Good morning and Happy birthday It's a beautiful spring morning. And today we are celebrating Buddha's birthday Although there is no certainty about the actual date of his birth In Sort of the agreed-upon Buddha's years It is his 2,564th birthday And if you think of all the candles that would be on his cake It would probably contribute to global warming So we only have a few candles here In the Chinese Buddhist tradition The

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Birthday of the Buddha is celebrated in the spring and in the Theravada tradition in South and Southeast Asia it's celebrated a little later and that Celebration is called Vesak and it marks the Both that all three the birth Enlightenment and the death of Buddha, but in the East Asian tradition We celebrate His birthday now. It's settled on the solar calendar on April 8th And that's a day in Japan. It's called on a Matsuri which is the flower festival when In legend flowers rain down from heaven and In the ceremony or before the ceremony, which I'm going to do I'm going to

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Recite the some some of the details of the story of the birth of the Buddha and then we'll go to a ceremony So the Buddha was Born in the area of Lumbini, which is now on the Nepalese side of the Indian and Nepal border and he was born to Into a sort of regional royal family of the tribe of the of the Shakyas and his father was a prince or a king Suddhodana and his mother was Mahamaya And she was a prince from a neighboring she was a princess from a neighboring tribe There are several accounts of the Buddha's the wonderful circumstances of the Buddha's birth

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In the Sutras and in the commentaries and in some of the some of the narratives around the Around the life of the Buddha, I'm gonna I'm gonna recount one version today So at the time of the of the spring festival Everyone was enjoying a feast and Queen Maya Was abstaining from strong drinks and she was garlanded with flowers and perfumes And she took part in the festivities At the last day of the full moon She rose early and she bathed and She put on fancy clothes and she ate the choicest foods

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After which she took eight vows the eight precepts and she went back to her room and She was lying down on the royal couch and she fell asleep and had the following dream For guardian angels Came and lifted her up They took her away to the Himalayas up in the mountains, which were which are rather close and there they lay here under a a sal tree and they stood to one side and Then another group of angels Took her from her Reclining couch To I know Tata Lake and they bathed her to remove every human stain They anointed her with perfumes and flowers and

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They spread another couch with his head towards the east and she lay down and so In her dream She had a dream a dream within a dream and in that dream the future Buddha had become a beautiful white elephant And he was approaching from the north He plucked a white lotus with his silvery trunk and he trumpeted loudly going into the Golden Mansion Three times He circumambulated his future mother's couch And then with his trunk he struck her on her right side And With this symbolic act

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She was impregnated and the conception had taken place On the next day the Queen awoke and she told the dream to the King The King summoned a group of Brahmins of wise men and He spread seats for them he fed them and Offered gifts Gifts including new garments and Tawny cows, I guess a cow would be a good gift and He satisfied them completely Then he told them of this dream and they asked what would come of it They said be not anxious great King a Child has planted itself in the womb of your Queen and you will have a son

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And If this son continues in the household life, he will become a universal monarch But if he leaves the household life and retires from the world he will become a Buddha an enlightened one and Roll back the clouds of sin and folly in this world So the future Buddha was conceived And all when this happened all the 10,000 world suddenly quaked quivered and shook And a measurable light spread through 10,000 worlds The blind recovered their sight the deaf received their hearing the dumb talked The hunchback became straight of body The lame recovered the power to walk all those imprisoned

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Were freed from their bonds and chains The fires went out in all the hills the hunger and thirst Of all were still Wild animals lost their community Diseases ceased among people All mortals became Mild spoken Elephants trumpeted in a manner that was sweet to the ear All musical instruments gave forth their notes without being played upon In all the quarters of the heavens the weather became fair a mild cool breeze began to blow Water burst forth from the earth and flowed in streams The birds ceased flying through the air The rivers checked their flowing in the mighty ocean the water became sweet

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All flowers bloomed on land and those that grew in the water Shower of flowers fell about Celestial music was heard to play in the sky and the whole 10,000 worlds became one mass of garlands of the utmost possible magnificence Saturated with the incense like fragrance of the blooming The future Buddha's mother having reached the pinnacle of good fortune and glory felt comfortable and well And within her womb she could distinguish the future Buddha Like a white thread that was passed through a transparent jewel She carried the future Buddha in her arms

