Buddhist community-wide celebration to take place on May 15th

Press release from Southern Dharma Retreat Center:

The first annual Buddha Day event will take place on the full moon, Sunday May 15th, at Urban Dharma in West Asheville. This community-wide gathering will celebrate the birth, life, and death of the Buddha through ritual, meditation, and chanting. Members of the public are welcome to join the event at any time between 3 and 6pm.

Local teachers representing a variety of Buddhist practice traditions and local groups will be leading sessions throughout the afternoon. The event will include a telling of the story of the Buddha’s life, the traditional ritual of bathing the baby Buddha, incense offerings, multiple group meditation sessions, tea and food, and group chanting at the close.

The planning group chose to hold this first annual event at Urban Dharma, which recently relocated to 697-C Haywood Road, as a way of introducing community members to the new space. Urban Dharma is focused on providing educational and spiritual support as well as training for those interested in the teachings of the Buddha.

“Urban Dharma was deliberately created so that it serves both the community that identifies as Buddhist as well as the broader community, with the recognition that, in numbers, the broader community is the greater community. So we are here for everyone,” explains Dr. Hun Lye, Urban Dharma’s Spiritual Director.

While Dr. Lye teaches in the Tibetan tradition, Urban Dharma is home to several different practice groups which host teachers and programs from various Buddhist traditions.

“We believe that Buddhist teachings have much to offer—not only to those who self-identify as Buddhist, but more fundamentally to all who seek to live intentional, compassionate, and balanced lives.

What the Buddha has to offer is a call for us to ‘wake up’ which is what the word Buddha actually means. To wake up from what? Living our lives controlled by our afflictive emotions, meaning painful emotions that we impose upon ourselves. But the good news is that, since we are the ones who impose these emotions, we can also free ourselves.”

Buddha Day (also known as Buddha Jayanti, Buddha Purnima, Wesak, or Vesak in some Buddhist traditions) is a holiday that is widely celebrated around the world on the full moon in the month of May by Buddhists and some Hindus. Many temples display a small statue of the Buddha in front of the altar in a basin filled with water and decorated with flowers, allowing people to pour water over the statue. This is referred to as the bathing of the Buddha. It is an act of devotion and a reenactment of the events following the Buddha’s birth, when devas (gods) and spirits showered him with sacred waters from the sky.

“This is the largest Buddhist holiday in many Asian countries, particularly in Southeast Asia,” according to local insight meditation teacher, John Orr, who spent many years as a monk in Thailand. “Even people who don’t go to temple at other times of the year will come out and celebrate by offering food to the monks, listening to dharma talks, and helping out around the monastery. For those who come to our event in Asheville, this will be a wonderful opportunity to connect with other practitioners, learn about local groups, or simply be introduced to some Buddhist practices for the first time. Comparatively speaking, there are far fewer Buddhists in the Asheville area than people who practice other religions. So Buddha Day will be a great chance for us to come together as a community.”

Participating groups include: Urban Dharma, Southern Dharma Retreat Center, Zen Center of Asheville, Great Tree Zen Temple, Asheville Insight Meditation, and others.