It came to my attention that today (May 14th), a day of full moon, is Buddha Purnima, i.e., the day Buddha, who as Prince Siddartha arrived in a grove near Lumbini on such a day, and also became Enlightened on such a day 35 years later. So you might benifit from reading his very beautiful debut lecture/ sermon/ knowledge/ transmission.

Apart from that today is also Vaishakha Purnima in the Hindu calender, and Mother's Day in the "more is better" Hallmark Cards calender. So happy moon howling, and happy Mother's Day to all mothers, and also to potential mothers reading this. Also in India, a couple of hundred years after Buddha's passing, Hinduism soon subsumed Buddha's teaching by designating him as the ninth avatar of Vishnu. Speak about an omnivorous religion!

Going back to Buddha (all the while taking note of the fickle monkeyness of the mind), I was gifted a book recently by C called 'An End To Suffering: Buddha In The World' by Pankhaj Mishra, the Great Indian Critic on The Make. While it was received well, I found it to be more of an extensitial autobiography dealing with Mr. Mishra's youth, will all its attendent baggage of trying to find his place in the world, his ponderous literary preoccupations etc (a subject which he wrote about more gracefuly in his novel 'The Romantics'), and only touching upon Buddha, peripherally, as a subject of study.

The key problem, as I understood it is that to comprehend Buddha's teachings, even minimally, one has to actually practice the Way via mediation etc. Buddha had himself was quite skeptical of learned or preached knowledge, and put significant emphasis on 'question authority, figure it out for yourself, have direct and authentic experiences'. If anyone of you actually wants to do this, I wouldn't hesitate in reccomending a ten day spot of Vipassana mediation.

Finally, I will spend my reading time today, rereading Jataka Tales in honor of Great Buddha, and attempt a spot of Vipassana mediation. For the curious, it consists of sitting absolutely still for a period of one hour, and witnessing all the internal phenomenon, as the monkey brain does its best to prevent this. I wish I had gotten the Amar Chitra Khata versions (other images from ACK cover art here. Also here is an article in French on Indian comics where you can check out Peter Parker aka Spider Man in a dhoti!) of these Jataka Tales with me.

Oh, now you may kill the Buddha.