Wesak 2011

Well, it's Wesak already. Before you know it, we are all running around, searching for lanterns, strings of bulbs, dodging the Wesak-going traffic, the Wesak-crazed crowd, the boob-butt grabbers, the pick-pockets and the thieves. While men in masks parade about in the streets making faces and pouncing on unsuspecting individuals ( all in a true festive sense of course), others just wet themselves in slanderous glee throwing water balloons , aiming water pistols and grabbing boobs, buttocks and everything grab-able of unsuspecting pandol-watchers and the innocent temple-hogging crowd. Well, ain't life a perpetually silly little carnival of our own?

Trust me when I say that we STILL haven't gone to the temple for Wesak. Although both my parents are devout Buddhists ( regardless of the fact that we practically have to bind, gag and lock Father Dearest in the trunk of the car to get him to a temple), nobody had actually brought out the temple-going factor this time. I guess the scandalous amount of traffic on the roads had everything to do with it.

Went out with The Darling yesterday on a mission of our own and kicked ourselves over and over again that we decided to do so on a Wesak day. The pedestrians seemed to own the roads, ate, drank, marveled, stood starring  in the middle of the road, crossed streets like cattle and strayed all over the place while others fought over Dansals (the places where they give out free food on Wesak days) like cats, dogs and mongoose-bitten rabid monkeys who are just having a bad day at banana land. Funny how good-will always ends in blood spills, isn't it?

Despite the havoc, the mayhem, the misbehaving noodles and the general banana-going of the public, the streets looked particularly smashing with colors and the flickering, sparkling, winking lights. Funny how we never really quite grow up. We are still somewhat enthralled, enticed and attracted by glistening, flickering, colorful things. Well, who could blame us?

What I do NOT like about Wesak are the Wesak songs (is that what you call them?) that keep playing, over and over again (something like sansara, the lfe cycle that never ends which eventually becomes disguting and what we, as Buddhists, try to rid ourselves of) on the radio, the TV, in the streets and in every nook and corner that you dare to stray in to during this particular period of light and festivity. They sound so.....sad. And whiny. As if someone just died. Well yes, technically somebody DID die, but then, Wesak also celebrates the birth and the attaining of Buddhahood of our Lord Gautama Buddha some 2600 years ago. I'd say that it's plenty reason to celebrate and not indulge in whiny, sad, churlish, moaning, groaning , sulky and fretful sort of songs that makes you want to swallow a loud speaker and die. In that sense I think whoever it was that invented these boorishly melancholic songs have succeeded in making the individuals want to attain nibbana JUST because they couldn't BEAR listening to these odiously painful melodies. Yes, I hear one in the distance now.

Despite the bleak and dismal tunes resonating through the air, the atmosphere is rather festive. Energy flows free and brimming as crowds get together on open trucks and set off on their journey of blinking lights, colorful pandols, gigantic lanterns and free food. What better way to celebrate than a two day road trip, free food and drinks included eh?

It's rather amazing how it still manages to be so very serene amidst all the festive hullabaloo of blaring loudspeakers and loud, screaming lights. Out here in my balcony I see the soft and mellow light blobs of lanterns that we lit in the evening swaying and dancing in the wind. The wind smells like frangipani and blooming kadupul. Guess Mother Dearest's Kadupul plant is finally blossoming.

http://carefreewanderer.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/lanterns/

Letting go of all fears, attachments and desires brings you the ultimate peace. It is not easy to let go, but once you let go, one shall experience the ultimate bliss of complete freedom of mind, body and spirit. That is what the Buddha has preached and it remains true right to this very day. This alone is the very reason to celebrate Wesak in a grandiose manner sans indulgence, sans inhibitions and sans the obsessions that plague the mind.

And I am at peace. At least for the moment, perfectly and beautifully at peace for I shall not worry about things which I cannot control. I am at peace. Yet, I have a long, long way to go :)