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For 10 months And As she was with child and she felt the birth was near She wanted to go back to her relatives In the city where she had grown up To Devadaha And she said to the king Sire, I would like to visit my kinfolk in their city So from his capital Kapilavastu To the city of Devadaha. He had the road made even And he garnished it with plantain trees with banners and streamers And he seated the Queen in a golden palanquin That was born by a thousand of his courtiers

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And he sent her away with great pomp Between these two cities It was a grove of sow trees called Lumbini Gardens And at this particular time the grove was one mass of flowers From the ground to the topmost branches And flocks of birds of various kinds flew about warbling When the Queen saw this from her palanquin She wanted to walk through these gardens So she asked her bearers to Set her down And she walked in the gardens At the center of the garden it was great

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sow tree And she reached up and took hold of one of its branches The branch bent itself down So it could be within her reach And Then she seized hold of the branch And as she did so immediately Birth pains came upon her So her servants hung a curtain around her for privacy and her delivery took place standing up Holding fast to that branch and According to the stories the Buddha issued forth from her side And as the Buddha was born

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Four Mahabrahma angels arrived bearing a golden net And they received the Buddha on this net They placed him before his mother and said rejoice Oh Queen a mighty son has been born to you Future Buddha issued from his mother's womb like a preacher Descending from a preaching seat or a man coming down a stair Stretching out both his hands and feet Unsmooth unsmeared by any blood or impurity from the birth and flashing pure and spotless Like a jewel thrown over a vestment of Benares cloth And for the sake of honoring the future Buddha and his mother Maya

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two streams of water flowed from the sky And they drank from these streams and were refreshed The Brahma angels after receiving them on their golden net Delivered him to the men who were Escorting Queen Maya and they placed him on a piece of fine gold cloth And They let him go they let him out of their hands and Immediately He stood And he faced the east There before him in this great open court gods and men

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Making offerings to him of perfume and garlands said great being there is none your equal From his standing position He surveyed the four cardinal points And then the ordinal points the Zenith and the nadir these are the ten directions And nowhere Did he discern his equal He strobed he took seven steps Followed by one of the God-like figures who stood over him with a white umbrella And the other divinities around him held symbols of royalty in their hands At the seventh step he halted

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And he pointed one finger to the earth And with this other hand he pointed one finger to the heavens And with a noble voice he shouted the shout victory Below the heavens and above the earth. I alone am the world honored one His Mother saw him and She saw that He had brought something with her with him and She said my child. What is it you bring with you in your hands? He said I bring medicine mother So He was born with medicine in his hand and he was called Osada Daraka medicine child Then the attendants took the medicine and they placed it in an earthenware jar

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This was the highest remedy To heal the blind deaf and other afflicted persons could partake of it But sadly When the Buddha to be was seven days old His mother died She was reborn in one of the heavens And the Buddha to be Was then raised as a prince in his father's royal home Tended by His mother's sister Mahapajapati Gautami Who we also know as the Founder of the women's lineage in Buddhism some years later

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So this is a story, right It's a it's a story of legend It's a story that It's likely we do not take as literally true But still we can ask what does the Buddha's birth Mean to us, what does it mean to me? This occasion marks a beginning The start of something that was revealed and Offered to us Who are living those of us who are living in this particular? Buddha realm It's kind of like Christmas for Christians

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Or like the 4th of July for Americans if this event had not happened We would not be sitting here. We'd not be listening to this story You wouldn't be surrounded say I'm sitting in the in the Zendo You were sitting often in front of your altars and Because this remarkable event happened so many years ago We have this extraordinary practice of liberation According to which we make the effort to live our lives The practice that Shakyamuni Buddha discovered The practice that he passed to his disciples

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Has been handed down to us Warm hand to warm hand for 92 generations As the ancient poem puts it Now we have it And we keep it well So in a few minutes we will Celebrate Usually what we would do usually the Zendo would would be filled with people We would we have invited usually invite children To come forth first and bathe the baby Buddha But we're still in Covid precautions, so Laurie and I will bathe the baby Buddha And you can do so in your in your mind

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but before I do let's just If you have any comments or questions, we could take a few for a few minutes Hey, so did you want to give an instruction or Or There you go Ben, thank you ask your question Goes on right. Thank you. I Was thinking about Buddha's birth yesterday knowing we would have a ceremony today. And the question that came to me was Knowing that birth and death are not two

