Holiday

Obon Season 2010!

| arun

The Tricycle editors beat me to it. It’s Obon season! Last year I posted a quote and link to Rev. Patti Usuki’s explanation of the Obon holiday. Below is a list of the remaining Obon festivals in Southern California.

If you’re in Southern California, you should check out festival celebrations in Orange County and Guadalupe today. Remember that you can always buy your kachi kachi at Marukai!

Vesak Celebrations

| arun

This weekend, many Buddhists will be going to temple to celebrate Vesak. In lieu of presenting original work, here’s a list of what other people wrote…

Happy Vesak!

Hanamatsuri Greetings!

| arun

Tomorrow marks the celebration of Lord Buddha’s birthday, by modern Japanese reckoning. You may also hear this holiday referred to as Hanamatsuri (花祭) or “Flower Festival.” Here’s a nice Hanamatsuri postfrom a Seattle blogger. Not knowing the typical greetings for this holiday, I’ve invented my own below.

If you happen to know of a customary Hanamatsuri greeting—or if you have a fun alternative—I’d love to hear from you. You can learn a little more about the holiday here.

Hanamatsuri in Downtown LA

| arun

Here’s some Downtown Los Angeles Buddhist community news straight from the Rafu Shimpo via Little Tokyo UnBlogged.

Already, Hanamatsuri, the celebration of the Buddha’s birthday is right around the corner. This year’s Los Angeles Buddhist Church Federation’s Hanamatsuri will be held on Sunday, April 11 from 1 p.m. at the Jodoshu North America Buddhist Missions at 442 East Third Street in Little Tokyo. The theme of this year’s celebration is Buddhism and Compassion.

The celebration will begin at 1 p.m. with a special performance of by Kinnara Gagaku of Senshin Buddhist Temple. The visually stunning Bugaku, the classical dance that accompanies Gagaku music will be the featured part of this year’s performance.

The Hanamatsuri Service conducted by over ten priests of the federation temples will begin at 1:20 p.m. The traditional chanting of the priests will be enhanced by the music of Gagaku. An awards presentation for the winners of this year’s Children’s Art and Photography contests will take place immediately after the service.

This year’s highlight will be the commemorative lecture on Buddhism and Compassion delivered by Dr. Glenn Webb, Professor Emeritus of Pepperdine University and one of our country’s leading Buddhist scholars.

In addition to the celebration on April 11, the annual Hanamatsuri Golf Tournament was held on Friday, March 26 at California Country Club. The funds raised at this event will go towards maintaining the annual LABCC Buddhist Summer Camp program.

The Hanamatsuri Children’s Art and Photo exhibition will be on display at the Jodoshu North America Buddhist Missions from April 11 through April 19.

For more information, please contact (213) 626-4200 or info@hhbt-la.org.

Happy Lunar New Year!

| arun

Today is the (Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean/Mongolian/Tibetan) Lunar New Year. Although frequently tied to religious observance, these concurrent new years are celebrated by Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists and more types of believers, non-believers and everything-in-between than even the gods are able to count. I wouldn’t say that makes them secular holidays, but I would be a bit wary about calling them “Buddhist” holidays. Here are a few nouvelanian messages from around the net.

Chinese New Year is helpfully explained for laowais. (via Yueheng)

Rev. Heng Sure sends us a Year of the Tiger Valentine video greeting.

President Barack Obama extends his Lunar New Year Wishes via YouTube.

In solidarity with Tibetans in Chinese territory, the Dalai Lama has discouraged celebration of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, in 2010. (Also posted at Shambhala SunSpace.)

Not to say that no Tibetans will be celebrating Losar—it’s important to uphold one’s cultural heritage afterall.

Also check out posts by Nate DeMontigny, Barbara O’Brien, Danny Fisher, John Pappas. All share some celebratory thoughts on Losar, each in their own special way.

