Vesak, North Hollywood, LA (5/18 and 5/25)

Vesak Day | short documentary filmed live in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) for the sacred Theravada festival

• FREE: Celebrate Vesak in North Hollywood with Wisdom Quarterly's Dharma editor: food, meditation, culture (5/25)

WHAT HAPPENED?

The big cultural celebration at the Mindfulness Meditation Center petered out, as most of the Sri Lankan community still had Vesak religious celebrations to attend at other Sinhalese-speaking venues. NoHo's Sarathchandra Buddhist Temple had a large turnout in the run up to its big Vesak lunar observance (Poya Day) on May 25, 2025.

Vesak Day Pali chanting of blessings

CLARIFICATION: Sarathchandra Temple in NoHo is celebrating a Bangladeshi Buddhist version of Vesak on Sunday, May 18, and will hold the traditional Sri Lankan version on Sunday May 25, 2025. The monks participated in Long Beach's Bodhi Mission Bangladeshi Vihara's Vesak on the May 17 in the morning and chanting in NoHo in the evening. Why? It is the joyous season of Vesak, which brings out the best in cultural celebrations for countries all over Asia and the diaspora.

Vesak continues on May 25, 2025

In Buddhist Sri Lanka (the tradition of the dominant group, the ethnic Sinhalese), the teardrop island off the tip of Southern India, which is also home to Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and animistic indigenous folk surviving in the jungles, VESAK is a weeklong celebration that is prepared for and remembered for the entire month. The great Los Angeles area has various Sri Lankan Buddhist viharas ("monasteries") in Los Angeles (Dharma Vijaya, which celebrated May 10, 2025), Covina (Mindfulness Meditation Center), the Valley (Sarathchandra Temple, North Hollywood), Sunland, and elsewhere.

Vesak Day in Theravada Buddhist Sri Lanka

Public Vesak celebrations, May 11 and 18th

Sunday, May 18, 2025, will see two giant Vesak (commemoration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and passing into final nirvana on the full moon day of the same month called Vesakha on the ancient lunar calendar) celebrations in LA's two valleys. NoHo in the San Fernando Valley holds its annual celebration (beginning tonight, Saturday, May 17th, with chanting of blessings), observing the Eight Precepts, practicing meditation, Pali canon chanting, blessings, and lots and lots of island cuisine on May 18, 2025 and May 25, 2025. Far to the east in the San Gabriel Valley city of Covina, the Mindfulness Meditation Center (formerly the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara of Hollywood then Pasadena) will have its annual Sri Lankan cultural celebration of Vesak on May 18, 2025, following last Sunday's full moon religious observance (the Uposatha or Poya Day as it is known in Sri Lanka) and meditation retreat. Both events are free, and all are welcome. Wear white. Call to confirm details.

• Usually, the young Mexican American monk Rev. SanathaVihari is present in NoHo, but he is currently visiting Vietnam
• Sarathchandra Buddhist Vihara; MindfulnessMeditationCenter.org (on WhatsApp); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly