Bodhi Day 2018!

Bodhi Day 4 Minutes
buddhas_2018
From Left to Right: Maitreya Buddha, The Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet, The Eternal Fishnu, and the “birthday” boy himself, Shakyamuni Buddha, aka Siddhartha Gautama.

Happy Bodhi Day, everyone!!

First off, if you’ve only heard about Bodhi Day now – because today is Bodhi Day (December 8, 2018) – please see this blog that explains what is Bodhi Day. If Bodhi Day sounds interesting after reading that post, skip towards the end of this post to the Bodhi Day Mulligan section.

Now, for those who have been following my daily Bodhi Season posts the past eight days, this is a short, quick and dirty recap of my Bodhi Day ceremony. I’m taking the day off from writing anything of substance so I may continue to ponder what I meditated upon this morning. That was a lot of writing these past eight days!

Before I get to my Bodhi Day, I look forward to seeing you on the path, and some advice about keeping it. This is where the 3rd Zen Story comes into play. Picking Up the Bag. Here are a couple of my older posts regarding the day after Bodhi Day:

Now to my Bodhi Day. I awoke at about 3am to mostly cloudy skies. But at about 4:20 I noticed Venus popped out for a bit. So I quickly dressed and left around 4:30am for my short walk (due to my sore foot).

I was greeted by our Airbnb hosts’ huge pyrenees who roams freely on what has to be a property of at least a hundred acres. We think his name is Gus, but we call him Cujo. He guarded me through my entire ceremony.

pyranees
I was guarded during my meditation by the Airbnb hosts’ huge Pyrenees. The mountain lions probably would have found Reverend Hanamoku tastey, highly marbled, not so gamey due to my vegetarian diet the past week.

I usually start with three reps of the Hannya Shingyo, but since Venus was out for what looked to be a short time, I started with the 112 reps of the Morning Star Mantra. She was visible for about half the mala before disappearing for good behind clouds.

I then went straight into the Hannya Shingyo, three times, as traditionally chanted. My Kindle did shut down halfway through since the battery was a little low and I hadn’t touched the screen for a few minutes. Before going into meditation, I read the Hannya Shingyo in English so that my brain could wrap around its succinct description of Buddhism.

I went into deep meditation for what was probably about half an hour. I must admit I was distracted a few times by my guard dog chasing off real or imaginary enemies. But I hit the song bowl to refocus. I did have a few flashes that I will ponder for the rest of the day, and write about over the coming months, mostly on fishnu.org.

I was brought out of my meditation by rustling behind me. It was time to head back for my breakfast of rice and milk.

bodhi_day_rice_and_milk
The Eternal Fishnu and Rubber Ducky blessing my meal of rice and milk. I told Fishnu walking on water is more impressive.
sunrise_bodhi_day
Sunrise on Bodhi Day 2018 morning.

Bodhi Day “Mulligan” On January 13, 2019

If you’re only learning of Bodhi Day today, or you just mucked this one up … hahaha … you have another chance in a few weeks to try what I’ve been posting about the past eight days starting with Tomorrow Begins the Secular Bodhi Season of 2018. It’s the lunar Bodhi Season starting on January 6, 2019 with the lunar Bodhi day on January 13!

Today is the Secular Bodhi Day, standardized in many countries to be on December 8 every year. The lunar Bodhi Day is the 8th Day of the 12th month of the lunar year. I call December 8 the secular because Bodhi Day is supposed to be the 8th Day of the 12th Lunar Month which is always changing. Standardizing to a set date every year helps all the busy people plan around a consistent date.

There are two sets of daily Bodhi Day posts for you to follow, something like an Advent calendar, should you want to do the Lunar Bodhi Day in a few weeks:

  1. Lunar Bodhi Day 2017 starting on December 18, 2017 with Bodhi Day on December 25. Last year’s lunar Bodhi Day.
  2. Secular Bodhi Day 2018 starting on December 1, 2018 with Bodhi Day on December 8. This is the one we just went through.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Other than that, use your new Bodhi skills to be the best Christmas guest ever!!!

christmas
Nativity scene Mrs. Hanamoku photographed at the local grocery store near our Bodhi Day Airbnb.

Update on the Day After Bodhi Day – December 9, 2018

This morning was a wonderfully clear morning. So I did a mulligan on the Morning Star Mantra part of the ceremony. It was mostly cloudy yesterday morning, so Venus was only visible for a time.

venus_day-after-bodhi_day
Venus on the morning after Bodhi Day 2018.

Links to the other posts belonging to this set of Bodhi Day 2018 posts:

Published by Reverend Dukkha Hanamoku

I'm just a pair of typing hands for The Eternal Fishnu, the Buddha of the Devonian, the ith manifestation of Vishnu, and The Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet. My day job as a Business Intelligence Consultant is about modeling worlds. It is a wonderful Zen practice, which is guided by these two Teachers.

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