[WSMDiscuss] Vesak- the Day of the Full Moon

[Umakant]

Dear Friends

Greetings! Today isVesak, the Day of the Full Moon in the month of May. It is celebrated as theday on which Buddha was born, attained enlightenment and finally his deathhappened on Vesaka Full Moon day. He was a Master whose teachings are stillrelevant for a just and equitable world where love, compassion, solidarity,fraternity, and loving kindness would be widely practiced. 

 

In the time ofCOVID-19 pandemic the Buddha’s teachings have been acknowledged as a tool/meansfor practicing unity and solidarity and world without hatred and equaltreatment that everyone is entitled as a human right.  

 

VesakDay- May 07, 2020 

https://www.un.org/en/observances/vesak-day

 

"Vesak",the Day of the Full Moon in the month of May, is the most sacred day tomillions of Buddhists around the world. It was on the Day of Vesak two and ahalf millennia ago, in the year 623 B.C., that the Buddha was born. It was alsoon the Day of Vesak that the Buddha attained enlightenment, and it was on theDay of Vesak that the Buddha in his eightieth year passed away.

 

TheGeneral Assembly, by its resolution 54/115 of1999, recognized internationally the Day of Vesak to acknowledge thecontribution that Buddhism, one of the oldest religions in the world, has madefor over two and a half millennia and continues to make to the spirituality ofhumanity. This day is commemorated annually at the UN Headquarters and other UNoffices, in consultation with the relevant UN offices and with permanentmissions, which also wish to be consulted.

 

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“On the Day of Vesak, let us celebrate LordBuddha’s wisdom by taking action for others with compassion and solidarity, andby renewing our commitment to build a peaceful world”- Antonio Guterres, UNSecretary General. 

 

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Buddha’sCaves

HollandCotter, The New York Times, July 06, 2008

Buddha’s Caves


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Buddha’s Caves

On the lip of the Gobi Desert, sand and tourists threaten Mogaoku’s singular art.
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SAND is implacablehere in far western China. It blows and shifts and eats away at everything,erasing boundaries, scouring graves, leaving farmers in despair.

 

It’s one of manythreats to the major tourist draw of this oasis city on the lip of the Gobidesert: the hundreds of rock-cut Buddhist grottoes that pepper a cliff faceoutside town. Known as Mogaoku — “peerless caves” — and filled with paradisiacal frescos andhand-molded clay sculptures of savior-gods and saints, they are, in size andhistorical breadth, like nothing else in the Chinese Buddhist world.

 

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WithRegards 

Umakant,Ph. D 

NewDelhi 

 










My final words of advice to you are educate, agitate and organize; have faith in yourself. With justice on our side I do not see how we can lose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy. The battle is in the fullest sense spiritual. There is nothing material or social in it. For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is battle for freedom. It is the battle of reclamation of human personality. 
B.R.Ambedkar
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