VAS: Buddhist "Rains Retreat" period begins

Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Abbot Dhammarama, Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara LENT/VAS 2014

How shall I spend the rainy season, hopping around or meditating? (onebigphoto.com)

On Sunday, July 13, 2014 from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm, the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara (LABV) temple will celebrate the commencement of the Rains Retreat period, often called "Buddhist Lent."

It is a period of intensive practice for monastics and a time when lay practitioners visit temples, monasteries, and pagodas to hear the Dharma (Teachings), engage in devotional activities, meditate, and establish their ties with monastics.

LABV will have weekly Dharma talks open to all on Sundays followed by Sri Lankan island cuisine. Many visiting monastics will deliver sermons, hold question and answer sessions, and be available to clarify points of controversy and uncertainty regarding the Buddha's teachings.
 

Sunday is the Super Moon of the ancient month of Asala. The lunar observance for those dressed in white includes an all-day virtue (sila) program where visitors are invited to observe the Eight Precepts for the day according to ancient Indian tradition from at least the time of the Buddha.

Rains Retreat

According to the ancient Theravada Buddhist tradition, the Asalha Full Moon Day marks the beginning of the Vas (Vassana) Season. Supporters of the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara will formally invite the resident monastics to observe Rains Retreat at 5:00 pm. Those observing the Eight Precepts earlier in the day are also invited to attend this auspicious and meritorious event.

There will be an opportunity to listen to the Dharma and practice meditation to enhance every practitioner's direct knowledge of the  Dharma and develop inner peace during the three months of this season. Weekly programs during this period will be:

• Dharma sermons,
• Sutra discussions,
• Meditation practice,
• Bodhi devotional ceremonies,
• Atavisi Buddha puja and more

Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara

920 N. Summit Ave., Pasadena. CA 91103

(626) 797-6144

But why?
Wisdom Quarterly wiki edit

Buddhist monks traversing Pongua Waterfalls in Vietnam (sun-surfer.com)

 
The three-lunar-month annual retreat observed by Theravada practitioners during the Indian rainy season is called Vassa between July and October. In English, it is often glossed as Rains Retreat or Buddhist Lent, the latter by analogy to the Catholic/Christian Lent (which Buddhism predates by at least five centuries). For the duration of monastics reside at one monastery rather than traveling around. In some monasteries, they dedicate this time to teaching the Dharma or to intensive meditation. Some lay Buddhists choose to observe the period by adopting more ascetic practices, such as giving up alcohol, meat, and smoking if they are already engaged in these harmful activities. It may casually be called "Buddhist Lent," others object to this terminology. It is, after all, more of an obligation for monastics than lay Buddhists. How long someone has been a monk or nun is actually calculated not by calendar years but by how many Rains Retreats one has successfully observed. Most Mahayana Buddhists do not observe it, though many Seon/Thien monastics in Korea and Vietnam observe an equivalent retreat of three months of intensive practice in one location, and in Tibetan Buddhism this period of intensive retreat is called Yarne.

Buddhist Ash Wednesday: LENT begins

Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Ashes to ashes, monk to monkey, we know Major Tom's a... (Irish Culture Customs)

Yogi "holymen" (sadhus) rub pyre-ashes over their bodies concentrating on forehead tilaks as a religious observance bringing them closer to Brahman (DavidEarlotti/flickr.com).

  

Buddha the Yogi Sage (vgonzalezortiz/flickr)

Ashes?

After the decadence, debauchery, and fattening up of Carnival (the "Goodbye to Meat") and Mardi Gras (Pancake Day) comes the guilt: Ash Wednesday (Ireland's National No Smoking Day) and LENT. It is time to repent of sensuality, excess, and "missing the mark" (Greek sin).

• 7 Greek words for "sin"

So cover the breasts and expose the forehead. Recollecting an ancient Hindu tradition, ashes will be rubbed on it. 

Hindu OM symbol (tizzyhyatt/flickr)

These sacred ashes or vibhuti signify mortality and death as well as the fierceness to play/work against negative forces, obstacles to rebirth in the heavens (sagga) and liberation by ending rebirth and ALL suffering (nirvana).

Vedic (or Vedantic, which refers to the "best of the Vedas") Hinduism has many practices of abstinence. The Buddha contributed various restraints and observations to Indian culture but enjoined them principally on monastics and intensive lay-practitioners.

Catholicism borrowed more from Hinduism -- particularly its tantric Vajrayana arm in Tibet with all its pomp, circumstance, and "pope" -- than any other of the many traditions it has borrowed from. Jesus may even have been a tulku among Tibetan Buddhist lamas who were the actual Three Wise Men from the East who came looking for him when he was reborn from the heavenly plane to Earth. Jesus remembered and later went to India.

 

Shiva's forehead: sacred ashes

Lent, like pilgrimages (yatra-yatra) and other Indian spiritual practices, spread far beyond the subcontinent. People adopted compassionate vegetarianism, ascetic fasting, periods of silence and reflection all to come closer to the Ultimate Reality (Brahman) behind the Illusion (Maya). No formal religion has taken more from other religions and spiritual traditions than Roman Catholicism -- itself an amalgamation of misappropriated beliefs, relics, and remnants. 

Sin on Wed. (blackshapes.com)

"Christ" is a composite character of many great teachers and their teachings all rolled into one bigger-than-life superhero. Religious scholar Prof. Reza Aslan was exactly right to distinguish Jesus of Nazareth, the person, from Jesus the Christ, the mythical figure. The Buddha was christus (xριστός) -- in that he was born an "anointed" kshatriya-caste royal, who spoke of the Maitreya (Messiah), the "spiritual friend," to come. A buddha is the best of all friends.

