This is going to be a short lecture because it's Buddha's birthday and we want to get to the birthday party section of the show where we bathe the baby Buddha and make offerings and chant and then have tea and yes and we sing and then we have tea and cake together. I'd just like to say welcome a special guest here, a new friend. Ukovida is a young Burmese monk. who's back there sitting in the corner, thank you for coming, and his friend Aung Zarny, who's also Burmese, and I think this is probably going to be a new experience for them, even though it's all within the circle of Buddha. I'm thinking in Burma, the monks are

[01:04]

known as sons of the Buddha. So it seems really nice to have a son of the Buddha here on Buddha's birthday. Do you guys know how old the Buddha would be? Have you any idea? Does anyone have any idea? What? 2,550, according to one way of reckoning that, that's, think how many candles that would be. That in itself, 2,550 candles would affect global warming, don't you think? and all that wax. So I don't know, do we have, do we have, I don't know if we have candles on the cake, I forget. No candles. Oh, this is, right, right.

[02:07]

Well, it's good because Ellen is the person who is monitoring our energy use, right? So anyway, 2,550 years. So I thought I would talk a little about the story of the birth of Buddha, which you may have heard before, and you will doubtless hear again. But I was looking around, and it seems there's a beginning to this story, which I hadn't heard before. So before he was born, The Buddha to be was living in some other world, some other heaven called the Tushita heaven. and among the kind of community of divine and heavenly beings. And at a certain point, they came to this Buddha to be and said, you have to go down to that world down there.

[03:11]

This meaning the world that we live in, which is sometimes known as the Saha world. Have you ever heard of that? The Saha means the world where things have to be endured. This is the world that we live in, the world where there's difficult things and where life is not, sometimes it's easy, but sometimes it's not so easy. So they said, sir, you've done all the work that you can up here and it's time that you go down to the Saha world and offer to save all beings by being the Buddha and the Buddha to be thought about this and said he looked because he had a kind of cosmic vision and he could see the family, his father and mother, and he looked around and he said, oh, I see the conditions are right.

[04:23]

I'm going to be born into the Shakya clan in India, and Suddhodana is going to be my father. He's a great warrior king. And there's this very pure woman who is his queen, Mahamaya, and she shall be my mother. Having said that, he prepared himself to be born. Meanwhile, down here in the Saha world, there was a midsummer festival that was going on in the city of Kapilavatu, which was the king and queen's city. And everybody was having this big feast. And at the day of the full moon, The queen, Maya, she got up early. She bathed in perfumed water. You guys bathe in perfumed water every day, right?

[05:24]

No. She took a bubble bath. She had her rubber ducky. And she put on all of her fancy clothes. She ate a really good, delicious Indian meal. and after which she got tired and she lay down on the royal couch. I don't know what that is, but I'll bet it was pretty comfortable. It was probably one of those, one of those sleep dial mattress. She probably had a sleep dial mattress. Indian style, before electricity. She fell asleep and she had this dream. In this dream, four guardian angels came and lifted up her whole couch and took it up into the Himalaya mountains. Mountains which are, you know, that's where Mount Everest is, right?

[06:28]

Very tall. And they found a garden and they lay her under a very wide tree, enormous tree. And while she was laying there, this is still in this is like the dream within the dream pretty tricky she saw a huge beautiful white elephant who was wandering about very close he saw her lying on the couch in the Himalayas under the tree and he he plucked a white lotus flower with his trunk. Because he's very good with his trunk. So you have the white elephant holding the white lotus flower. And then he trumpeted loudly, which I won't do. I'm tempted. But you know how an elephant can trumpet. It's kind of like Sam was trumpeting in there before.

[07:32]

and he walked into the garden where the queen was lying asleep on the couch and he walked around it three times and in that moment, in that dream, all of a sudden the Buddha-to-be was placed mysteriously inside his mother's body. a lecture for kids, so I won't say what I think. So the next day, in the morning, the queen woke up and told her dream to King Suddhodana. And the king, of course not knowing what it meant, called 64 wise men to explain the dream to him. And he asked, what's the deal here? What's this dream? And the Brahmins, the wise men said, be not anxious, great king, you will have a son.

[08:40]

And he, if he continues to live the household life, will become a universal king. But if he leave the household life and retires from the world, he will become a Buddha and will roll back the clouds of foolishness in this world. So, seems like a good way, seems like a good choice either way. Get to be a king, get to be a Buddha, the options are pretty good for this baby. Now, so Queen Maya carried the Buddha to be in her belly for 10 months. Usually it's nine months, right? Is that right? How long does it take to make a baby? How long did it take to make you? Do you remember? You don't remember. So 10 months, this baby needed, this was a Buddha, so it needed extra cooking.

[09:45]

And at the end of the 10 months, the queen, this was a custom in these days in India, when a woman was about to give birth, often she would go back to the home of her parents to give birth there. It's a wonderful kind of sort of cycle of continuation. And she wanted to go back to her town of Devadaha. And the king said, so be it. And he made a great portable throne for her to be carried. And also, he went down, he had the road made, he took out all the rough spots and puddles in the road between Kaplavatu and Devadaha. And she, with her, Her accompaniment, her assistants, her guardians took to the road.

