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Vesak

Welcome everyone. Those of you who came in late or who joined later online may be a little surprised at what you've seen here. We've rotated the room and have a special setup. That's because today is a celebration. It's a holiday, the Buddhist holiday of Vesak^[1], which is on the full moon of May. This year it was on the first, a couple of days ago. It's a celebration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and parinibbana^[2]—his life of awakening and teaching.

If something in you is saying, "Oh no, what's this going to be about?" it might be interesting to consider that the majority of Buddhists worldwide engage with the dharma through ritual, devotion, community, and ethical living. That's what most Buddhists do. This meditation thing is actually a little bit unusual.

So today we're going to join that broader stream and have a bit of a celebration here. I'll talk a bit, and we're going to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. It's a good time to turn off your phone if you haven't yet. We're also going to have the children come in with a ritual that's often done on Vesak, where we have a chance to celebrate the Buddha. There's a way of bathing the little baby Buddha statue, and then we'll have some singing. Is singing allowed in the Dharma Hall? Yes, it is. [Laughter] I hope you'll enjoy participating in this broader stream of what Buddhism can look like, and what our engagement with the dharma can look and feel like.

For the folks online, I know we didn't really warn you, but you'll be able to see and hear what you need to of this. We're going to be moving the camera as different things happen. I encourage you to stay and get the feel, even though you can't quite feel the energy of it. At the end, we're going to have tea and snacks for the folks who are here. And to be aware, since the camera is pointing at me, as you come in and out, you're passing in front of the camera. It's a little different than when you can slip in the back, right? The Buddha that I usually sit in front of is over there. The teacher normally sits in front of it. So I kind of like that he's in the audience and participating with us today, watching as we do this.

Reflecting on the Buddha

Vesak is a good time to reflect on and connect with the Buddha: his life, his teachings, his awakening, and our own inspiration, respect, or at least curiosity about the Buddha Dharma. In doing so, we connect in with maybe more fundamental questions than we do just in our daily sitting practice. It's a simultaneous lifting of our eyes to the horizon, getting more of an overview, and also delving down a little bit deeper into our heart to connect with why it is that we feel resonant with this practice. Both of those things are valuable to do from time to time. I hope that'll be one thing that comes out of today.

The Buddha can be seen as a kind of North Star. He is a representation of an ideal of our human potential for goodness, clarity, awakening, compassion, love, and good action in the world. He represents that for us. He was also a teacher who explained how it is that suffering comes about and how we can end it. He gave practices that lead in that direction if we do them. They're useful to us even today. Even though he was teaching 2,600 years ago, it's amazing how relevant his teachings still are.

The Buddha may evoke spiritual or religious feelings in us that many people find nourishing, meaningful, even essential for living their life. As such, the Buddha is called the first refuge, which is a form of protection for us as we live, as we practice, and as we engage in our lives.

But who was the Buddha? We don't know completely, but he was said to possess a number of qualities, and these are represented in a list of ten called the Buddha gunas^[3]. I won't go through all ten of them, but I just want to summarize them into a shorter list today. It's worth feeling into these qualities. What would it be like to imagine a person like this?

The Buddha's own heart was completely free of greed, hatred, and delusion. He experienced no suffering, no dukkha^[4], no stress, and no struggle with his life. And it wasn't just an inner freedom. He could manifest all of this in his speech and his actions, so that he was always completely authentic. We sometimes have a little tension where we're saying something that we don't quite feel inside, or we're feeling something but we're not acting in line with what we wanted to do. And so there's tension. But the Buddha was able to be completely free because his heart was completely free.

Because the Buddha had seen so deeply into his own heart and mind, he could understand the hearts and minds of other beings. It is said that he could see all the way down to the deepest hells and all the way up to the highest heavens. He understood all the possible experiences, whether you see that in a literal, cosmological sense, or a psychological understanding.

Because of that, he was unsurpassed as a teacher. He could always point to what a given person needed to take the next step on their path. He could tame the wildest minds. He could inspire open hearts in anyone. He could lead receptive beings to the path to freedom.

He also had some more subtle and mysterious qualities, such as the ability to exert a powerful awakeness or presence from his very being that could be felt if a being was sensitive to that. He could offer blessings and protections to those who had deep devotion.

You may notice that there are two different tones to what I talked about in the qualities. There's the Buddha as someone who had freed his own heart and therefore could teach others. He was a healer, a very astute psychologist, a deep philosopher of the human condition. Maybe you even see him as a talented spiritual technologist who knew how to manipulate the mind in just the right way. That's one aspect.

Then, there's the Buddha as a religious figure, something more than human. A master of the cosmological realms of existence, maybe even profound and unfathomable in his spiritual enlightenment beyond what we can really understand. He was someone worthy of offerings, devotion, and faith.

These two tones—in our modern language we might call them immanent and transcendent, but those are modern terms. This range of the Buddha has been present from the very beginning and weaves through all the Buddhist traditions. Everyone has had to address how they should think about the Buddha, and different cultures and individuals have had different answers to that. Different schools of Buddhism have presented it differently. I present this range so that you can feel into how it is for you. It's a spectrum, and where do you land on that? Maybe you like to have both of those views, but with different parts of your being—the immanent and the transcendent.

