Buddhist Festival

For the first time ever in the UK on Sunday 27^th September 2009 a Buddhist Festival was held at the Grange Leisure Centre in Midhurst, West Sussex. Midhurst is a picturesque village set in the middle of beautiful English countryside and is home to Cittaviveka Buddhist Monastery. The festival provided the venue for a coming together of many different activities which gave intriguing glimpses of a Buddhist way of life for those with an interest in this. There were many different Buddhist traditions pooling and sharing their knowledge and wisdom on this particular day. There was, for example, a monastic representative from the Mahayanan tradition of Tibet as well as Thai and Sri Lankan representatives of the Theravadan tradition.

The main theme of the day was that of Mindfulness and had a particular focus on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which has suddenly become a vogue in psychological therapy in modern western medicine, although it has been around in its more traditional Buddhist form for over 2550 years.
The Festival started in the morning with an opportunity for lay people to make merit by giving alms to the various monks in the way of donations of food. As well as representatives from the Lay Buddhist Associations of the various temples giving out free Buddhist literature, there were various Craft and Food Markets where lay people were able to eat wonderful freshly cooked Thai food throughout the day whilst browsing amongst the interesting antique stalls stacked with Buddha images; also stalls selling Thai silks; stalls selling all manner of traditional materials and objects. When you became too exhausted at looking at what there was to see, there were many masseurs who offered traditional Thai massage to relax you at very reasonable prices. Most importantly, upstairs there was an area set aside for children (and those just young at heart) who wanted to try the practice of meditation for the very first time. Monks took it in turns to offer guidance and instruction on walking and sitting meditation.

His Excellency the Thai Ambassador and his wife graced the Festival and the Ambassador gave an opening address in which he spoke of Thailand and other Buddhist countries having got the work/leisure life balance right by holding the production of happiness as being the most important national resource. The Ambassador spoke of the great surge of interest in Stress Reduction Techniques and spoke of how pleased Buddhist countries are to be able to share their accumulated knowledge of Buddhist learning in this respect with their western neighbours. Ajahn Succitto of Cittaviveka Temple blessed the meeting by giving a Dhamma talk on the subject of mindfulness. This was followed by a talk from a mental health professional from the Oxford Centre for Mindfulness Training who outlined some of the research of Prof. Mark Williams, the English proponent of MBSR. A panel of speakers was then invited to speak from their own particular perspective about the topic and then a discussion ensued. After the serious business of the day, everyone was entertained with performances of Thai traditional dancing performed by professional dance groups as well as Sunday School Children. People generally enjoyed themselves throughout the day. Everyone was physically and mentally happy. At the end of the day there was a candle light ceremony and a blessing. Everyone joined hands in a circle symbolizing the Buddhist ideal of the world community living in harmony and awareness. See you again next year at the Buddhist festival!