Reflections on Vesak (May 2026)

Vesak Celebration – The Buddha's Birth, Enlightenment, and Final Nirvana

Buddhism for All: The Joyful Path

Vesak Month 2026: A Month-Long Celebration of the Buddha | Buddhism.net One day isn’t enough to honor the Enlightened One. While Vesak Day falls on May 31, 2026 [the second full moon of the month on the Gregorian calendar], we’re celebrating at Buddhism.net all month long, with five special episodes of "Vibe with Venerables." Join our global community throughout May to commemorate the Buddha’s birth, great enlightenment, and final nirvana, featuring five special "Vibe with Venerables" episodes. Three leading Buddhist masters -- Bhante Buddharakkhita (Theravada), Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche (Vajrayana), and Roshi Joan Halifax (Zen) -- will host sessions on the Buddha, alongside two joint sessions with Pali canon sutra experts Bhante Sujato and Venerable Canda. Register

• Vesak celebrations across North America (North American Buddhist Alliance)

Mahamevnawa Meditation

Vesak (Mahamevnawa Meditation Center, North of England) Namo Buddhaya! Commemorating the sacred threefold anniversary of our Great Teacher, the Supremely Enlightened Buddha, Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery, Liverpool, proudly presents a Glorious Vesak Festival 2026 for the 4th consecutive year. We warmly invite all to witness the splendor of Vesak and gather merit. The festival will be held with great devotion at the Liverpool Mahamevnawa Monastery premises on: May 15, 16, and 17, 2026.

(Buddha Lotus Mantra [AI slop]) Robotic dreams of Vesak

Get ready for change! The Vesak (Wesak) Full Moon Festival of Lights 2026 ignites

(WTC) As we are now experiencing the Full Moon of Scorpio on May 1, 2026, it brings with it the ability to step into a transformative energy that allows us to expand more deeply into a new phase of a divine plan. Self comes into focus.

This means that the alignment of Cosmic energies are opening up so that each individual can enter more deeply into the shadow of self and allow for deeper healing to occur within the body's full system (physical-etheric-emotional-mental).

While that may seem like so much “esoteric verbiage,” it carries with it a very real-world shift in what is occurring in terms of our spiritual potential.

The moon in Scorpio can be intensely emotionally challenging each year, as it is a time of deep reflection that allows for an opening of the subconscious mind into a state of purity. This is a rare occasion for humanity to allow for reflection. Doing so can cause emotional upheavals and challenges to occur.

For most of us it is difficult to realize that there are elements in our reality that no longer are working... More: walkingterrachrista.com

• Vesak - Hindu American Foundation
• NWDA Programs: Northwest Dharma Association

New Buddhist joke for Jewish New Year

Sheldon S., Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Chabad.org/JewishNewYear.com, originally published Oct. 2, 2016 by Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal

Don't go near this one tree, kids. - Why, Father? - Just don't. I command it! (Family Guy)

.

What is Rosh Hashanah? 

We're Jewish? - I guess so. Want to go...?

The anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, a day of judgment and coronation, the sounding of the shofar... 

What?!: Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the universe, the day G‑d created Adam and Eve, and it’s celebrated as the head of the Jewish year [New Year's]. 

When: The first two days of the Jewish year, Tishrei 1 and 2, beginning at sundown on the eve of Tishrei 1. (See this year’s date). 

How: Candle lighting in the evenings, festive meals with sweet delicacies during the night and day, prayer services that include the sounding of the ram’s horn (shofar) on both mornings and desisting from creative work.

Why Rosh Hashanah Is Important... More

• Comments
• Holidays | E‑Cards | Tishrei in Ten | Sukkot/Simchat Torah

A new Buddhist JOKE

Where is that rascal, worrying me so!?

