Birth of Enlightenment...

 Blessed is the birth of the Buddhas; blessed is the enunciation of the sacred Teaching; blessed is the harmony in the Order, and blessed is the spiritual pursuit of the united truth-seeker

Buddha… a man... a god… an entity… a beautiful embodiment… an enlightened soul… whose self soul searching engendered a spiritual wave across the universe… And even today encompasses millions of followers, devotees and meditators’ globally.

For the uninitiated ‘Buddha’ was a prince called Gautama Siddharth, the Buddha-to-be, who lived more than 2,500 years ago. His father was the Rajah of the Sakya clan, King Suddhodana, and his mother was Queen Maha Maya. They lived in India, in a city called Kapilavatthu, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Prince Siddhartha was a healthy and happy boy. He was always considerate to others and was popular among his friends. Even in his growing up years he was kind and compassionate to all living beings. He learned that although he was happy, there was a lot of suffering in life, so he felt deep sympathy for all creatures. To distract him, the king built Siddhartha a beautiful palace with a lovely garden to play in. But this did not stop the prince from thinking about the suffering and unhappiness that he noticed around him. Siddhartha grew up to be a handsome young man of great strength. He was now of an age to get married. To stop Siddhartha from thinking of leaving home, King Suddhodana arranged for him to be married to his own beautiful cousin, Princess Yasodhara. King Suddhodana built a pleasure palace for Siddhartha and Yasodhara. Dancers and singers were asked to entertain them, and only healthy and young people were allowed into the palace and the palace garden. The king did not want Siddhartha to know that everybody gets sick, grows old and will die. But an impromptu visit to his town changed his destiny.

Siddhartha saw a white haired, wrinkled man dressed in rags. Such a sight surprised him, as he had never seen anyone old before. Channa explained to him that this man was old and that everyone will be old one day. Then he witnessed sickness and death and realized that he too will have to suffer some day. So a disturbed Siddhartha asked Channa to take him back home. The prince then decided to leave the palace and go in search for freedom from sickness, age and death. One night, when everyone in the palace was asleep, Siddhartha left as Yasodhara and their newborn boy Rahula slept.

At the age of 29, Siddhartha began the homeless life of a monk. In his fervent search for truth Siddhartha practiced various forms of asceticism for six years. He reduced his eating more and more until he ate nothing at all until one day when he fainted. A shepherd boy fed him goats’ milk and revived him, then he realized that he would have died before enlightenment.

Siddhartha accepted an offering of straw from a straw-peddler, made a seat from it and sat down to meditate under a large bodhi tree, facing east. He made a promise to himself: "I will not give up until I achieve my goal, until I find a way of freedom from suffering, for myself and all people."

As he meditated, Siddhartha let go of all outside disturbances, and memories of pleasures from the past. He let go of all worldly thoughts and turned his mind to finding the ultimate truth about life.So, at the age of 35, Siddhartha became the Buddha, the Supreme Enlightened One.

The first Noble Truth - to the unenlightened, life is filled with dukkha. The second is the cause of suffering (desire, anger, and ignorance); the third was that it is possible to eliminate suffering; and the fourth explained the path to be followed if you want to end suffering. And those are the three gems.. the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.. This is recited as below.

Buddham Saranam Gacchami, Dhammam Saranam Gacchami, Sangham Saranam Gacchami

This is about the entity who has somewhere touched and still touches a million lives. His teachings and scriptures like the Dhammapada, the Heart Sutra, the Wheel of Dhamma; all imbibed the true essence of his being. He gave us the gift of various meditations, the most significant of all is the Vipassana meditation (which every meditator has experienced at some point in their lives), Zazen meditation, Lotus meditation, . I feel blessed today that such an enlightened master graced our lives. Buddha not only attained nirvana on his own but also initiated millions of followers to this path.

After his death, the fire of Buddhism spread far and wide, even to far east, where today it manifests in the form of Zen (Mahayana) Buddhism in China & Japan, Tantric (Vajrayana) Buddhism in Tibet.

Where he rightly articulates that ‘each one of us has the potential of attain buddhahood’ and in his own words... "Blessed is the birth of the Buddhas; blessed is the enunciation of the sacred Teaching; blessed is the harmony in the Order, and blessed is the spiritual pursuit of the united truth-seeker"

Even if you are not a seeker and you are ignorant of the koan’s (zen stories with deeper meanings)… you still might have your own “Laughing Buddha” gracing your work table, home entrance, your office which mightn’t initiate you in to meditation, but certain to bring forth wealth, prosperity and happiness in your life. The wandering monk, who is ready to take your sadness in his bag, provided you drop it!