The Core Discovery

The key discovery of the Buddha was that suffering—dukkha, stress, struggle, unsatisfactoriness with how things are—can be totally ended in the heart through the development of our mental stability and our wisdom. By practicing all eight steps of the Eightfold Path, the heart becomes wise. It becomes present. It becomes oriented towards non-harming in the way it is in the world.

The overcoming of suffering is encapsulated in the teachings called the Four Noble Truths. There is dukkha; there is suffering in the world, and we are to turn toward that. We are to acknowledge that in our practice and learn something about it. We don't just turn away from it, deny it, cover it over, or pretend it's not there.

There is a cause of this dukkha. It's not random. It's not brought about by others. It's our craving and clinging, our grasping and pushing away in our own heart. The numerous ways that we fight with reality are what makes this struggle for us.

It's possible to end this. That experience is one of falling away, of cessation, of the ending of the struggle. It is a very important kind of ending, one that we would welcome.

And there is a path toward doing that. If it seems far away and we say, "Yeah, right. That's for the Buddha," there is a path. There is a way from here to there. It's called the Eightfold Path. In fact, here at IMC, we have a whole Eightfold Path program. It's online for those of you who are interested. It unfolds the steps of this path and how we can engage with them in our particular lives. It's meant to be a practice where we each discover for ourselves what the Eightfold Path is for us.

Taking Refuge

In a moment we're going to chant the Three Refuges. It's a very classic Buddhist practice to be done on this day. The refuges in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha will be in Pali, the ancient Indian language that these teachings were first written down in. Don't worry, we'll do a call and response, and it's a very simple chant to learn. You don't need to have anything memorized.

There's a range of reasons or ways that taking refuge is relevant. You can just take them as a way of being part of this community. We're sharing it with other communities that are like this one across the West and in Asia. It's also a protection. We may get a sense that out there in the world, these values are not so espoused or always supported in the wider public. So we take them as a protection so that we remember our values. We remember values of non-harming, awakeness, care, and wisdom.

The chant begins with an homage: Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa. That means, "Homage to the Blessed, Noble, and Fully Awakened One." We acknowledge the awakening of the Buddha, which is what made all of this possible. He awoke, and then he could teach.

Then we chant the refuges: Buddham saranam gacchami. I go to the Buddha refuge, or often translated as "I go to the Buddha for refuge." The word gacchami means "go," but it also means "walk," so it implies that we have to do it ourselves. Then Dhammam saranam gacchami, Sangham saranam gacchami—the teachings and the community.

We'll do it three times. There's Dutiyampi for the second time, Tatiyampi for the third time. I'll do a call and response in little bite-sized chunks. Here we go.

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa

Buddham saranam gacchami Dhammam saranam gacchami Sangham saranam gacchami

Dutiyampi Buddham saranam gacchami... Tatiyampi Buddham saranam gacchami... (Chanting continues)

Thank you. Very beautiful. Just checking—can somebody check if Hillary is ready? They look ready. All right, open the door.

The Children's Procession

They'll be here in a moment. They'll arrive chanting, and they're carrying a pagoda that they've decorated with flowers for the springtime, and also some Buddhist representations. I don't know if you'll quite be able to see, but inside the pagoda, there's a little statue of a baby Buddha. That represents the life of the Buddha, the beginning of his bringing forth the teachings into the world. I'll say a little bit about the Buddha's life after they've brought it in, and we'll probably have some singing. Then there's an opportunity—the kids will do it first—to wash the baby Buddha with a little scoop and some water. It's very sweet.

While they're washing the Buddha, we're going to do another little chant that I might have a moment to teach you. It's only four words, so it's super easy. Oh, I hear the music. Here they come.

For those online, the kids are coming in and they're singing the four Brahma Viharas^[5]: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.

(Children singing) Loving-kindness and compassion, joy, joy, joy, equanimity...

Okay, welcome everybody. Thank you. Please find a spot to sit if you can. If some adults are coming in, that's fine. We have a few more chairs in here. There's more room over here up front. We're going to let folks settle. Mark is working the camera to show the different things happening here. You may want to point it at the pagoda so folks online can see. Those who are here, if you can keep the space in front of the camera a little bit clearer. Thank you.

First of all, look at all these beautiful flowers on the pagoda. The kids decorated this with the flowers. Isn't that nice? They did such a nice job. And we loved your singing coming in. That was so beautiful. We're going to get a chance to sing a little bit later also.

The Story of the Buddha

I just want to say a little bit about the Buddha and his life. The baby Buddha that is in the middle reminds us that the Buddha had a special life during which he accomplished freeing his own heart and then teaching that to numerous people for 45 years. So I'm giving an abbreviated version of the Buddha's life.

The Buddha was born in northern India about 2,600 years ago. His parents tried to shield him from feeling anything unpleasant or unhappy in his life, and in fact, they gave him everything that he could possibly want. He was pretty happy for a while, as you might imagine. Getting everything you want would be pretty happy! But he eventually realized that even if he got everything he wanted, he was still going to get sick. He was still going to get older, maybe even die, and that this would happen to everybody.

