Happy Buddha day!

Today is one of the dates observed as the birthday of Siddhartha Gautama whom we now know as the Buddha, or the 'Awakened One'.

What I have always understood about Buddhism is that it seems based in compassion. That's clearly not all there is to it, but that's the part I try to be mindful of, as a guide on my own crooked path.

Followers in Japan celebrate his birth today, while those in other countries observe it on other dates, depending for the most part on which calendar they follow.

With the bluebells in bloom, this looks like a very good day to celebrate -- and really, I think this Buddha looks pretty darn happy. His messages were ones that, if people actually followed them, everyone on the planet would likely be happy too.

For starters, a small (paraphrased) birthday gift from the Buddha for today: "a generous heart and kind speech will go a long way towards making the world a better place."

Namaste.

Silence is...

You can fill in the blank at the end of that sentence.

Chances are that 'golden' is the first word that pops into your mind. But that's become such a cliche, who even knows what it's supposed to mean anymore -- especially with the way the price of gold keeps flopping around.

One thing I can say about silence is that it is restorative. I know, because I spent the last week on retreat, again at the oh-so-quiet Bethlehem Retreat Centre on Vancouver Island. Our group observed silence throughout the day, and then shared what we'd accomplished (or not) in the evening.

The other thing I can say for silence is that it allowed me to be better able to 'hear' the words I needed to put onto paper during my retreat. After all, the goal of the time away was to accomplish more pages in a long-worked-on writing project.

It's a practice many spiritual seekers have relied upon to help achieve clarity and inner peace.

Take a chance (it doesn't even cost anything to be silent, the ultimate free trial) and see what a few hours of silence bring into your life.

Springtime in the mountains

We've been visiting a friend who lives in the mountains, not too far from Redding, California.

While we were there, she took us to a lovely nearby Buddhist temple (if I'm understanding correctly, it's one based in Tibetan tradition). Some of the statues and buildings were under construction for restoration, but the part that fascinated me the most was the 'powered' prayer wheels.

Being from a background of Roman Catholicism, I'd always understood prayer wheels as something like rosaries (those beads that are used to 'count' your prayers), but different in that you twirled them.

The Buddhists here in California have taken their prayer wheels to a new, high-tech level. The prayer scrolls inside are usually on paper -- as in the smaller, hand-spun ones, toward the bottom in the video below. But the large decorated wheels contain prayers on microfiche, so they hold (and offer) many more prayers than the smaller ones. And these large ones are powered by electricity, so except in case of a power failure, they're always turning out prayers on our behalf.

As with so many places I've visited, I've learned a lot at this spot. Still, just when you think it's springtime, look what happens.