Buddha's Birthday

This is the week that we celebrate Buddha's birthday. We celebrate not the man, but his teachings. After all, he was just a man, no different from the rest of us. What does set him apart is his enlightenment---his awakening to the Truth. Rather than keep that Truth to himself he dedicated his life to sharing that Truth with those who wanted to know it. The Truth he teaches (and I use the present tense deliberately) can liberate us from our cravings and graspings that lead to suffering, our own and others. There is nothing so much to celebrate as there is to remember. Remember the Four Noble Truths: Life is unsatisfactory; the cause of unsatisfactoriness is anger, greed, and delusion; there is a way to relieve the unsatisfactoriness; that way is the Noble Eightfold Path. As this week passes and we remember the birth of the Buddha, let us take the time to renew our practice as a sign of respect for his teachings.