Bangladeshi Buddhist Martina Barua, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven, Saul S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
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| Happy Buddha's Birthday! |
- [Yes, Bengal was once a Buddhist country. It became a part of India, then Pakistan, and now its own separate Muslim-majority nation. Bengali Buddhists are dwindling in number.]
Honored guests, Dharma speakers, holy monastic community (Sangha), and devotees, I would like to share some important information about the great enlightenment that made Prince Siddhartha the Buddha.
Before Siddhartha became supremely enlightened, he was a [Scythian, Saka, Central Asian] prince who realized the impermanence and disappointment of life, how living beings die with their desires unsatisfied only to be reborn again according to their karma.
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| There are very few of us remaining. |
All beings are caught in the same round of existence due to ignorance, greed [lust, craving for sensual pleasures], and anger/aversion.
The Buddha realized the causes of unskillful karma (actions, behavior, deeds) and suffering (the result of our karma), aging (wearing away, falling apart), and death (passing away only to be reborn) and how to be released.
The Buddha experienced a great awakening (maha-bodhi) because he understood how to be liberated from suffering, sorrow, unhappiness, aging, and death. He became the Buddha, the "Awakened One," on the full moon of the month of Vesak (Vesakha).
The Buddha began his teaching of the Dharma by Turning the Wheel of Truth, a discourse he gave to five wandering ascetics he had come to know while striving for enlightenment. In it he taught humans and devas the path to attain liberation, such as:
- The Four Noble Truths
- The Noble Eightfold Path
- the principle of causality (karma)
- Dependent Origination
- emptiness (selflessness)
- The Ten Perfections
- The Middle Way
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| That is my main point really. |
Having been reborn in the human world, having reaching supreme enlightenment, he passed into final-nirvana (parinibbana) -- all three events taking place on the full moon of this month.
His chief disciples, such as Maha Kassapa and Ananda, collected the teaching and established an oral tradition of studying, practicing, memorizing (chanting), reciting, and spreading the light of the world, this Dharma, in all directions for the benefit of all living beings.
- Buddhism in Bangladesh
- The Chakma people or Hill Tract Buddhists (San Bernardino)
- The Marma people of Bangladesh
- California Bodhi Mission of California with Abbot Karunananda
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