All right. Again, happy birthday, this assembly of Buddhas. Today is Buddha's birthday, and so the lecture will be short. We're going to have a bunch of guests whom you have not seen here before, including the world's largest baby. really astonishing. You wouldn't want to be having given birth to this baby out of your side or out of anywhere else. Also his mother and father and a mythic white elephant. So this is all going to be happening after this brief lecture. I also would like to welcome, in his country, he's known as a son of the Buddha.

[01:06]

This is my friend Ukovida, who's sitting back where I usually sit. He's a monk from Burma, and he's living here in Oakland, and I invited him to join us. Can you hear back there? Yeah. So we have the fathers and mothers and baby and son and then this whole assembly of Buddhas. So I'm just going to speak very briefly today and tell you a little about the birth of the Buddha and then we'll do our ceremony and our celebration. So the Buddha was born into a kingdom in North India, near the Himalayan mountains. You know those mountains? The biggest mountains in the world, right? You've been there? No, what year?

[02:07]

What year? That is a really good question. Maybe when you grow up you will help determine this. There's a lot of scholarly dispute about that. One date is 624 BC. So that's about 2600 years ago. What year did you think? No idea? But the scholars can't agree on this. But they do agree, he was born in this kingdom, in a kind of Indian small kingdom called the Shakya tribe. And the name he was given was Shakya Muni. Muni means the able one, one who is capable of doing things. And one day in the summer, his mother, Queen Maya, fell asleep, and she had a very vivid dream.

[03:14]

Four angels were carrying her high into the Himalayas, which she could see from her kitchen window, and they clothed her in flowers, and while she was there, a big huge white elephant that had a white lotus, I think today it has a pink lotus, is that correct, in its trunk, approached her and walked around her three times. And then the elephant struck her on the side, on her right side, with its trunk. Frankly, I think, well, this is a dream, so we're in dream reality here. But if an elephant struck you on the side, right or left, with your trunk, it would probably knock you across the room, don't you think? But anyway, this is a dream. And then she woke up.

[04:20]

When she woke up, she told her husband about the dream, and the king, who was not himself very good at interpreting dreams, had to invite 64 wise men to figure out what it meant. And you can imagine they had a consultation. I hope that, you know, I don't know what fee he had to pay to get all these wise men to do this, but they all consulted, had descended from one of the cosmic heavens and that it meant that Queen Maya would give birth to a son and that there were two possibilities as to what would become of this son in the future. Do you know what they are? Have you heard this story before? What might happen in the future?

[05:23]

I forgot. Oh, you forgot, okay. I will remind you. So one possibility is if he stayed in the household of his father and his mother, he would become a great world-conquering king, which sounds pretty good. That's what most people would want. But if he were to leave the household, he would become a completely awakened being, which is what Buddha means. Buddha means awake. Now, the king actually preferred that his son would be a king, because that was a pretty good job. And besides, fathers always want their sons to go into the family business, right? And the family business was being the king. It's good to be the king. But when the queen traveled to... she decided it was time to give birth and she went back to her family's house, to her mother and father's house.

[06:35]

She took to the road and on the road they passed this beautiful grove of trees. and we're going to have to stretch our imaginations. It's very beautiful outside today, but I don't think we've created the environment of Lumbini Grove. So, use your imagination. And it was full of blossoming trees. So the Queen asked her assembly to stop, and she got out of... she was in... what do you call that? like a sedantia, what's? What? Palanquin is actually the word, yes. A palanquin, but I'm trying to think of what's the simple word. Litter, a litter, right. What did you say? Litter, yeah, right. She was lying back, you know, it was very comfortable being carried by her servants, because she was a queen, she's had a lot of servants.

[07:40]

So anyway, she got out and She entered this grove, and instead of the usual experience of childbirth, which maybe you remember from your brother being born, do you remember that time at all? And David is soon going to have another brother or sister? Sister. Anyway, it's not always such great fun. for the mother. But in this case, she went into the grove, and she reached up and held a branch, and as the flowers descended on her, all of a sudden, the baby sprang out of her right side, where the elephant had struck her. So, we won't examine this too closely, okay? It's in the realm of myth.

[08:44]

You know what myth is, right? That's a nice story. So she took hold of the branch, and the child came out. And not only that, and so when the child came out, it was showered with blossoms, and two streams of water poured down from the heavens to bathe both the mother and the child, to wash them off. And then something interesting happened. You know what the baby Buddha did? He went first, this is baby Buddha, just born, right? Took seven steps in four directions. This is a very advanced child. Took seven steps in both directions, in all four directions, then went like this and said, under the heavens and above the earth, I alone am the world-honored one.

[09:44]

So, you know, go figure. He could walk and talk, as I said. And he was destined for, what do you call that, what kind of tracking is that in school? Gifted and talented, yes. But they didn't have tracking then, I don't think. So then she returned to her king and then the really sad thing is that the queen died seven days later. And this is a great tragedy because no matter how advanced or capable this young child was, every child needs its mother. So right early in his life, the Buddha had this real loss.

[10:50]

So from the earliest time, even before it was aware, it knew that there was loss in the world. And that was a question for that child all through its life. But The Buddha also had a wonderful aunt, the Queen's sister, Padrapati. And in later time, Padrapati became a disciple of her nephew, disciple of the Buddha. She was the first woman disciple of the Buddha. So she raised him, and then when he came to maturity as a Buddha, he raised her to become an enlightened disciple. So this is what we celebrate today. We celebrate that this awakened person was born in the world and really to say that I alone am the world honored one, what Sojan likes to say is that

[12:07]

alone means all one or at one as he was right at that moment he realized that he was the awakened one this is the capacity as he discovered later in life when he became enlightened he said together with all beings I am awakened now And this is what we celebrate. We celebrate not only his birth, but our Buddha nature. Yes? How do people know what day is birthday? Well, this is also a very interesting question, because it's all over the place. So, in Ukavita's tradition, my monk friend back there, they celebrate what we call Vesak or Vesaka. Is that right? Vesak. When do you celebrate the Buddha's birthday? No, what day of the year?

[13:15]

In April. So in some traditions they celebrate it in April. In some traditions they celebrate the Buddha's birthday, his enlightenment and the day that he passed away all on one day. So we don't know exactly when, but it was in the spring. They make a full moon day. Full moon day. Yeah. So that's a good question. Any other questions or thoughts before we enter our ceremony? Well, thank you very much and enjoy. I think this will be very interesting. And we also have wonderful cakes that were made by Naom. Naom is here, is that right? And Raoul. And enjoy this glorious spring day.

[14:17]

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