[10:49]

And there were thousands of them who went with her. This is a big deal. As they were going down the road, they saw a place called the Lumbini Garden. And it was very beautiful. This whole grove was just covered with flowers and beautiful trees. And the flowers were woven into the trees so that they climbed the trees. Everything was bright and colorful. And this was just a beautiful spot. And she stopped, she stopped the journey there and wanted to take a rest. She was so taken with the beauty of this place. And she went to the foot of this large Sala tree and she wanted to take hold of one of the branches. So she reached up and magically she couldn't reach the branch, but the branch came down to her hand. And as she held out her hand and took hold of the branch, she realized that she was about to give birth right there in the road.

[12:03]

and told her, her people, and they very politely hung, they encircled her with a curtain, so she would have some privacy, and they stepped away. And while she was standing there, with one hand grasping the tree, she gave birth to the Buddha-to-be. No muss, no fuss. That's not in the original text. And it gets even more interesting. So the child was born. And for the sake of honoring the future Buddha, two streams of water flowed down from the sky like a kind of gentle waterfall. washed off the baby Buddha, the infant Buddha completely, and the other one refreshed his mother, Green Maya.

[13:12]

This Buddha was very, you've heard this story before? This Buddha was a very unusual infant. You know, usually infants just kind of lie there, right? Sometimes they look like they're sort of swimming around, you know, just enjoying everything. And they're kind of overwhelmed by being in the world, in this Saha world to be endured. But this child is very alert. He looked around in all 10 directions, north, south, east, west, up, down, backwards, forwards, and looked around to see who was there. What was there? And then, having decided what the best direction was, he got up and he walked seven steps, very boldly.

[14:15]

Can you imagine that? How long was it? How old were you guys when you walked? Do you remember? You weren't four minutes, right? That's pretty amazing. He walked seven steps, and he stopped. And he pointed to the heavens with one hand, and he pointed to the earth with the other. And he shouted a shout of victory. Right, exactly. That's it, David, you got it. And he said something like, above the earth and under the heavens, I alone am the world honored one. Except, yeah, the Buddha and David, I heard you. This is actually what every child thinks. In their heart of hearts. Maybe this is not to be blasphemous, but maybe this is to say, the baby Buddha was saying, it's all about me.

[15:20]

We have a heart. Some of us never grow up. Some of us always think it's all about me. But it's also true. It's true. Each one of us, this word alone, I looked it up in the dictionary last night. I alone am the world honored one. Alone, the root of it means all one. So everything that makes this world is within you. It's within David, Mira, Malcolm, Martha, Jerry, John, Lori, Ukavita. I'm not gonna mention all of your names, but everything that makes up the world is contained within each of us. And in a sense, this is the Buddha's message. So that's the story of the birth of the baby Buddha.

[16:29]

There's a lot more. Then he had to grow up. he had to find his way and he discovered even though everything was provided for him and he had a very good, rich, privileged life, he discovered in a sense that this really was the Saha world. Even for a prince there were things that had to be endured, there was difficulty. So that's the story for today. Yes, the flowers that kind of miraculously appeared in his steps, yeah, that's called editing. I left that part out a little. But yeah, they miraculously blossomed in his path. Any other questions from these kids? Any other questions here?

[17:32]

Well, thank you for listening to this story. I think what we're gonna do now is we're gonna close the lecture and then the kids and I have prepared a song for you, okay? So, we'll do the four vows. Things are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them.

[18:41]

Illusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Means are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Illusions are inexhaustible. Wait a second. Wait, wait. I mean them. Get these out to the kids and their parents and however much is left. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. Well, we've been having songs for the last few Buddha's birthdays, and I wrote one this time

[19:53]

I can't remember. I think the chorus came to me first, and so I'll teach you the chorus so everybody can sing it. Now, there are many people here who are old enough to remember the legend of Davy Crockett. Is that true? Right. Did anyone besides me have a coonskin cap? All right. Yeah. Well, it's time for confession. Nobody need to repent. So I have this chorus, and I'll teach it to you. It's very simple. Shakya, Shakyamuni, king of the inner frontier. Try that again. Shakya, Shakya Muni, king of the inner frontier. Oh, that's excellent.

[20:57]

You already have it. Does anyone remember Davy, Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier, born in a mountaintop in Tennessee, and so forth, right. So that's the basis of the song. No, and they can sit down. I don't want to embarrass them. you Born in the east in the days of old, Son of a king who was brave and bold, He took seven steps on the day he was born, Said, I am the world honored one, Shakya, Shakyamuni, King of the inner frontier. In the golden palace there were all good things His father prayed he'd become a king But the boy felt the burden of suffering So he fled to the forest seeking freedom's ring Shakya Shakyamuni King of the inner frontier

[22:21]

He sat himself down under the Bodhi tree Vowing not to get up till the truth he could see In meditation traveled near and far Until he was enlightened, he's the morning star Shakya, Shakyamuni King of the inner frontier Forty-five years he walked in dust and sand, With monks and nuns who formed a growing band. Sleeping in caves and in castles grand, He preached about freedom for every woman and man. Shakyamuni! King of the inner frontier! One more time! Shakyamuni! King of the inner frontier. Thank you.

[23:26]

So I think it'll be okay for the kids to leave and the adults to stay. We're going to have an offering here and then the ceremony outside will be explained where everyone can bathe the baby Buddha. Yes, David? Do we get toys like last time? Yeah, you get toys. Different toys. Right. That's right. That's why he alone is the world-honored one.

[23:56]

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