Holiday...Celebrate

The Lis have celebrated a new holiday here in Sri Lanka....well, new to us anyway!  It is the Buddhist holiday/festival called Vesak.  Jerry Lee keeps calling the Lantern Festival because it is kind of similar to the Chinese Lantern Festival.  It is also a bit like a Buddhist version of Christmas/Easter.

So what exactly is Vesak?

It is a holy day to commemorate the birth, enlightenment, and death of Buddha.  Apparently, all three of these events occurred on the same day throughout his life.  The date changes each year because it follows a lunar calendar.  This year, in Sri Lanka, the holiday was May 24 - on the full moon "Poya day".  Poya day is a monthly Buddhist holiday that mostly falls on the full moon of each month where people go to the temple to pray, give offerings, and do not eat/sell meat (because killing a living creature is considered a sin in Buddhism).  The festival usually lasts for 2 days, but this year it was celebrated an additional day because it fell on a Friday/Saturday, so Sunday was thrown in for free.

How is Vesak celebrated?

I had to do a little research on Wikipedia for this one...
On Vesak, Buddhists are supposed to assemble at their temples before dawn to raise the Buddhist flag and sing hymns of praise of the holy triple gem - Buddha, Dharma (Buddhist teaching), and Sangha (disciples of Buddhism).  Additionally, Buddhists are encouraged to make a renewed vow to following the principles of Buddhism - the five/eight Precepts - offer simple gifts at the temple, and refrain from killing of any kind - most notably by eating vegetarian for the day.

NOTE: Most Buddhists here in Sri Lanka are not vegetarian, but many will make an effort to eat vegetarian on Poya days and other Buddhist holidays.  Although, in my experience, McDonald's get a HUGE boost in sales on Poya day - I think it's because you can't buy meat at the supermarkets on Poya days.

Essentially, Vesak is a time for Buddhists to renew their commitment to following the teachings of Buddha, practice loving-kindness, and bring peace and harmony to humanity.

Vesak in Sri Lanka

Here in Sri Lanka, the celebration of Vesak (including the time of preparation for Vesak day) is about a week.  The government closes slaughter houses, no fresh meat is sold, and liquor stores are closed.  Lanterns are hung EVERYWHERE.  People hang lanterns outside their homes, the cities string lanterns up along the streets, shops hang lanterns in the windows, there are even lantern displays in Colombo that tons of people come to see.  Its like Christmas lights, but lanterns.  Also, there are HUGE displays showing scenes from the life of Buddha, called toranas.  Furthermore, food stalls, called dhansals, are set up mostly by temples or other organizations and sponsor free meals for people - vegetarian, of course.  The lines for the dhansals are crazy long!

Another thing I noticed while we were out looking at the lantern displays here in Colombo was that people were wearing Halloween masks.  It seemed a little weird to me, so I did some investigating on the internet.  What I learned was that it has just recently come about and many people have come out condemning the sale and wearing of Halloween masks for Vesak because it does not fit with the celebration of the holiday.  Additionally, the sale of the "scary" masks has been banned in Sri Lanka by the government, though clearly not enforced.

A first for Sri Lanka this year was the self-immolation (setting yourself on fire) of a Buddhist monk on May 24.  He is the first monk to do this in Sri Lanka, though it is not an uncommon practice in Tibet.  This happened in the city of Kandy (pronounced "candy") near to the Temple of the Tooth that holds the sacred relic of one of Buddha's teeth.  It is a popular tourist site here, both for Buddhist and non-Buddhists.  According to the news reports, he was protest the slaughter of animals (specifically cows) in Sri Lanka and also the spread of Christianity.  People rushed to pour buckets of water on the man to put out the flames.  While he did not die on the spot, he died the next day at the hospital after being burned on over 95% of his body.

We took lots of pictures at the lantern show and I'll put them up on Facebook for you to see.