May is a beautifulful month. Cold winter is gone, and spring has come. It is getting warmer and warmer.  All the flowers are in bloom. The second Sunday is the Mother’s day. This year, many of the Buddhist celebrate the Sakyamuni Buddha’s birthday on that day.

In Chinese Mahayana tradition, Buddhists celebrate the birth of the Buddha by bathing a statue of baby Buddha. In the Theravada tradition, it is called Vesak, which is to celebrate three major events in the Buddha¡¦s life: his birth in the human world, his enlightenment, and his passing away.  The Buddha brought light to beings. It says in the sutta that on the occasion of all the major events in the Buddha’s life, there appeared a surpassing light radiating all over the world, which even beings living in the darkest part of the world could witness. This light is said to have been so brilliant and so wonderful that in comparison the sun and the moon lost their splendor. The Buddha brings light to beings and dispels the eternal darkness of the world with this brilliant, marvelous, radiant light.

We may wonder: when the sun and the moon shine day and night in the world, why is it said that beings are living in darkness?  This darkness is not the darkness that comes from the absence of the sun or moon or some other illuminating object. Rather, beings are said to be living in darkness because greed, hatred, and delusion cover the basic luminous nature of the mind.  The ceremony of bathing the Buddha is a symbolic action to purify the mind, to cleanse the mind of greed, hatred, and delusion. However, it is not merely through this ceremony that beings are purified. Rather, it is through practice of mindfulness that one knows the mind, shapes the mind, and frees the mind.

We are grateful to Shakyamuni Buddhad’s contribution to the spiritual world.  He was able to assign such a  simple mental factor as mindfulness as playing such an important role in liberating the mind from suffering.  Mindfulness can be said the light. One with mindfulness will know the mind, shape the mind, and free the mind.