The 15th day of the 4th month on the Tibetan calendar is Saka Dawa; the day of Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and death. How he fit it all in one day is beyond the scope of my feeble little dualistic reality which is still steeped in the loop of cause and effect, but nevertheless it's the day these occasions are observed.

The life of Siddhartha Gautama is a life of extremes. From an isolated and protected naïve young prince, shocked and appalled at the death, decay and suffering right outside the palace walls, to the starved and weakened ascetic with no belongings... after realizing he couldn't think without something to eat, he found a middle path in contemplating existence, which soon led to the becoming of the "awakened one", or the Buddha.

The Buddha's realizations were that; life is suffering, suffering stems from desire, the end of desire leads to the end of suffering, and the path to end suffering is discipline and meditating on compassion.

For the thousands of years since the Buddha's time, generations of countless beings have followed the path exemplified by the Buddha in the quest for "ultimate truth", to alleviate suffering and find meaning... and then the nothingness of existence.

Anything familiar here?

We know George Lucas extracted ideas from the different cultures, religions, philosophies and mythologies of the world. Since my perspective and experience comes more from Buddhist philosophy than any western religion, the Buddhist parallels in Star Wars tend to scream out at me.

Anakin Skywalker, "The Chosen One", was not fully awakened to the prophecy of his life (which misread, may have been), until he was enlightened by true compassion, and overcame his desires.

Anakin also lived a life of extremes. He experienced ultimate suffering in his life, which is like a parallel of all human suffering in life. We have duality; pleasure and pain. Not one without the other.

Did Anakin have to experience the most extreme suffering in order to finally experience the ultimate "bliss" of enlightened compassion? Well, I don't know the answer! But maybe... from a certain point of view of course. But Anakin's suffering had origins, a cause... his desires; to save the ones he loved, to have the power to do so. The Chosen One had karma.

The Jedi Order itself is similar to Buddhist society and monastic life (also known as "the Order" loosely) in a lot of ways. The meditation and selflessness in working toward the well being of others is most obvious (at least to me and my perspective).

In Buddhist cultures, especially Tibetan, to send one of your children, usually a male, to the monastary at a very young age and devote their life to spiritual practice (which in turn produces a vehicle to work toward the well being of the community), is the commonplace. Many of these children turned monk may never see their parents again, which a lot of western parents would find appalling. But its by choice. A monk can leave any time, and many have. But many have not. Somehow this kind of culture sustained itself for many millenia, by comparison you might say longer than many other cultural institutions.

As the rest of the world changed inevitably, Buddhist society has also been affected by change. While for many many years, isolation provided a pretty sturdy barrier to change, it started to become overdue. Perhaps the same as the stagnancy of the Jedi Order in the Clone War era. While the world around them changed dramatically, the time lasted tradition had to adapt - or die out.

To cling to the sameness of tradition and perceived rules, would be to conflict against the nature of the inevitability of change, and change cant truly be controlled (I dont know, can it?). Perhaps the Buddha found the aesthetic life too strict and resistant to change.

Almost 60 years ago, or so, the Chinese "Empire" sought to gain power and influence to protect certain (you might say "political") interests. Tibet, being nestled against China and the high walls of the Himalayas, were relatively isolated from the rest of the world. Its not to say they never "changed", but certainly some dramatic changes were going on around them, that provided a stark contrast to the long lasting cultural Buddhist spiritual tradition that had slowly evolved there. Maybe it was time for change.

The plight of the Tibetan people at this time is all too similar to the destruction of the Jedi Order in the Old Republic era. Being human, the Tibetans and the Jedi were resistant to having their life yanked out from under them, but it was also a quick surprise for both - and both had become somewhat blinded as to what was to become of them.

Initially, the destruction of the Jedi, and the near destruction of the Tibetan people and the Buddhist monastic culture it thrived upon, was an atrocious event. Similar to the awful destruction of a tsunami, but in the after math a newer, (maybe) better and adapted existence quickly evolves.

The Jedi came back but different, and with many lessons learned. Were the Jedi vengeful for what happened to them? Luke did not seek to destroy Anakin Skywalker, he sought to destroy the evil of Darth Vader and bring balance back to the Force, freeing the true compassion of Anakin in the process. Luke's compassion for his father, and lack of desire for revenge, changed the karmic cycle.

