05.24.2024 Vesak: Celebrating Buddha’s Humanity   This week, Buddhists around the world are celebrating Vesak, which commemorates the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and passing (parinibbana). Held during the full moon day in May, Vesak is also known as Buddha Jayanthi, Buddha Purnima, and Saka Dawa. In commemorating these three significant moments of his life, Vesak offers us the opportunity to reflect on the Buddha’s journey. During Vesak, I remind myself the Buddha was not a divine or supernatural being; he was just human. Or to put it in more modern terms, the Buddha was just some guy! Yes, he was “just some guy” who achieved something extraordinary, but he demonstrated that a human being could achieve enlightenment—and most importantly—showed others a path to follow. Thinking about Buddha as a real person—one who lived, breathed, felt, and struggled just like us all—is a compelling reflection on what is possible because of our humanity, not despite it. While I’ve read the Buddha’s teachings and have been nurtured by the sangha communities he created, reminding myself of the Buddha’s humanity is a powerful part of my practice. Shantum Seth’s “Walking In the Footsteps of the Buddha” reflects on visiting the actual locations the historical Buddha lived and taught, giving us a tangible feel for the Buddha’s life story. Reiko Ohnuma’s “What a Good Horse You Are!” imagines Siddhartha Gautama as a man who loved his horse, a bond that us pet owners can surely relate to. In celebrating Vesak, are inspired by the Buddha, as Thomas Calobrisi explains in the first piece in “4 Buddhists Share What Vesak Means to Them.” Lama Hun Lye’s piece reminds us we can see all Three Refuges of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in what Vesak commemorates. In my piece on how my Los Angeles temple’s Vesak celebration fosters new generations of Buddhists and in Noel Alumit’s piece co-written with myself, we see the historical and continuing impact of the Buddha on the American religious landscape. This Vesak, I hope you find inspiration in the Buddha’s life, his humanity, and his journey. – Mihiri Tillakaratne, Associate Editor, Lion’s Roar Walking In the Footsteps of the Buddha   When we visit the very places where the Buddha lived and taught, we discover deeper meaning in his teachings. Shantum Seth takes us on a sacred pilgrimage. As he lay on his deathbed, the Buddha comforted his distraught disciple Ananda by telling him there were four places that those with faith in the buddhadharma should visit. These four were the pleasure garden in Lumbini, where he’d been born; under the tree by the Niranjana River in Bodhgaya, where he’d awakened; in the Deer Park in Sarnath, where he’d first taught; and in the sal forest of Kushinagar where he would breathe his last. This was the Buddha’s way of saying that he could always be found wherever he’d walked and taught. When we go on a pilgrimage like this, it is more than just travel. It is also an inner journey. ADVERTISEMENT What a Good Horse You Are!   The Buddha valued dispassion, yet he also knew the power of love. Reiko Ohnuma on the poignant relationship between Siddhartha and his horse. The Buddhist emphasis on nonattachment sometimes threatens to render Buddhism as something cold and distant. So, it’s important to look for these smaller moments. What if we were to consider what the Buddhist tradition has to say about the relationship between Prince Siddhartha and his horse? Horses in ancient India were highly admired animals closely associated with royalty, such that every king or prince worth his salt was in possession of an excellent horse. Prince Siddhartha is no exception. He and the magnificent stallion Kanthaka are born at the very same moment. Kanthaka is large and majestic, as white as jasmine and as beautiful as the full moon, so swift-footed (legend has it) that he’s capable of traversing the entire universe from end to end, yet still make it back before breakfast! 4 Buddhists Share What Vesak Means to Them   Thomas Calobrisi, Lama Hun Lye, Mihiri Tillakaratne, and Noel Alumit explore the meaning and lessons of Vesak, the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the birth, death, and enlightenment of the Buddha. The events of the Buddha’s life celebrated on Vesak come to us in the form of legend; they portray extraordinary events, such as when the newborn Buddha took seven steps and pronounced, “Between heaven and earth, I alone am the World-honored one.” My one-year-old nephew, though remarkable in his own way, has yet to make any such proclamations of his peerless status! These legends of the Buddha, of course, are not accounts of historical events. As Bernard Faure observes in The Thousand One Lives of the Buddha, the more we attempt to look “behind” the legends, the picture of the Buddha becomes so nondescript as to be meaningless. But if we can’t take refuge in historicism, and all we are left with are legends, how do we understand them? What recourse do we have when dealing with extraordinary and miraculous events of the Buddha’s life portrayed in the sutras?