09/02/2020
Are you celebrating Makha Bucha Day on 9 February?
The story of Makha Bucha (in Thai: มาฆบูชา) is this: There was a special day some 2,500 years ago, 9 full months after the Buddha received enlightenment and 45 years before the Buddhist era. It was the full moon day of the third lunar month. On this particular day, it is believed that four “marvelous events” happened:
1,250 Shanga followers (disciples) came to see the Buddha in the evening without being summoned.
All of them were “Arhantas’ (อรหันต์, Enlightened Ones) and each of them had been ordained by the Buddha himself.
On that evening the Buddha taught them the “Ovadhapatimokha”, in other words the three main principles of Buddhism:
– To cease from all evil (mâi tam kwaam chûa / ไม่ทำความชั่ว)
– To do what is good (tam kwaam dii táng taang gaai waa-jaa lɛ́-jai / ทำความดีทั้งทางกาย วาจา และใจ) and
– To cleanse one’s mind. (tam jìt-jai hâi bòrísùt / ทำจิตใจให้บริสุทธิ์)
It was a full moon day.
