:: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

Maghapuja Day was in actuality on Thursday 21^st February 2551, but as usual at Buddhapadipa Temple we moved the celebration forward to Sunday 17^th February so that the Thai and western lay communities caught up in normal work-a-day life could join in the festival. And what an auspicious day it was! What is very usually a damp and rainy occasion was transformed by the bright blue, cloudless sky. Although coats were still needed and the lawn extending from the monks’ house to the pond remained something of a mud bath, there was a definite feeling of Spring on the way. Celebrations started at 9.30 a.m. with the arrival of the Thai Ambassador and embassy staff. After a welcome by Ven. P.K. Lom, there was the usual three-times circumambulation of the temple led by the Venerable Monks, who carried bright yellow chrysanthemums, followed closely by the guests who joined with the chanting of the monks and who also carried flowers, incense-sticks and candles. After this ceremony everyone gathered in the lower temple hall for more chanting and (for the Thai community) a speech by Ven. P.K. Lom, whilst non-Thai speakers went upstairs to listen to a talk by Phramaha Sangthong Dhammacaro. Phramaha Sangthong spoke of the significance of this festival which celebrates the spontaneous gathering of 1,250 arahats to meet with the Buddha. Downstairs, meanwhile, pindapata had taken place with the Thai community symbolically offering each of the seven monks basic daily requisites such as tinned-food, medicine, soap, razors and light-bulbs.

After refreshments and lunch, generously offered to the monks and laity as dana by various members of the Thai community, the Venerable Monks chanted the Sutta that the Buddha gave to the Arahats in the lower temple hall. This was followed by a selection of readings in English from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (Digha Nikaya 16) given by Natalie (a member of the LBA) in which an account is given of the illness that the Buddha had suffered and how he determinedly staved this off until his final passing away. This is the famous sutta in which the Buddha gives the advice that each person should be as an island unto themselves with only the dhamma as a refuge. This reading was followed by a talk by Martin Evans (Meditation Teacher from the Amaravati Lay Buddhist Association). Martin chose to speak about the very human picture of the Buddha that comes to us through the suttas. Like us, the Buddha was a real human being who had aches and pains, aged and suffered illnesses and died a very human death. Martin linked this to the teachings of his own Forest Tradition at Amaravati Temple and to another very practical and down to earth figure in recent Buddhist-history and ideas, Achaan Chah, former Abbot of Wat Pa Nong Ba Pong in NE Thailand. Like the Buddha, Achaan Chah tells us that it is not in any teacher that we should put our trust, but in our own realization of the Dhamma. The Dhamma is not so difficult to find. The opportunity to find it is in every lived-moment, in the very here-and-now. All it requires is mindfulness. You do not have to sit in formal sitting-meditation or walk in any stylised way. You just have to be aware of the body in the body as you move from one moment to the next. The problem is, of course, giving up that last moment! All too often we are grasping and clinging to that last moment to savour or extend that last good experience, whereas we should just let it go. Martin Evans is currently in India supporting charitable work with children living in poverty. The LBA was pleased to be able to make a donation to him, which, of course, he is generously passing on to the children of India.