An old woman gets on a plane in New York, flying all the way to India, a 24-hour flight. She gets off the plane and immediately gets on a train heading north. When the railroad ends, she boards a bus heading north. When the road ends, she boards a donkey and continues north on a dirt trail to the foot of the Himalayas until she finds herself at the foot of 1,000 steps leading up to an ancient Buddhist monastery and begins to trudge up the stairs, arriving hours later.

I'll be home soon.

Standing in front of the large and ornate wooden doors of the temple, she notice they are ajar. So she knocks. No answer. She knocks again more insistently. Eventually, a Buddhist monk comes to the door and asks if he can help her.

"I'm here to see the lama!" she insists."

"He's busy meditating right now!" the monk yells, as he begins closing the massive doors in her face. But she shoves her foot between the doors and says, "I'll wait." The monk reluctantly lets her in, inviting her to have some green tea and brown rice cakes and a straw mat to sit on.

She sits in the cold and begins to wait and wait, as hours go by. Finally, the doors of the inner sanctum begin to creak open, and incense smoke begins to spill out as the room in bathed in the light of a thousand butter lamps, and the lama emerges.

The woman rises, looks at him, and says: "Sheldon, enough!"

"The Jewel in the Lotus": Om mani padme hum
(ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal) The Jew in the Lotus 25th Anniversary Retrospective

Judaism may not be one's real religion, but it might well be one's cultural inheritance and baggage, whereas Buddhism might be one's religion or at least one's chosen spiritual and ethical path, as we learn in The Jew in the Lotus by Rodger Kamenetz.

• How is Rosh Hashanah Observed?
• Rosh Hashanah Guide
• Rosh Hashanah Calendar
• The Lure of the East (for Jews)
• More 

Happy New Year: Buddhist becomes Jewish

Marc Bennett; Shalom Auslander; Rob Fashler; Sheldon S., Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

How the president of a Tibetan Buddhist temple became an Orthodox Jew

(Jewish Learning Institute) Sept. 13, 2022. Rob Fashler was raised in an atheist home where Judaism was anything but trendy. On the contrary, Judaism was ridiculed, particularly the Hasidic (extremely sexist orthodox) kind.

The Jew in the Lotus (Kamenetz)

The quest for spirituality and truth permeated his adolescent years, turning him to experiment with mind-expanding hippie drugs (e.g., LSD), sex-drugs-n-rock 'n roll, transcendental meditation (The Beatles' Hindu practice called TM), and eventually Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana).

From the president of a Buddhist temple to an Orthodox Jew, here is the journey of a man to whom the meaning and relevance of Judaism is nothing short of a miracle.

• "Refuge" in Buddhism really means "Going for Guidance" to the Three Gems or Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha)
• Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir by Shalom Auslander (barnesandnoble.com)

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I was Jewish and became Buddhist.

ABOUT: Serving learning centers in over 1,800 communities and on the internet, the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) is the world's preeminent provider of Jewish learning. The mission of JLI is to inspire Jewish learning worldwide and to transform Jewish life and the greater community through Torah study. To make Jewish learning accessible and personally meaningful to every Jew, regardless of background or affiliation. JLI's insightful curriculum utilizes cutting-edge pedagogical techniques, embracing the multiple intelligence model and utilizing multimedia and an array of approaches to engage, educate, and inspire all kinds of minds in a dynamic Jewish learning experience.

Another Jew supporting Boycott, Divestment, Sanctioning of Israel (Jewish Voice for Peace)

• Our favorite Jew: Shalom Auslander (NY Times)
• Was Jesus Christ a JuBu, a Jew who became a Buddhist?
• Sunday Meditation: Shambhala Meditation Center of LA

Zen Roshi Joan Halifax at Google (video)

Talks at Google, March 27, 2019; Amber Larson, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Compassion deficit: So many worries about what might be that isn't (Angel City Zen Center)

Standing at The Edge | Joan Halifax

(Talks at Google) This talk is based on Joan Halifax’s book Standing at the Edge: Where Fear and Courage Meet.

