Sakya Muni Buddha was born on Vesak “Full Moon Day” between 624 and 560 B.C. on the borders of Nepal as Prince Siddhana. He was the son of the king of a small sate at the foot of the Himalayas. According to legend, his mother Maya was impregnated by a sacred white elephant who visited her in a dream, walked clockwise around her bed before touching her on her right side with a white lotus. He was later born beneath a sal tree. In his twenty-ninth year, while on a pleasure trip out of the palace, he came upon four signs that changed his life. They were an old man, a sick man, a dead man and an ascetic. Disillusioned by the sufferings of man that he witnessed, he was immensely consoled by the serenity of the ascetic and hence decided upon his way of life and left in search of truth and peace. With extreme discipline and meditation, Sakya Muni eventually attained “Enlightenment” in his thirty-fifth year.
For the next forty-five years of his life, he preached and converted many people. At his final hour, he lay down on a couch covered with blossoms between two sal trees at Kusinara in India and passed away in a peaceful state of mind in his eightieth year on Vesak “Full Moon Day”.
Vesak Day, which falls on the fifteen day of the fourth lunar month, is celebrated in Leong San Buddhist Temple, with a good turnout of followers.
释迦牟尼佛于公元前624年至560年间的卫塞节(农历四月初八日)满月之夜,出生于尼泊尔边境的一个小国王家,他是一位王子,名叫悉达多。根据传说,他的母亲摩耶梦见一头神圣的白象绕行她的床七周,并用白莲花触摸她的右侧,从而怀孕。他后来出生在一棵娑罗树下。
在29岁那年,他外出游玩时遇见了四个改变他一生的景象:一位老人、一位病人、一具死尸和一位出家人。目睹人生的种种苦难后,他对出家人的宁静感到无比向往,于是决定离开王宫,踏上追求真理和平静之路。经过极其严格的修行和冥想,释迦牟尼终于在35岁时获得”觉醒”。
在之后的45年里,他广传佛法,吸引了许多信徒皈依。临终时,他在印度古城拘尸那罗,躺卧在两棵娑罗树间铺满鲜花的床榻上,在卫塞节满月之夜,以宁静的心境离世,享年80岁。
每年农历四月十五日的卫塞节,龙山佛教寺院都会举行庆祝活动,吸引了大批信徒前来参与。
Credits: Mongolia. Gilt bronze. Courtesy of the Asian Art Museum, Gift of Betty and Jack Bogart, 1994.131.
