in the center of the circle holding the Rod of Power made of the lost metal orichalcum. The Adepts solemnly move around forming in succession, a cross, a triangle, a reversed triangle and finally a five-pointed star. As the chanting and the movements cease, the Lord Maitreya raises the fiery Rod and calls out in Pali, “All is ready; Master, come!”

At the exact time of the full moon, the enormous figure of the Lord Buddha appears floating in the air above the hills, exactly as he looked when he last appeared on earth – surrounded by a splendid dazzling multi-colored aura with colors concentrically arranged in the same order as the solar spectrum.

The Lord Maitreya raises a golden bowl of water as the Lord Buddha raises his right hand in benediction, while a shower of flowers rains down on the multitude which prostrates itself in reverence. The great figure in the sky fades away, after which the assemblage breaks out in shouts of praise and adoration.

The Buddha

The Lord Gautama Buddha that appears to the world during the Wesak Festival was born to royalty in what is now Southern Nepal during the full moon of May around 643 BCE. The name “Siddhartha” given to him by his father, King Suddhodana, meant “wish fulfilled.” Raised by an aunt since his mother Maya died seven days from his birth, astrologers predicted that he would become either a World Monarch or a World Teacher upon the manifestation of the “four sights.”

Preferring that his son assume temporal power, the king brought him up in an atmosphere of luxurious ease, isolating him from the disturbing sights of the outside world. At age 16, he married his lovely cousin, Princess Yasodhara and they lived blissfully for 13 years until venturing outside the palace gates, he was confronted successively, with the sight of a sick man shaking with fever, an old man hobbling along with a cane, a corpse and a dignified hermit.

Extremely shaken by the unusual sights, Siddhartha decided to renounce the world, left his wife who had just given birth and took up the life of a monk. Thus, at age 29, Prince Siddhartha embraced asceticism, seeking an answer to the mysteries of life. Living in voluntary poverty, almost starving himself to death, exposing himself to pain, practicing breath-holding and extreme mortification for six years, he finally sat under a Bodhi tree to meditate. At age 35, he finally attained Enlightenment (nirvana in Sanskrit and nibbana in Pali).

Until he reached 80, he traveled far and wide, preaching the Middle Way to a growing number of converts until he reached the palace of his youth where he was able to convert his father, his wife and his son Rahula.

Gautama the Buddha condemned the caste system, advocated the abolition of slavery, banned the sacrifice of animals and raised the status of women, founding the first religious order for them. The poet Rabindranath Tagore calls him “the greatest man ever born”; H. P. Blavatsky, “the DIVINE MAN par excellence.” H.G. Wells: “In the Buddha, you see clearly a man, simple, devout, lonely, battling for light, a vivid human personality, not a myth.” He is acclaimed by 1/5 of the world’s population as “the greatest religious teacher that ever lived on earth.”

Buddhism

From his own intuitive knowledge, the now Enlightened Buddha (or Tathagata – “thus gone”) laid down the foundations of his Middle Way called the Four Noble Truths. These are: Sorrow or suffering (dukkha); the cause of suffering – craving or attachment; the ceasing or complete escape from sorrow which is Nirvana; and the Middle Way which leads to the escape from sorrow.

 This Middle Way is the Noble Eightfold Path, i.e. right understanding or belief; right thought; right speech; right action; right livelihood; right effort or exertion; right mindfulness or remembrance and right meditation or concentration.

The basis of religious practice then is the Three Jewels, namely, the Buddha, which is a title for those who have attained Nirvana; the Dhamma – the teachings or law of nature and the Sangha or the congregation of monastic practitioners.

Buddhism is the fourth largest global religion following only Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The most dominant religion in the East, it is increasingly becoming popular in the West. Sir Edwin Arnold’s poem, “The Light of Asia” has, in no small measure, contributed to this popularity of Buddhism.

In the Philippines, Buddhist followers are to be found among the Filipino Chinese, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese communities. Ther numbers are multiplying fast due to the increasing immigration to our country from our Asian neighbors.

Whether one regards Buddhism as a non-theistic religion, a philosophy or a code of ethics, it has undoubtedly led many to the Truth through the Lord Buddha’s Holy Life and his Midddle Way.