Yeeeeeeeees.... Soon before we could finish the laundry of our Awrudu Sarongs and Lungis here comes the Vesak!!
It means more holidays. Two days of leave followed by the weekend. Dude that's why im in love with this awesome nation.
What comes to my mind when talking about Vesak? Well obviously free food or "Dansal" then the
colorful vesak decorations, lanterns ,"Thorans" across the cities and hot chicks dressed in white!
Oh shit..! I totally forgot about the Birth, the Enlightenment and the Parinibbana (passing away) of the Buddha.
But who cares about that right...
I might still go to the temple upon forcing of my parents with trying to recover from the hangover due to Pre- Poya evening drinkle which is very common among us Lankans.
One simple fact which I always wonder from childhood is why do all the special life events of the Lord Buddha occurs in full moon days (Poya). Starting from Birth , renunciation, Enlightenment, the first sermon,Preaching special Sutras & visiting Sri lanka. All these events happened only on full moon days and we celebrate them as Poyas.
hmmmm... interesting right, guess nothing special happened on normal days.
Well no offence intended, just trying to point out an interesting fact.
As usual media do their part tremendously well by pouring all the religious bullshit in to people's heads these couple of days. Its like they are trying to transmit the entire teachings of the Buddha (The full Thripitakaya) in a time span of two days one program after another.
Monks are the hot celebs these days & they have the highest demand which surpasses all the actors and politicians.
This is what i see as the most amusing part of the whole spiritual drama embedded with Vesak.
People try to gather virtue or "Pin" for them selves as much as they can in these couple of days by worshiping relics,observing Sil and stuff ,like if it is some kind of a race.
After a solid two days of overdosed preaching, monks go back to their temples exhausted and people carry on with their shitty corrupted lives continuing their sinful habits.
Well im no different in that sense. Im leading a sinful fucked up life my self not giving fuck about the after life, the heaven nor hell. Only thing is that i don't go behind those spiritual bullshit relating to any religion. Fortunately that works for me.
No matter how hard they try to establish the argument that Vesak expresses the spiritual aspect of the Buddhist,Im never going to buy in to that ever.
Its purely a cultural hype nowadays fueled by Buddhist authorities, Monks and Media.Im not telling that its bad or anything. Its kind of good to have a couple of days off from your busy schedules and experience some "dansals".in vesak breeze which comes only once a year.
I think Vesak festival is missing something here. I like to bring it up as an improvement area or a suggestion. why cant we have a unique food item which would be exclusive to Vesak.
Just like Awrudu, Ramadan & Christmas we should have special meals or food items specially for Vesak.
Rather than giving the same old ice cream ,kadala and rice dansals we could have dansals which gives this exclusive food.
Well im just saying guys.. No matter how fucked up the world is we still have some luscious food all around. Should make the most of it while we are here.
Time to go Dansal hunting!!
Ashamed to see a fellow Buddhist spitting upon his own religion (l'm referring to this picture you have posted, you probably think it's funny ir catchy. But for some of us who respects and finds peace in it, it's really not ) I do agree with certain points that you've picked up though, about being saints only in these couple of days and then going back to same old person. But hey, they're at least reminding themselves the fact that they are Buddhists. Vesak doesn't express the spiritual aspect of Buddhists!! I don't even know what you meant there. Something special has happened on everyday of Lord Buddha's life. However yes we largely talk about certain major incidents that took place on full moon poya days, these might be purely by chance or might be planned, I don't understand where the problem is either way. I suggest you try and take something out of the little you know about Buddhism rather writing blog posts about why it all happened on poya days and why we don't have special food items to celebrate Vesak. I actually don't understand why you wrote this post, read it by accident, not gonna read these again. Good luck living the rest of your sinful f'ed up life
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughts and i understand your distress very well towards the content. Must have been really hard to tolerate being the native Buddhist you are... Just becacuse you an i were born to Buddhist families that should not take away our freedom of choice or right to question the belief system.
DeleteJust imagine your self being born in to a muslim family.You will not try to defend Buddhism like this then,wouldn't you?
Yeah,you would probebly say that you're respecting all the religions and all.But that would be a lame answer.
All im saying is that there is no harm in questioning your belife system with an open mind!!
Agreed by large with the above.vesak rejoices the great lord Buddha and I hope the writing of yours is not an insult but a mix of facts and fictatious set of words.
ReplyDeletepure excellent thoughts
ReplyDeletei will share this in facebook
keep writing
Thanks for you encouragement and support Maathalan!! Really appreciated...
DeleteI am not religious. But, I'm interested in comparative religion and historical aspects of religions. However, I become rabidly anti religious during festivals solely because of loud speakers!
ReplyDeleteReligion maybe good for one's soul or afterlife. I don't know either way. But, man, religion is damn hard on one's ear drums in this life in this blessed isle!
Haha true that dude.These people think that they reach the heavens or enlightenment faster based on the volume of their speakers... Religion is the drug which is dangerous out of all !
Delete