Bodhi Day: Anniversary of Buddha's Enlightenment

Click on Discussions: Buddhist Winter Holidays? to see the string that provoked this month's topic. St. Catherine, otherwise known as Kathryn Morse, Religion Managing Editor, kicked it off by asking if Buddhists observe Christmas or other seasonal holidays.

Buddhism has spread to so many countries and cultures that people who might call themselves Buddhists might also call themselves Japanese or American or Christian. Within a context of non-judgment and non-attachment to transient material phenomena, what's a holiday? Is it a distraction, a hindrance to practice? Should a Buddhist dourly wrap him/herself in black robes and turn his/her back to the tinsel crowd? Is the commercialism of Christmas a deterrent to spiritual growth? Or is this just another opportunity, like everything else in life when seen through the Buddhist perspective, to observe with detachment, but also with affection and concern, to sense the love and generosity and hope that underlies the material display of the season, and to contemplate the meaning of Jesus' life and message?

In the discussion, Lance Lindley tells us the Japanese "celebrate Christmas . . . have Shinto weddings and Buddhist funerals . . ."

Although I have taken vows to follow the Buddhist precepts and to take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go to a friend's home to eat too much, exchange presents, and play killer Scrabble on Christmas. Why not? Would one cancel out the other?

So the first principle is cultural eclecticism; cross-cultural influences are the history of every culture. A Coke bottle falls out of the sky in every land. The Ainu (reputed to be hairy) were in Japan before the modern Japanese. Even in Tibet, where the Buddhist teaching lineages continued in magnificent, long, unbroken chains for so many ages, there was assimilation of the animistic religion that predated Buddhism. There are reform movements to bring back fundamentalism to a culture such as we see in some Moslem states, but it is ultimately impossible to wall off a country or a tradition.

So certainly one who calls him or herself a Buddhist could well celebrate Christmas.

However, despite the cultural diversity of world Buddhism,there are some occasions observed by so many Buddhist groups, sects, lineages, retreats, monasteries and local sanghas that one would almost dare to make a generality.

This would be, as Marlyn tells us in the dicussion group, Bodhi Day, the day Buddha achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. December 8 is widely agreed to be that date. I will restrict the rest of this article to Bodhi Day as that is a rich topic in itself, and save discussion of other days of observance, with all concurrent conflicts and confusions, such as Buddha's birthday (sometime in April--I have seen several different dates--)for another time.