Catholicism became the biggest religion in the world, dwarfing the more than billion Buddhists (most of them uncounted in officially atheist/communist China), by appropriating all of these ideas and melding them into one Great Vehicle for all, one universal-congregation or super-religion. This all happened in ancient Buddhist Greece, but the ideas were taken from the wisdom of the East and applied to the nascent "West."

 

"Take that, [you Brahmin] temple priest!" (blackshapes.com)

 

"Buddhist Lent"

Vajrayana Buddhas (Buddhist Train Tour)

The period known as "Buddhist Lent" (Vas or Vassa) actually applies directly to monastics and only indirectly to lay Buddhists. It is the three-month "Rains Retreat." In ancient India, the monsoon season was such that it made travel difficult and dangerous to the life of insects, amphibians, fish (spawning in flooded farm fields), seedlings, and sprouts wriggling all over the wet earth. So the Buddha was asked to rein in his followers and have them not travel about. The Buddha agreed and declared a discipline of remaining in one location for a time of intensive practice, study, and teaching.

Buddha Maitreya in Diskit, Ladakh, Himalayan Buddhist India (PaPa_KiLo/flickr.com)

 

Agni chakra, third-eye on ashen yogi, India

Devout "hearers" (dayakas and sāvakas) of the Dharma, themselves lay Buddhists, took advantage of this situation accruing merit by bring food and other requisites for nuns and monks to utilize the remainder of the year then hanging around, hearing the Dharma, and practicing it intensively. For the day, people would adopt Eight Precepts over the normal five. And they might remain in the temple complexes (viharas) overnight memorizing, chanting, and undertaking walking and sitting meditation. 

Buddhist altar (Piyushkumar1/flickr)

It was a great time to access the wandering ascetics, have questions answered, doubts allayed, and great metaphysical matters discussed. Many people flocked to see the Buddha, few of them "Buddhists." But they would return again and again, and when he would travel on as the itinerant teacher he was, he would leave behind ascetics to help and comfort the people.

• CENSORED: the Breasts of Mardi Gras (video)
• Some churches offer "Ashes to Go" for busy New Yorkers
• "Ashes to Go" in Pittsburgh (San Francisco Gate)
• Why Ash Wednesday (Sara Miles, Huff Post)
• Future President Hillary Clinton (unless the Powers That Be want Jeb Bush) calls Russian President Putin a "Nazi" by comparing him to Hitler
• Hillary Clinton in Los Angeles to pick up award from UCLA
• Israeli PM (de facto Dictator) Bibi Netanyahu in L.A. making a mess of traffic

Mardi Gras has Pagan roots
International Business Times

Mardi Gras, New Orleans (Kosmic Frenchmen)

Mardi Gras (French for "Fat Tuesday") is a Christian holiday-cum-pop culture phenomenon that dates back thousands of years to pagan spring and fertility rites. Also known as Carnival, it’s celebrated in several nations across the globe -- predominantly those with large Roman Catholic populations -- on the day before the religious season of Lent [the 40 day run up to Pagan Easter]. When Christianity arrived in Rome, religious leaders decided to incorporate some pagan traditions like the raucous Roman festivals of Saturnalia [worshiping the God Saturn] and Lupercalia into the new faith -- a far easier task than abolishing them outright. As a result, the debauchery and excess of Carnival season became a prelude to the 40 days of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. More

Remember, sinners, ye are dust and to dust ye shall return! lol (waynestiles.com)

Katina Ceremony: Buddhist "Lent" ends

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Ven. Chandananda, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

The "Rains Retreat" period (Vas or "Buddhist Lent") comes to an end with the Kathina Robe Offering Ceremony, Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara, Pasadena, California

 

St. Francis and the animals (Catholic Fire)

The Katina Festival is celebrated in Theravada countries around the world. It marks the end of the three-month Rains Retreat (Vas) period when monastics retire to monasteries for intensive meditation, study, and/or teaching.

Lay Buddhists gather weekly on lunar observance days (uposatha), which falls on new-, half-, and full-moon days, to hear the Dharma and cultivate learning (suta), virtuous behavior (sila), and meditative techniques (bhavana).

Monastic study during Vas (theworld.org)

At the time of the Buddha a special durable-robe, the katina robe, ceremony was designated. The Buddha called this the highest offering of laypeople to the Sangha since it is given to the entire monastic community, which after intensive practice likely contains more enlightened individuals than before the Rains Retreat. Therefore, the karma one generates in giving to them collectively is more "durable" like the sturdy robe constructed just for this occasion.

The three-month period corresponding to the ancient Indian calendar's monsoon season has come to be called "Buddhist Lent" just as Vesak is sometimes referred to as "Buddhist Christmas," marking the same full moon day of the month on which the Buddha was born, attained enlightenment, and passed into final nirvana. This shorthand may seem silly, but it is only meant to facilitate understanding of the significance of these events around the world. It may also point to a common Eastern origin in Buddhism, Hinduism, and/or Paganism for many festivals now unquestioningly considered "Christian" holidays. 

 

Many beautiful Catholic, Orthodox, and Essene (early mystic Jewish and early Christian) monastic/contemplative practices have direct origins in the Buddhist monasticism they inherited as the wisdom of the East.