Bodhi Day and holiday thoughts

I've really been wrestling with the "holiday" concept this year. The last thing I want to come off as is a Grinch or Scrooge. Dickens' story of keeping Christmas in one's heart all year long had a HUGE impact on me when I was young, and profoundly affected my life. However more recently I've been pondering what exactly affected me, and it's not really "Christmas" -- it's the spirit of giving.

Charity is something we should keep in hearts year-round, but that's for everyone -- not just Christians. Charity and compassion are an essential part of our Buddhist precepts. The term Bodhichitta means compassion and it arises from realizing how interconnected we all are. Buddhist teachers often use the analogy of our body like this: you wouldn't cut off your hand because it offends you. After all, our hand is part of us. In the Buddhist cosmic view, everything is part of us and the complete realization of that is considered Enlightenment (click on the art above, to read another Buddhist viewpoint on Bodhi Day and Enlightenment.)

Christmas has become so complicated and commercialized that it's hard to know what people are celebrating. Gift-giving is a beautiful sentiment, but not when it means shoving and pepper-spraying others to buy some product that no one really needs in the first place. Even more civilized shopping raises questions of why buy more things for people who have plenty, rather than practicing real charity toward those who have nothing? And, for those who consider themselves Christians (yet criticize those who aren't), how about practicing some of the concepts Jesus actually taught: love, mercy and tolerance.

Finally, I am far from a perfect practitioner (still easily agitated by right-wing political nonsense and many other Kleshas.) That is why I feel compelled to participate in a serious winter retreat this year to "take the Dharma medicine" (as one of my teachers says) with the intention to get healthier every day (and that is in thought, speech and action.) Namaste!

Day 8: Bodhi Day (Beautifully Different)

I knew that no matter what the Reverb10 prompt was for today, I was going to use it to describe my relationship to awakening, becoming a Bodhisattva (anyone who is motivated by compassion and seeks enlightenment not only for him/herself but also for everyone.) Today is Bodhi Day, the 8th day of the 12th Lunar month -- the day Buddhists believe that Prince Siddhartha Gotama experienced enlightenment and found the roots of suffering after sitting and meditating under a Bodhi tree 2500 years ago.

How does this relate to the prompt? Being Buddhist is certainly the primary way that I perceive myself as different. Not better or worse than others -- just different. Beautifully different is perhaps the best possible term I can think of. All those working years I was hesitant to declare myself Buddhist, especially surrounded by rabid Catholics. Not quiet, reverent, Compassionate Catholics, but RABID, opionated ones where I worked. Now, writing at home, free from government shackles and self-censorship, I can blurt it out. I've considered myself Buddhist since 17, and officially so (taking the vows) in 1990, twenty years ago. Even tho I call myself ZenWoman and Bodhi day is primarily a Zen observance, I follow the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition, Kagyu lineage.

I am far from perfect. I make mistakes daily, still get angry even though I try hard not to, but as Pema Chodron tells us: "that's why we call it our Practice" not our Perfect Buddhism. I am practicing -- more than I used to. And that, dear reader, is what I feel makes me beautifully different. Namaste!