Buddhist Practices, Rituals, Festivals, and Milestones

Practices and Rituals

• Lay Worship: Designated area in homes for worship.
• Puja: Key ritual involving offerings and chants.
• Respect: Bowing to monks/nuns as a sign of reverence.
• Common Offerings: Usually flowers, often accompanied by chanting.

Meditation

• Central Practice: Important for monks, nuns, and lay believers.
• Goals: To end suffering, improve concentration, and promote compassion.
• Proper Technique: Focused breathing and good posture are essential.

Karma Practices

• Alms Giving: Donations to monks (dan) for merit.
• Daily Monastic Routine in Korea:
  • 3:00 AM: Awakened by wooden bell
  • Morning chanting followed by meditation for monks; study for students.
  • Lunch at midday with reminders against greed.
  • Evening chanting and quiet meditation.
  • Sleep by 10:00 PM.

Significant Days

• Buddha Day (Visakha Puja): Celebrates birth, death, and enlightenment.
• Dhamma Day: Commemorates the First Sermon with offerings to monks and meditation.
• Sangha Day: Celebrates the teachings of Buddhism.
• Songkran: Thai festival; involves cleaning and spreading water as a symbol of purification.
• Loy Krathong: Floating leaf bowls on rivers symbolizes releasing bad luck.

Milestones in Life

• Baby’s First Haircut: Hair shaving ceremony at one month; symbolizes initiation into community.
• Becoming a Monk: Involves two stages, beginning as a novice and later ordination. Key elements include shaving the head and detaching from possessions.

Marriage

• Ceremony involves feeding monks for blessings; monks do not attend the actual wedding.

Death and Funeral Practices

• Rituals include prayers, cremation, and cleaning the cemetery route. Eldest son typically lights the pyre. Services held after death at home and in subsequent months.

Similarities to Hinduism

• Death rituals (cremation, chants); Non-violence (ahimsa); Goal of enlightenment (nirvana vs moksha); Meditation practices; Rituals of offerings (puja); First haircut practices; Karma-building through donation of essentials.