Standing... (Joan Halifax, Rebecca Solnit)

The book weaves together scientific research and her own powerful personal experiences as a social activist and humanitarian in prison in New Mexico and high in the Himalayas to show how we can transform our biggest challenges with compassion and wisdom. Halifax’s teachings benefit Google as it takes on big challenges that respect the opportunities before us. Her talk demonstrates how to do this while still maintaining respect for each other through compassion.

• Joan Halifax live in LA at Against the Stream
• VIDEO: Joan Halifax comes to Los Angeles

ABOUT: Joan Halifax is an American Zen Buddhist teacher, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, hospice caregiver, and the author of several books on Buddhism and spirituality. She received her doctoral degree in medical anthropology and received a National Science Foundation Fellowship in visual anthropology, was an Honorary Research Fellow in Medical Ethnobotany at Harvard University, and was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Library of Congress. She is a thought leader with respect to well-being and compassion. She is a highly sought-after speaker widely known and respected in many communities. More info: upaya.org.

• Co-authoring a book with Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me) who is unable to pronounce "women"?

Zen monk-musician Leonard Cohen (video)

Lee Thomas-Mason (faroutmagazine.co.uk, June 18, 2019); Armelle Brusq; Leonard Cohen ("Famous Blue Raincoat" via Uncovered Emotions); Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A day in the life of famous musician Zen Buddhist monk Leonard Cohen

There's a time in life for searching for satori.

For a spell of five years beginning in 1994, the great American musician Leonard Cohen lived at the Mount Baldy Zen Center, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

At the time Cohen was exploring life as a Buddhist monk, living on 10,000 foot Mt. Baldy to study and assist Rinzai Zen Master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi.

The best place to look for satori is within.

“I don’t think anybody really knows why they’re doing anything. If you stop someone on the subway and say, ‘Where are you going – in the deepest sense of the word?’ you can’t really expect an answer,” Cohen once commented when speaking to author Pico Iyer back in 1998.

“I really don’t know why I’m here. It’s a matter of, ‘What else would I be doing?’ Do I want to be Frank Sinatra, who’s really great, and do I want to have great retrospectives of my work? I’m not really interested in being the oldest folksinger around,” he added in reflection.

Back in the spring of 1996, French artist Armelle Brusq was tasked with filming a documentary of Cohen’s daily routine at Mt. Baldy.

Leonard went Zen. I went Tibetan (Bowie)

“Cohen’s cabin with his Technics KN 3000 synthesizer and computers are shown, and he sings his new song ‘A Thousand Kisses Deep.’ He also recites three unpublished poems, two telling about Roshi (one titled ‘Roshi at 89’). The third was titled ‘Too Old,’” the documentary’s Director Brusq once explained. More

LYRICS: "Famous Blue Raincoat"

It's 4:00 in the morning, the end of December

I'm writing you now just to see if you're better

New York is cold, but I like where I'm living

There's music on Clinton Street
all through the evening

Leonard Cohen and daughter Lorca, Mt. Baldy

I hear that you're building
your little house
deep in the desert

You're living for nothing now

I hope you're keeping
some kind of record

Yes and Jane came by
with a lock of your hair

She said that you
gave it to her

That night that you
planned to go clear

Did you ever go clear?

Monk Leonard Cohen, Mt. Baldy Zen Center, LA

On the last time we saw youyou looked so much older

Your famous blue raincoat
was torn at the shoulder

You'd been to the station
to meet every train

You came home without Lili Marlene

You treated my woman
to a flake of your life

And when she came back
she was nobody's wife

Well I see you there
with a rose in your teeth

One more thin gypsy thief

Well I see Jane's awake

She sends her regards

And what can I tell you
my brother, my killer

What can I possibly say?

