Buddha Purnima (Vesak)

🙏 Pourquoi on la célèbre

Buddhists hold that Siddhartha Gautama was born, became the Buddha and passed into parinirvana on the full moon of Vaishakha. It is the most sacred day of the Buddhist year.

📖 L’histoire qui s’y rattache

Prince Siddhartha was born under a sal tree in the Lumbini garden. Moved by four sights — an old man, a sick man, a dead body and a calm monk — he left his palace at 29 in search of the end of suffering. After six years of hard austerities he chose the middle way, accepted a bowl of rice-milk from the village girl Sujata, sat under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, and on the full-moon night became the Buddha, the awakened one. Forty-five years later he passed away at Kushinagar, telling his disciples: “All conditioned things pass away; strive on with diligence.”

🪔 Comment la célébrer

• Visit a vihara; offer flowers, lamps and incense
• Keep the eight precepts for the day
• Give food, especially kheer, to the needy, as Sujata did
• Meditate under a tree, or visit Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Lumbini or Kushinagar