Happy Buddhist New Year!

Happy New Year to all my friends who practice Mahayana Buddhism, one of the two basic schools of Budhism.

That's me, third boat from the left.
Picture credit: http://newlotus.buddhistdoor.com/en/news/d/24143

Ok, I'll come clean. I have exactly 0 friends who practice Mahayana Buddhism. Any Buddhist bloggers out there living within a 100 mile radius of Maryland, USA who want to invite me over for tonight's celebration, I can be ready at the drop of a hat. I'll bring booze, any amount, depending on your level of enlightenment.

Mahayanan Buddhists believe individuals have no intrinsic value, and that they only exist in relation to others. Fantastic concept-  it greatly supercedes the Christian notion of treating others as if they were your sisters or brothers.  For Buddhists, other people actually ARE you, in a sense.

Don't just do unto others as you would have them do unto you, do well unto others because they make you you.

The Mahayan New Year always falls on the first full moon in January, which happens to be tonight.

Different cultures celebrate in different ways, but almost all include visits to temples to light candles, prayers to Lord Buddha, and of course, fireworks.

Apparently, in Tibet there's a highly competitive yak butter sculpting competition. Don't want to be late for that one.

Children may also wash the feet of their parents. Give me six more days of this tradition and I'll be Buddhist for life. Er, lives.

Any of my blogger friends ever celebrate this holiday? Would love to hear more about it!

Saints Alive it's the Buddha

 This past Tuesday Catholics celebrated the feast of St. Josephat.  I started to read a bit about him and I found his history very interesting. Turns out Josephat plagiarized the Buddha.

 Jumpin' Josephat, he even poses like the Buddha.

That's the type of nonsense that can get one kicked out of the University of Enlightenment.

The complete story of Josephat's path to sainthood can be found here. Below is Wikipedia's drive-through version:

According to the legend, King Abenner  in India persecuted the Christian Church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas. When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince Josaphat isolated from external contact. Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father's anger and persuasion. Eventually Abenner converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.

Apparently this story caused a bit of a deja vu for some historians, who began to trace the story back.

It seems the Latin Josaphat was derived from the 11th century Greek Iasaph, which was derived from the 8th century Arabic Yudasaf, in turn derived from the 6th century Persian Bodisav, who originally transcribed the name from the original Sanskrit Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is, of course, the Buddha. 

That is some game of Telephone. Thank goodness my kids weren't in charge, Josaphat would have ended up with some unfortunate name like Pee Pee Poopyhead.

Turns out, Josephat's story is almost identical to the story of the Buddha's childhood and young adult years.

*please hum "Circle of Life" from the Lion King here*

We're all playing the same game. Just with different names.