I guess that I miss you
I guess I forgive you

I'm glad you stood in my way

If you ever come by here
for Jane or for me

Leonard Cohen with Suzanne (pinterest.it)

Well your enemy is sleeping
and his woman is free 

Yes and thanks for the trouble
you took from her eyes

I thought it was there for good
so I never tried

And Jane came by
with a lock of your hair

She said that
you gave it to her

That night that you
planned to go clear

Sincerely, L. Cohen

Hardcore Zen with Brad Warner (video)

Brad Warner (Hardcore Zen, March 19, 2019); Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Brad Warner (born March 5, 1964) is a Sōtō Zen monk, author, punk bassist, and down-to-earth guy.

"The AMAZING thing that happened to me in zazen!"

Dave Chapelle (see below) is one of the funniest truthtellers of our time. What's hardcore Zen? Who knows, ordinary Zen, Zen without all the "Zen" stuff, not adding legs to a snake, as Alan Watts like to say? "Is enlightenment delusional?" asks Brad Warner. His approach is like hardcore punk, insofar as he leaves the fluff out. His instructions are like a full-length two-minute punk song with a great bassline. Soon after his last birthday, he was in a reflective mood. When sitting zazen, just sit, go with the flow, accept what is, strive not for it to be other than what it is. That seems to be the advice here. Wanting for it to be other than it is is suffering. Recognize that, and let go.

Dave Chapelle: "I've stopped smoking weed...with black people" (PG-13/R)

• Zen and Yoga retreats (aczc.org/schedule)
• PayPal donations: hardcorezen.info/donate
• Patreon page: patreon.com/user?u=4874189
• Brad Warner blog: hardcorezen.info
• Books: hardcorezen.info/store
• Angel City Zen Center, Los Angeles: aczc.org
• Angel City Zen Meetup: Dogen Sangha, L.A.
• It Came From Beyond Zen audiobook (audible.com)
• Sex Sin & Zen audiobook
• Don't Be a Jerk audiobook
• Hardcore Zen audiobook
• Sit Down & Shut Up audiobook
• There is No God & He is Always With You audiobook
• Email Brad Warner directly at bw@hardcorezen.info

Rosh Hashanah: Forgiveness (video)

Trudy Goodman (insightla.org); Crystal Quintero, Dhr. Seven, A. Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

On Rosh Hashanah Sunday, someone asked a poignant question: She wondered what to do. Yom Kippur is coming, Judaism's holiest of days of atonement and repentance. But she’s not ready to forgive, not at all.   Her fear about facing this day without doing what is required reminded me of being a young girl and wondering if the God would inscribe me in the symbolic “Book of Life” and allow me to live another year.   My family was not observant, so I only thought about God occasionally. I figured this God didn’t have time to think of me too often, either, which was a relief. Being a little girl, I hadn’t done anything worse than fight with my siblings or steal candy, so I reckoned I’d get to live.   During the "high holidays" observant Jews do the difficult psychological work of self-examination and spiritual change: asking for forgiveness, resolving not to repeat mistakes, wiping the slate clean of grudges and resentments to begin a fresh new year.   God doesn’t sort out personal relationships; we humans have to do that -- to apologize for hurting others, forgiving those who ask -- so that we can bear to sit with ourselves in loving awareness meditation without having that body cringe of shame about who we are.   What if we aren’t ready to forgive? Forgiveness can’t be forced. We can have compassion for all the suffering without condoning unforgivable harms. We can have boundaries. It’s okay to protect ourselves from seeing the person who harmed us, even if they’re a family member.   We can ask for help, like the questioner on Sunday. And little by little we leave behind whatever separates us from the joy of our own aliveness. The book of life symbolizes our own aliveness here, the sense of being present and awake. To live is our birthright -- to be at home in our lives, to feel worthy and appreciative of the life that has been given to us.     Love, Trudy Goodman   P.S. Insight LA recently recorded a bunch of new guided meditations. They'll soon be available via the website and social channels in video and audio formats. This is a short meditation on forgiveness: video or AUDIO version.

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