Nirvana Day

No, not this Nirvana:

February 15th is the Buddhist holiday of Nirvana Day. In Japan this is usually called nehan-e (涅槃会), where nehan is the Japanese word for nirvana, while e means things like “gathering, meeting, etc”. People “gather” for Buddhist services that day, in other words.

So what does one do for Nirvana Day? There are no Nirvana Trees, no Nirvana dances, no Nirvana carols and such. Nirvana Day is a reflection of the Buddha’s last hours on this earth before he reached final Nirvana, or parinirvana in Sanskrit, which means “total unbinding”. During this time, he left some important advice to his followers, encouraged them to make most of the time they had, and then closed his eyes and died.

So, Nirvana Day is probably more solemn than say, the Buddha’s Birthday, but services and memorials will vary widely depending on which tradition or sect you follow. I haven’t decided what I will do, but I’ll keep you posted. Some suggestions are:

• Extra chanting of a sutra or sermon of the Buddha in rememberance.
• Extra meditation to cultivate mindfulness of this moment.
• Striving to follow more strict precepts that day (such as the Eight Precepts).
• Spending more time with the family. This too shall pass, so make the most of it.

And so on.

Namu Kanzeon Bosatsu

P.S. I accidentally posted this a few days earlier (but hadn’t filled out the actual post), so if you saw the “blank” post, that was me clicking the “publish”, not “draft” button. :p