The Buddha’s birthday celebrations won’t begin until this Saturday, but on Sunday we(Hanmaum Seon Center) had a preview of the activities our center’s groups are planning. There’s nothing else for it, but to say they were incredible! The planning and effort they’ve put into the designs and rehearsals really show up.
The Lantern Parade will begin at around 6pm or so from Dongguk University(Saturday, May 7). There will be performances beforehand, I think. The parade will go up to Dongdae-mun, and then down Jongno to Jogye Temple. On Sunday the 8th, there will be the street fair on the road in front of Jogye Temple, to be followed by more performances and a party in the evening. On the day itself, Tuesday May 10, there will be activities all day long at all the major temples in Korea.
Wake Up and Laugh! 
It looks like a beautiful celebration!
It is very beautiful. But you can’t help thinking thoughts like if you follow what was in previous post -this would not be. Maybe I should keep my thoughts to my self, but the questions arise and you naturally want to find solution. Although I do like to paint lanterns, I cannot relate anymore to pretty dresses, dancing and all that constitutes a party. These celebrations don’t make me feel better and I have to pretend that they do, and if I don’t celebrate with my family and relatives their Christian holidays, I don’t feel like celebrating Buddhist Holidays either, because it is kind of the same. And I am the only person from all the people that I know that thinks alcohol is an allien substance that is not for internal use. Sometimes the whole world seems allien with it’s procreations, from flowers to humans, all seems rather weird with desires that are rooted in the procreative stuff. Sometimes I feel like I am in a wrong realm or something. I do appreciate beautiful flowers and even buy them often, but when you really think about that the flower’s function itself is the means of procreation, then it becomes strange to offer them to Buddha for example, so what am I offering, a bunch of plants’ genitals? it sounds mayby stupid and yet it is a legitimate question. The same goes for the lotus, the great symbol. Why am I having thoughts like that, I did not invent them, they just come, maybe it is, like in that movie “matrix”, something you have to get out of. If ‘lotus’ of mind were to bloom, it has to bloom towards your centre, so when outward “bloomings” are closed, the inner bloom would have a chance. This world is too much suffering in my opinion, naturally I want to escape. So this Buddha’s Birthday celebration for me would be a wish that my personal Buddha would come out of my mind’s lotus, because I am so ***** tired 🙂
I could’ve just commented with “very beautiful”, or not commented at all, I have a lot of things to do, yet I wrote this for some reason
May all beings be born into the great awakening this weekend!
How lovely! What an amazing celebration!