In the following decades (a pretty short amount of time if you think about it), Luke, along with help from Leia and others along the way, rebuilt the Jedi with the lessons of the past. The fight between good and evil will always go on, but the good has to adapt to the rapidly changing scheming nature of evil.

The Tibetans, and HH Dalai Lama went into exile. Those that stayed in Tibet initially denounced any allegiance to Buddhism and HHDL (by force). Tibetan Buddhism didnt die, it became somewhat stronger and is still changing in so many ways. In their exile, the culture and particular form of Buddhism (Buddhism existed elsewhere remember, and originated in India) was spread throughout the world. It caught on in many different cultures, but at the same time it adapted to the rest of the world and intelligently adapts to change.

One of the changes I like to point out is the rise of female Buddhist monasticism, that is only now starting to equalize with the monks. There were Buddhist nuns and religious figures in the past, in all of history, but it was minimalized at best for many centuries.


Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter...

So lets take a step back here for a moment and look at the similarities between the two main leaders of both orders here. With Buddhism, we have His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
, and for the Jedi we have Yoda (I havent even gotten into the "Yoga of Yoda" yet - that will be another blog). The similarity of physical appearance is amazing enough! The Dalai Lama is considered an enlightened being. In fact, the test to find HHDL, and other Buddhist holy people, is somewhat similar to the test the Council gives young Anakin in TPM (Mace had that little screen with images that Anakin rattled off). The Buddhist test has the child in question choose an item from a collection. If the child chooses the item(s) that belonged to the lama before him, it means that child has inherited the spirit and consciousness of the now passed lama. Okay, not exactly the same as Mace's paddle test, but pretty close.

Can we consider Yoda an enlightened being? One has to wonder... then it throws me into a loop about whether enlightenment exists or if it would be the same in the GFFA.

Another funny little Buddhist thing I've seen in Star Wars is this immortality practice business. One of the more obscure and esoteric tantric practices in Dzogchen, allows for an enlightened individual to "rainbow body", where in the meditation the body dissolves into a rainbow of light, and you know.. becomes one with the universe. Sound familiar at all? There are records of such an occurrence from relatively recent history. Read more here (or Google it yourself).

There's many other "stories" from Buddhism about incredible superhuman like practices, like yogis who can run so fast you cant even see them, controlling bodily functions to where the vital signs are impalpable, endurance of extreme cold and heat... total Jedi stuff.

Matthew Bortolin wrote a book, The Dharma of Star Wars, which looks at a lot of correlations between Star Wars and the Jedi way and Buddhism, which I found pretty interesting. I've studied through a different Buddhist lineage than he, but I see a lot of the same connections. On the other hand there's a few points that I might disagree with or things that I see slightly differently (and other big points for me that he didnt touch upon). Anyway, I think Matthew used to roam these boards... if he still does - Hi! Wonder if he has a blog around here?

Back to the calendar thing...

The whole fourth month is in fact celebrated as Saka Dawa, and it is said all "good merit" is multiplied by 100,000 during this time (but so is bad merit). Before anyone runs out to look up the Buddhist definition of good and bad merit to start racking up points, there's plenty of time on the western calendar... The next "fourth month" doesn't start until May 28, 2006 and it ends on June 25, 2006.

The 15th day in every Tibetan month falls on a full moon, and the new moon marks the 30th day. Saka Dawa, the day and also the full moon (15th day of the 4th Tibetan month), actually falls on June 11, 2006. We are now in the Tibetan Year of the Fire Dog 2133, which began on the western date of February 28, 2006. Got all that?

The year isnt a calculation from the time of the Buddha, but instead the Tibetan calendar is calculated from a mix of Han and Vedic astrological systems, and based on solar-lunar dating for the purpose of estimating solar and lunar eclipses. The Buddha became enlightened, supposedly, during a full solar eclipse which allegedly increases one's intelligence by one million times.

What is it with this time stuff? Since today is the 15th day of the 4th month on the western calendar, I had to ponder it. Do the numbers translate at all? Can there be a cosmological connection between the western and Tibetan calendars?

Maybe there is some primordial reason that here in the USA, we have to submit our taxes by April 15. But what I really wanna know is if I get at least a few extra merits for being born on this day, even if by the western calendar. Sorry this was so long. Just a little birthday mental vomit for ya.