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| Thirteen full moons make up one calendar year? |
How long is a moonth? It is four weeks. How long is a week? It is seven days. How long is a day? About 24 hours or so. And the surprise is that, agreeing on all of these numbers as most Westerners will, what number __ x 28 (four weeks or a month) will give us 365 days?
- Mmm, is it 12? - No, it is not. - Oh, is it 11 then? - No, and you're only getting colder. - You don't mean it's 13, do you, because that's bad luck! We can't have 13 anywhere or bad luck will happen, and I'm already afraid that you brought it up! It's 12, right? It has to be 12 because 12 months equal one year!
The number is 13 because 13 x 28 = 364 + plus 1 turnaround (New Year's) day to reset for the next year. This is astronomy in action, only we've been lied to for so long and taught to fear the evil, wrong, bad "thirteen" with superstitions and stupidity for so long that we do not even question it.
The Buddhist lunar observance: uposatha
It's like a Roman religion, and we all just do what we're told. But 13 is a holy number with many excellent attributes, not the least of which is that's how many natural full moons and months we have each year. The ancient Vedas and Sumerian texts were onto something, so why did moderns try to take that away from us, detach us from our celestial clock, our connection to the seasons, solstices, sabbaths (a word that literally means "Saturdays," which we have been conned into thinking is synonymous with solar worship on Sundays), and a more reliable calendar?
The virtues of the lunar observance
There is a way to construct it so that holidays do not jump around in a haphazard way necessitating a priestly caste to interpret the signs for us every time we want to commemorate something. The indigenous people knew it, as did the aboriginal, and the wise women (cursed as "witches"), the pagans, and the heathens, the Gnostics and the Buddhists. The Buddha set aside one day a week to observe the uposatha or "fasting" day (because one only eats between dawn and noon and not after) of observing the Eight Precepts.
Of the four weeks in a month, the full moon observance is the most obvious so it seems the most special, as in if you're only going to follow one a month, this would be the one. Anyone can look up and see that it is time to reflect on the Dhamma, invest in our meditation practice or sadhana, and hear the Teachings of the Awakened One.
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