Vesak represents many issues to Buddhists: celebration, refuge, group, and extra. For my temple, Vesak means the youngsters get to point out off their data!
I’ve all the time recognized that there’s one thing particular about my Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara in Los Angeles, however throughout Vesak, its distinctive method turns into clear. Most Sri Lankan Buddhist temples in Southern California mark Vesak with in the future of non secular sermons and devotional singing by youth. Dharma Vijaya, nonetheless, celebrates Vesak as a multi-day weekend competition, with solely Sunday being reserved for conventional Vesak actions. Saturday is devoted completely to the youth, with occasions spanning from the mid-morning till the evening. Each occasion is carried out by the youthful technology, spanning from preschool to highschool college students, with even kids as younger as three collaborating.
It wasn’t all the time this manner, although.
Within the early nineties, my Ammi (“mom”) was one of many first lay principals of Dharma Vijaya’s Sunday college. Her proposal that the youngsters sing Sri Lankan Buddhist devotional songs, or “bhakthi gee,” in Sinhala in the course of the Vesak celebrations began a hullaballoo.
“In permitting the youngsters a voice and a stage to display their data and expertise, the temple creates younger individuals who actually dwell every day in line with Buddhist teachings.”
Earlier than this, solely the congregation’s adults, all immigrants to the U.S., sang onstage whereas the youngsters sat within the viewers, bored. As I grew older, Ammi wished children to be extra concerned in Vesak.
Nobody believed she might pull it off, and not one of the different mother and father thought it could work, pondering it was a waste of time and power. “How can these children who don’t know a phrase of Sinhala sing Sinhala songs?” they requested. “These kids are American! They will’t do it!” Even the supportive monks have been skeptical.
Ammi was persistent, although, and as Sunday college principal, she had the authority to make it occur! My Ammi and Tatti (“father”) transliterated every tune into English script, whereas her extra musically inclined pals helped with arranging the songs. Most significantly, they translated every tune, so we children would know what the heck we have been singing!
I keep in mind the songs nonetheless, significantly Danno Budunge, or “dan-no bu-dhun-gay” because it was transliterated on our lyrics sheets. The translated that means below every line advised us we have been singing in regards to the significance of the town of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka’s Buddhist historical past.
We children practiced throughout Sunday college within the weeks main as much as Vesak. Ammi cleverly received us to observe even after we weren’t on the temple. The adults recorded songs onto a number of cassette tapes, distributing them amongst every household. Ammi gave the mother and father express directions to play the tapes throughout automobile rides: to and from college, whereas working errands, and anytime children could be within the automobile.
On the time, there have been solely two Sri Lankan Buddhist temples within the space (now, round 20!), so our congregation commuted from throughout Southern California. Everybody had not less than a 30 minute drive or longer every approach to the temple—loads of observe time. I keep in mind carpooling with my pals, cassette tape enjoying and our mother and father singing together with us, serving to with pronunciation, throughout our weekly treks to the temple via the ever present LA site visitors.
Ammi’s plan, in fact, was a rousing success, and now all of the Sri Lankan temples in Southern California have children singing bhakthi gee. Ammi confirmed ‘em all it might be finished! She trusted within the kids’s talents to sing in a language that they little or no of knew or didn’t know in any respect. “Belief within the subsequent technology. They will do it!” she mentioned.
This belief continues in Dharma Vijaya’s present Vesak celebrations, that are very totally different from my childhood. For over 20 years, the temple has held multiday Vesaks, guaranteeing that in the future is for the youthful technology, organized by the youthful technology of Sri Lankan monks.
The youth-focused day begins with Pali chanting contests for pre- and elementary college aged kids, speech contests for center and excessive schoolers, a debate involving a number of groups, a play in Sinhala, and devotional songs carried out by the multigenerational Sunday college group. One or two adults, former Sunday college college students born and/or raised within the U.S., emcee the occasion.
Vesak all the time has a big viewers, together with monks and nuns from different Asian American temples, representatives of native and state authorities, and representatives from the Sri Lankan authorities. Nevertheless, these dignitaries aren’t given the mic—it’s the youngsters on stage displaying off their experience within the dhamma. One nun I spoke with who judged the Pali chanting contest shook her head in amazement and went, “Wow, these children!”
I’ve emceed Vesak a number of occasions, and judged varied essay contests, speech contests, and debates through the years, and like her, I’m all the time so impressed. These children don’t do rote memorization; as a substitute, they perceive complicated Buddhist ideas at a younger age. I’ve heard a few of our tweens use phrases like kalyanamitta precisely in informal dialog. These children actually know their stuff!
Monks at most Buddhist temples are the non secular authorities on the Pali canon for his or her communities, however at Dharma Vijaya, children are inspired to check Pali scripture. College students are requested to jot down on particular suttas for the Vesak essay contests, and Sunday college actions embody discussing Pali canonical texts. In being given a job reserved for clergy, the youthful technology turns into a mouthpiece for transmitting Buddhist teachings.
Since many individuals who might not attend the temple usually (and even those that attend different temples) come to Dharma Vijaya’s Vesak celebrations, these contests should not solely a studying expertise for the scholars concerned, but additionally a approach for non-Sunday college and non-participating youth to soak up Buddhist teachings. Dharma Vijaya’s Abbot, Venerable Walpola Piyananda, all the time says, “They gained’t pay attention if it’s me. However they are going to pay attention whether it is one other little one like them.”
Throughout these contests, the youngsters study greater than Buddhist ideas. In Ven. Piyananda’s e-book, Sharing Buddhism within the Western World, he shares one teen’s response to a Vesak essay competitors immediate, “How I really feel about my temple.” Buddhist ideas, she says, “might be taught at many different pansals (“temples”) and Sunday colleges, nonetheless there’s something distinctive I discovered at Dharma Vijaya, and that was do public talking.” Throughout her very first speech contest, she writes, “I used to be in second grade and public talking was not in my curriculum, but it surely didn’t matter as a result of I discovered assist and received my speech finished. It took me years to be assured in giving speeches. In actual fact, I don’t assume I used to be assured in public talking till this final Vesak, which was 11 years after my first one!”
Along with studying public talking and management expertise, the data the youngsters display throughout Vesak infuse their lives even after they’ve left Sunday college. Just lately, I bumped into an auntie whose kids, now of their mid and late twenties, used to take part (and gained!) a number of Vesak contests. She advised me how the teachings they discovered at Dharma Vijaya have influenced their worldview. When contemplating profession choices after undergrad, each refused a few of her solutions, like utilizing their engineering expertise to create equipment for the U.S. army. They advised her their chosen careers ought to promote ahimsa and a proper livelihood. Additionally they learn Buddhist books on their very own, nonetheless eager to study, particularly since they don’t have Sunday college anymore to foster their Buddhist examine.
Dharma Vijaya’s Vesak celebrations have modified all through the years. Now, as a substitute of the cassettes of the nineties, there are shared Google Sheets with hyperlinks to YouTube movies of songs. Nevertheless, one factor stays the identical: in permitting the youngsters a voice and a stage to display their data and expertise, the temple creates younger individuals who actually perceive, however most significantly, dwell every day in line with Buddhist teachings.