Happy Lunar Bodhi Day – Jan 26, 2026

I end each post on this blog site, and on fishnu.org, with the words Faith and Patience. It’s “first principle” advice for the sentient and sapient living in a magnificently complex world.

It’s not morbid to consider that we are creatures of a world where almost all life survives by consuming other life. The primary operations model of Life on Earth is at the gene level. The primary rule of the game is for all genes to exercise relentless, mindless growth, whatever the method that unfolds. It depends on all genes finding some way to keep growing. It’s kind of a multi-million-way tug-of-war among the genes of the world.

And yet, in all that complexity there is a remarkable balance and resilience of life as a whole. It suffered all sorts of injuries throughout the last few billion years. But life went on. Anyone who has ever kept a terrarium has seen how intricate and fragile that balance really is.

The dynamo of life keeps humming along—for the vast majority of creatures at any given time, it’s just another day. For some, it’s their last day. But they faithfully play along to the very end, coyotes playing the role of coyotes and road runners playing the role of road runners. They all just do what they do.

Our ancestors of millions of years ago were like that too. What changed with modern humans is we just couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to go along and develop a high degree of symbolic thinking. We became aware of ourselves as objects among other objects. At some point a millions years or so ago, we learned to define classes of things, to pick them out from our surroundings, to recognize our own mortality—because we, too, were and still are food in the larger web.

We could argue that it may have been better if our ancestors didn’t accept the mucho compelling gift of sentience. But it is good—as long as you don’t dwell in the troughs. We’re just in a long process of working through the kinks. We’re near the end of the ugly stage.

With our high level of symbolic thinking (it’s really a continuum for which humans are unmatched among the critters of Earth), we gained the ability to run experiments in the safety of our minds before committing to actions that are physically irreversible. Superpower, indeed. Over those years, we’ve built quite a library of knowledge that we each apply every instant.

It isn’t inherently horrible that Life on Earth could be described (cynically) as creatures eating other creatures. As I mentioned, what’s different is that we humans know it. Our sentience and sapience pulled us partly outside of the gameboard. That gift carries responsibility. It’s not as horrible for a gazelle to be brought down by a lion as it would be for us if, instead of a gazelle, it were our friend. Lions and gazelles are not burdened with this awareness, our “gift of sentience”. But we are.

To be clear, the gift of sentience isn’t a curse. It’s an honor that makes us stewards of Life on Earth.

And stewardship doesn’t mean control. I means mindful, open thinking, and masterfully times action. For example, park rangers intervene only when intervention is called for. This world is a work in progress. In a system this complex, there are no switches to flip—only sustained intent toward a vision that must evolve as conditions change and information accumulates. Faith keeps us aligned with that vision. Patience keeps us from pushing too hard, too fast, and breaking the very balance we are trying to protect.

At this end of the Bodhi Season, I leave you this this mantra: Be mindful of being mindful.

Please do read the last two blogs, as well. Together with this blog, it’s a trilogy designed to crack the shell between you and enlightenment:

• Bodhi Day Eve Message on “The Everything” as well. It’s intended for your Bodhi Day contemplation towards enlightenment. Posted January 25, 2026.
• Scale, A Pre Lunar Bodhi Day Message – Jan 2026 – posted January 24, 2026.

Lastly, this is my Bodhi Day meal, after I performed the Bodhi Day service for Mrs. Hanamoku, the Eternal Fishnu, the Rubber Ducky Buddha of Joliet, and Ringo. There is takuan (named after the Zen monk), kimchi, and red rice. Suitable for the Dalai Lama himself!

Faith and Patience,

Reverend Dukkha Hanamoku

PS. Google states the Lunar Bodhi Day is January 27, 2026, not January 26, 2026 as I’ve calculated. I think that date is AI slop, just a wrong calculation by Google Gemini. The Lunar Bodhi Day is determined by the date of the 12th new moon of the lunar calendar (Chinese Lunar Year that began 01-29-2025). Because the historic Bodhi Day by Siddhartha Gautama was in Bodh Gaya, India, that location determines the first day of the 12th moon, which was 01-19-2026 01:21 IST. With that logic, the 8th day of the 12th moon is indeed 01-26-2026 (today, as I write this blog).