Bodhi Season 2020 starts in a little over a week, on December 1, 2020. It’s seven days of meditation culminating on Bodhi Day, December 8, 2020. Bodhi Season is a total of eight days, just like Hanukkah. Please do read my blog, Two Months to the Secular Bodhi Day, where I’ve written about how to prepare for Bodhi Season.
In the photo above, the Eternal Fishnu and the Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet pose with a heart-shaped potato Mrs. Hanamoku found in a bag of potatoes the other day. It feels like a gesture from the Universe symbolizing the Heart Sutra, as in “the heart of Buddhism”. It is the subject of many posts on this site and the sister site, fishnu.org. The Other Shore is my post that I feel best describes it.
The heart-shaped potato is especially fitting for this year’s Bodhi Day since it is the primary subject of a series of posts I began a few weeks ago for Bodhi Day 2020. They are meant for you to ponder during the seven days of mediation (December 1-7):
- Two Months Until Bodhi Day 2020
- The Universe Between #000000 and #FFFFFF
- No More Obstacles
- Space
- Resilience
- Life Out of Complexity
It’s been three years since my first Bodhi Day, which was December 8, 2017. For that Bodhi Season, I was guided by the Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet and the Eternal Fishnu. If this is your first Bodhi Day, I think this set of blogs from my first Bodhi Season may be useful:
- Day 0 – Tomorrow Begins the Secular Bodhi Season
- Day 4 – Illusion of Fragmentation
- Day 5 – Levels of Reality
- Day 6 – Pitifully Inadequate Model of the Universe
- Day 7 – Secular Bodhi Day Eve
Additionally, there are links for several other series of Bodhi Season posts towards the bottom of the home page. Each of those series consists of a post for each day of those past Bodhi Seasons.
Here in 2020, the world as a whole is enduring what is probably the most challenging time almost anyone currently alive can remember. The near future may bring even more challenges. But we know that there have been much more challenging times in the past and there are countless challenging times still yet to come over the course of eternity.
The Eternal Fishnu reminds us to keep at the forefront of our minds that what our brains perceive is just a slice of the real Universe. This is a great year to sincerely meditate upon the teachings of Bodhi Day. Train your skills to see through all the noise, the biases of your mind, and the great illusion resulting from experiencing just a fragment of the whole. The Universe is One Big Process where clinging to ethereal fragments leads to suffering, dukkha.
Open your mind and 100% accept cycles that enable our lives to exist. Ponder the words of Chauncey Gardner:
“In the garden, growth has its seasons. First comes Spring and Summer, but then we have Fall and Winter. And then we get Spring and Summer again.”
Be sure to stop and listen every day, especially when it’s hardest to do so. The two leaves in the photo above called out to Mrs. Hanamoku from our street as she raked leaves in our front yard a few days ago. The seasonality of raking leaves reminds us of Chauncy Gardner’s words. All things will pass.
Have a great Thanksgiving this week!
Faith and Patience,
Reverend Dukkha Hanamoku
