Tag Archives: christmas

Daily Buddhism

Legendary Days and Holidays

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A Reader writes:

I’m listening to the podcast on Buddhist Christmas, and I just wanted to add one thing. Technically, Christmas is not a Christian holiday. It started in Germany from a saint (Nicholas) who gave out presents to orphans. And if you do scientific research, you can figure out that there is no evidence to when Jesus was born. The census from that time wasn’t until the spring and they have no birth record of Jesus. They just have the bible that says people were there. But it doesn’t say when (not that I have found). Just adding my input. Thank you for the podcasts and what you have done.

My response:

There’s not exactly a question there, but I can respond anyway. As far as I know, what you say is true. I don’t know of any Christians who really think December 25th is Jesus’ birthday. There may be some; it doesn’t matter. The best info I’ve heard was that Jesus was actually born in the summer. That theory also makes a load of assumptions, but seems more realistic than December 25th.

Buddha’s birthday is on May 6th in 2014, and it’s celebrated each year by Buddhists around the world. It’s not on the same date every year though, since calendar systems in ancient China don’t match up well to our current, more accurate system. It’s complicated, and the changes in calendar systems over the millennia don’t help clarify the facts. Does it really matter though?

The bottom line is that details like these don’t matter. Buddha didn’t ask us to celebrate his birthday; neither did Jesus for that matter. It’s just a thing we’ve chosen to do out of respect, or the need to celebrate, or something like that. Both these characters have gotten to the point where, despite the facts and truth, have become essentially legendary characters. Facts don’t matter so much with legends; what they said and did is what’s important.

Daily Buddhism

Meditation on a Whoopie Cushion

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Meditation on a Whoopie Cushion

Here’s a little story and a lesson that I learned just this week:

As I explained a few weeks back, I always celebrate a traditional Christmas with my extended family on Christmas Eve and then again on Christmas Day with my closer family. It’s fun, and more of a family gathering than anything overtly religious.

On Christmas Eve, at the big extended family party, there are aunts & uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, second cousins and friends of the family and always a few I can’t quite identify. Always lots of people. In order to avoid paying out a fortune in gifts to exchange, everyone brings a gift valued at $10 and we play this oddball game where you can pick a known gift or unwrap a random one. I’m not going into the details of the game, but somehow, while others got DVDs, books, coffee cups, and store gift cards, I wound up with a deck of cards and a whoopie cushion.

I personally spent a good it of time looking for my contribution to the game, a nice set of frosted glass candles. Whoever bought the whoopie cushion not only wasn’t thinking about age-appropriateness, they couldn’t possibly have spent $10 on it. To make a long story short, I got ‚Äúripped off‚Äù in the game.

I know it would have bothered me a few years ago. I’d have sat there and seethed through the rest of the party and then griped about it for weeks to come. The thing is, it didn’t bother me. I was able to let go of it, not to be attached to my anger, and not to develop my resentment. I’m not going to say it wasn’t there at all, or I wouldn’t have noticed the slight and would never have considered writing this post, but the resentment was in control and limited and I was able to get rid of it quickly and mindfully. I was able to simply tell myself that anger was wrong and to let it go; and it went away. I even remember telling myself that it was better that I got the junk prize rather than someone who would have been disappointed with it or let anger take over.

I sat there in silence, enjoying watching others play the game and walk off with the good gifts. When the game was over, I handed my bag over to my 5-year-old nephew, the youngest one there, and he had a great time running around with the whoopie cushion, blasting it in everyone’s face. He loved it, and everyone got a kick out of him playing with it.

I credit my equanimity entirely to my Buddhist practice. I am far more mindful now than I was even only a year ago. When I got home from the party, I got on Twitter and joked about the cushion for a while with other Twitterites. Eventually someone suggested that the Dalai Lama would probably love to receive a whoopie cushion and that I should mail it to him. If you’ve ever seen the Dalai Lama interviewed, his sense of humor is very strong. There were a couple of rounds of great posts between myself and a few Twitter friends, and I probably ended up having more fun because of that stupid little rubber toy than I would have from a more ‚Äòserious‚Äù gift. Everything is subjective and open to interpretation. YOU make your own reality, whether it is contentment or resentment.

During the Twitter chat, someone asked, ‚ÄúIf one sits on a whoopie cushion, does one attain instant enlightenment?‚Äù My answer to him at the time was a joke, ‚ÄúYou’ll certainly attain something, but enlightenment probably isn’t it.‚Äù Upon further contemplation though, I could have been wrong. Maybe a whoopie cushion CAN be a step toward enlightenment.

Follow Brian on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DailyBuddhism

Daily Buddhism

A Buddhist Christmas

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(If you have submitted a question, please be patient, I’m starting to get backlogged. Keep sending them in, but be patient, I’ll answer them all as soon as possible.)

Question:

Santa Brian Xmas 2007
Santa Brian Xmas 2007

I’ve been listening to the podcast since summertime, and I guess I am a new Buddhist. What do I do about celebrating Christmas? Is that allowed?

Answer:

Christians have Christmas, Jews have Hanukkah, people of African descent have Kwanzaa and others celebrate the Solstice or the New Year. Everybody has a holiday to celebrate except Buddhists, who don’t get a December holiday.

There’s nothing scriptural about this problem that I ever heard of, so it’s pretty much just a matter of judgment. Here’s my situation: I’ve been a Buddhist for more than a decade, and I’ve put up a Christmas tree and bought and received presents every single year. I go with my niece and nephew to see Santa Claus, and recently went to see them both in their Christmas Pageant. It was a very well-done Christmas Pageant, I hasten to add. I play Christmas music on the radio, at least until I can’t take it anymore, and never fail to watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas Special and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on TV. Last year, in Japan, I even dressed up and played Santa (link to that story) for one of the Kindergartens in Hiroshima (see picture of “Santa-Brian”).

I don’t focus much on the all the “Baby Jesus” stuff, but I’m not one to get offended either. I realize that the majority of Americans are Christian, and I’m not about to deny anyone their choices. Fortunately, my extended family is not particularly religious, so it’s not really a big issue at the big family party. I do all my traditional Christmas stuff, and I keep right on doing my regular Buddhist stuff as well.

Santa Meditating
Santa Meditating

Again, there is no “official answer” on this, just my opinion, but it seems to me that if you have been raised with traditions that you are used to and comfortable with, stick with them. Changing is only going to cause needless suffering, and doing what you have come to love is a good thing.

Much of the holiday season is based on helping others, caring for the poor, donating to charities, goodwill towards men, peace on Earth, and these are great Buddhist concepts. Materialism and greed, going into debt, drinking parties, family fights, well… not so much.

Remember the five precepts, and don’t do anything that is going to cause any suffering this holiday season. Be mindful of what you are doing, but other than that, enjoy yourself!

I would assume my readers have plenty of opinions on this subject, as well as stories about how they deal with the holidays. Please post them in the comment section below!