Lovely Spring Festival

| arun

The Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean/Tibetan Lunar New Year falls on Valentine’s Day this year. For many of us who were planning something romantic for that special someone, negotiations are currently underway with Mom and Pops to balance (sometimes) conflicting obligations. For those of us who find ourselves single, how wonderful it is to have something greater to celebrate than hyper-awareness of singlehood!

I usually go to temple the night before to welcome the New Year at midnight sharp. Typically, this is followed by a vegetarian meal with family and friends. The next day, I get dragged along to go temple hopping, making offerings for good merit—a “traditional” routine that I honestly believe is just another excuse to spend time with family and meet old friends. A good excuse, in my opinion.

This morning I was also reminded that for about 150 million migrant workers, this holiday marks the year’s most important (if not only) trip home. May we all have the goodness of heart, word and action to cultivate a positive destiny for ourselves.

What does this have to do with Buddhism? Who knows!

Engaged Buddhist Christmas

| arun

Here’s a thought for an engaged Buddhist Christmas. Many people who convert to Buddhism may feel that they need to do something special for the holiday season. Say, wringing out all the Christian aspects of Christmas and then sprinkling some Buddhist pixie dust over what’s left. My family secretly aspires to celebrate Christmas the way the Jews do. There are several popularized ways that Jews celebrate Christmas in North America, but we frequently talk about the Chinese food and movie version—we’ve just never actually gotten around to it. My favorite way to celebrate Christmas is to volunteer at a meal center. (Credit for this family tradition goes to my mom.) It may be too late for most readers to sign up to volunteer—but this time of the year is perfect for Buddhists, especially Buddhists in the West, to celebrate the season through service to others. It’s a good way to spend your time even when it’s not a holiday. Just a thought.

Happy Rohatsu!

| arun

Today is Rohatsu (臘八), often referred to as Bodhi Day (佛成道節), the day Lord Buddha attained Enlightenment. As I’m grateful to have learned from the following blogs, today is also the culmination of sesshin for many Buddhists with a Zen meditation practice. I encourage you to check out these posts that I found about elsewhere in the Buddhist blogosphere.

Bodhi Day, as celebrated on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, is typically an East Asian and Mahayanist Buddhist holiday. The celebration of Rohatsu is rooted in a Chinese pre-Buddhist festival, but has been since been firmly recontextualized in the Buddhist tradition. In contrast, Theravada Buddhist tradition customarily celebrates Lord Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and parinibbana on the same full-moon day of Vesak (roughly May). I’ve also got a hunch that Vesa日本藤素 k, in turn, is rooted in pre-Buddhist Indian tradition. Just something to think about for the folk who advocate stripping Buddhism of its “Asian cultural baggage.” Happy Rohatsu!

Kathina Time is (Almost) Here

| arun

Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery has announced its celebration of the Kathina holiday this fall. Click on the link and you’ll find a description of the festival itself.

If you haven’t attended a Kathina celebration before, you’re in for a treat. I’ve come to think of it as the equivalent of all our lay holidays rolled into one. There is the abundance of Thanksgiving with gratitude for the completion of a long retreat and for having monastics in this country. The chance to gather together with gifts resembles the winter holidays of Hanukkah and Christmas, combined with a kind of birthday anniversary marking another year of monastic life. It’s a particularly joyous time to show appreciation for those who have gone forth into the homeless life and who provide support and inspiration to lay practitioners. It’s especially timely as fall and winter draw nearer, when visitors become less frequent and a full storeroom of supplies is so valuable.

Some close friends and I have for several years now been recontextualizing Kathina in the giving spirit of Hanukkah or Christmas as another opportunity to bestow gifts on friends, temples and 501(c)(3)s. Since this degeneration of Kathina into a Christmas-clone is (so far as I know) practiced only within small and isolated circles, I’m not too worried about the potential dilution and commercialization of what was once a mighty and precisely meaningful Buddhist holiday. I can’t shake the guilt though—I’m an Asian Buddhist kid whitewashing a perfectly fine and ancient Buddhist tradition with commercialized Western cultural values. But I like it this way.