He started wondering if there was a way that everybody could be genuinely happy. Could everybody have a deep well-being that comes from the inside and is there even if we don't get what we want? Could that be possible?

He learned to meditate and tried different things to find this happiness. He gave up living in a nice house and went out on a quest to try to discover how everybody could be free in their hearts. By working very hard at that, he made the amazing discovery that we do have within us the ability to be truly happy. There is a well-being inside that does not depend on getting what we want. [Laughter]

In fact, what he discovered is that we have inside of us a flower in our heart that can grow and bloom. We all have a seed of a beautiful flower in our heart. How does this flower grow and bloom? It grows and blooms by planting it in the soil of everything in our life. We include all of our feelings, all of our thoughts, all of our hopes and dreams, and even what we think makes us unhappy. That's the soil in which we plant this seed. The soil includes our anger, our sadness, our crying, our pain. All of that is just part of the soil for this flower in our heart.

And then we feed it with our attention and our love, just like you guys sang about coming in. We pay attention to our feelings and our thoughts. We pay attention to what's going on in ourselves, in other people, in animals, and the whole world. Attention and love are like the water and the sun that grow this flower of real happiness so that it can bloom in our heart.

There's a bonus, which is that one of the best ways for us to be happy is to care about other people and try and help them to be happy too. So our flower blooms partly because we help other people's flowers to bloom.

Today we're celebrating the Buddha's discovery of true happiness, and we're eventually going to bathe him with water as a way of helping our own flower of happiness to bloom. But I wonder if Carla maybe has another song.

(Singing) I take refuge in the Buddha, the one who shows the way with his love. I take refuge in the Dharma, the way of understanding and light. I take refuge in the Sangha, our community of mindful harmony.

Beautiful. Thank you. So we keep this soft, warm feeling. Thank you very much.

Washing the Buddha

As we do the ritual of washing the Buddha, the kids are going to do it first. The adults have a chance to come up too if they would like. We're going to do a little chant to have a background sound during that. The chant has just four words. It's Sabbe satta sukhi hontu^[6], which means "May all beings be happy." We'll learn it two words at a time.

Washing the Buddha is a way of showing the cleanliness of our own heart, our intention toward non-harming and love. And also, it's going to help the seed of that flower of real happiness bloom in our heart.

Let's start the chant. The kids can start. You can watch what they do to learn how to do it. And then when they're finished, the adults, if you would like to bathe the Buddha, you can.

(Chanting) Sabbe satta sukhi hontu...

Did everyone get a chance? Kids can go back to their families if they want to. If any adults would like to come up, you just come up the stairs. Thank you, Nina, for starting us out. Keep chanting.

(Chanting continues as the assembly washes the Buddha) Sabbe satta sukhi hontu...

[Bell rings]

Okay, very beautiful. Thank you for all the chanting and for sitting so nicely during that time. Very sweet.

Closing Songs

Probably we need another song at this point, don't you think? We'll close with a joyful song to bring us all together.

If we may, I'd like to offer two songs because one directly relates to everything we've been doing. This one is called "Four Divine Abodes." Just as we came in singing loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, this explains it a little more to the kids. And then we'll do a quick closing with a shortened version of "Love Makes a Family."

(Singing) In the house of loving-kindness, I am glad to live. How sweet it is to open up my heart and let it give. The windows are all open, there's nothing here to hide, In the house of loving-kindness that I have inside.

In the house of true compassion, I am glad to be, Knowing every living thing has feelings just like me. All the joys and sorrows, the anger and the fears, In the house of true compassion, all are welcome here.

In the house of joy and happiness, I'm glad to dwell, Grateful for my blessings, wishing you the same as well. The world is full of riches, there's enough for you and me, In the house of joy and happiness, my heart is free.

In the house of balance, I am glad to spend my time, Coming home from stormy days that shake my heart and mind. I can swing so high and low, but somewhere in between, In the house of balance, I'm peaceful and serene.

In these four divine abodes that live inside of me, There I go for refuge, to be happy, to be free. It only takes a little breath, a little change of mind, To take me to the sweet abode where peace and joy are mine.

Thank you. I love to see that! [Laughter] All right, kids. Are we ready? Show them we know "Love Makes a Family." You ready? Those are all the words: "Love makes a family" for the chorus. And Hillary, can you stand up and show the motions?

(Singing) Love makes a family. Love makes a family. Love makes a family. Love makes a family.

This is the place we bring our families, We gather to learn mindful harmony. We sing and we play and we sit quietly, And we share our family love.

Love makes a family...

Beautiful. Thank you to Carla, Lily, Hillary, all the kids, all of you, and everyone online. Imagine how big our celebration has been, given that it was shared over the internet also. Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate the birth, the enlightenment, the awakening, and teachings of the Buddha.

I think the appropriate way to end is that we bow once to the Buddha and once to each other, everyone around you. Thank you so much. We have tea and snacks available.