[23:32]

Or haven't been taught that I believe What is it that has to die for Buddha to be born According to the legends There was Buddha after Buddha And this is actually the those the previous births of the Buddha are recorded in What is known as the Jataka tales Ha and in fact one of the one of the narratives that that I found in the suttas Recounts The the perception of the previous Buddha to this one so That's the story

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And You don't really know any more than that So, thank you Huzza Okay, we have a question from Katie go ahead Katie give me just one second to bring you up The clothes on I'm saying It always strikes me that there's a great sadness at the heart of this story as well and that his mother dies and you know, it's always interesting how how essential the death of parents and especially mothers is to some stories, but Leaving aside that general thing for this specific story. I

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Guess just what I was hearing today was that Death happens for everyone You know that sadness and suffering happens for everyone even the Buddha with all of these wonderful portents and His mother with all of this wonderful experience of her pregnancy She still dies and I was just wondering What you thought of that and kind of looking at it from that perspective Well, I feel that the story Of Buddha both his mother's death and is Leaving of his wife and son there is a deep Sadness that is embedded in the story I also feel You know, he reached his mid to late 20s and

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As much as he was pampered and as many of the opportunities as he had in his life He clearly Felt it was something missing You know, so we could we could Categorize that psychologically in different ways, but but there's there's a loss at the heart of it I Will say I didn't I thought about a Part of the story that I read in one of the versions which I left out, but I'll mention it now Which which I found troubling a Part of the legend has it that His mother had to die because Having given birth to him kind of her function was fulfilled

[27:56]

And I will say don't buy that one You know, but Stories are embedded in the cultures that they emerge from But I think if you know whenever you look whatever you look at if you look at the Buddha's stories if you look at the Hebrew Scriptures you see that in the human dimension there is always loss and Much of the function Religion and spirituality I think is to show us ways that we can Include that loss as part of our lives and Use it in a way that helps us to connect with others So we have time for one more

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You Thank you, we have a question from Hannah, let me get her set up Okay, see Hannah and I see Janay. Those will be the last Go ahead Hannah, okay Well, I of course Wonder where this story came from who wrote it and what were their needs or purposes and Secondly and maybe we don't know that but secondly What does the story mean to us? Arising and saying I alone in the world honored one. How does that? meet our particular Buddhist tradition Well, we don't know the provenance of the composition of the suit

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And I've spoken with the scholar B Kubota about this and you don't Even you know in in the composition of the Bible There are some authorial voices that you can discern but evidently that's not at all clear in the In the Pali Suttas which were actually Written down about the same time as the Hebrew Scriptures it's not assembled into a Coherent document going instead of set of documents what it means to us You know what the way Sojan Roshi used to parse the word alone He broke it up into all one

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Which is very nice But I Think I do think it's a shout of victory and a way of establishing that there is this Awakening That he was born to accomplish You know, we're not so comfortable with a I alone and the world honored one There's some discomfort in that In our in the way that we try to make things horizontal but The same thing is I mean you find the same very similar things in the Christian tradition where? Certainly not at birth but at

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Points in his life Christ Designates is his Position above others So this is also an artifact of human construction But we're we are taught That because of the shop because of Shakyamuni Buddha in the Mahayana tradition each of us Has Buddha nature and can awaken it And it just needed somebody like him to discover how to do that And We have to figure out each of us has to figure out. How is this useful? To me, how does this spur my practice on? and As always keep the useful parts and discard the ones that

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That are not useful Janay and this list. Okay one moment Janay Please go ahead and ask your question. Good morning Hassan. Thank you This is very brief but in that story What struck me was and I guess I discarded that I am the only one part What struck me was her asking the person what do you have in your hands and him saying I bring medicine mother and It occurred to me that the practice is the medicine Yes, yes exactly I I have not heard that That particular part of the story before I thought was very it was very moving to me. Yeah

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That's that's exactly What he brought and he's you know He's sometimes referred to as a great physician But It's interesting That he had this at least in the legend. He had this sense of destiny and this gift that he could bring. Right? Thank you very much we're gonna Close this and we will move to the ceremony which won't be It won't be very long because there's only me and Laurie here, but We'll do our best to inhabit it completely

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