The 8th of December

My new favorite Multi-Holiday!

The 8th day of the 12th month has been celebrated as Bodhi Day for around a millenium and a half. In the far east, it’s the 8th day of the 12th Lunar calendar month. In the ‘far out’ west, it’s the 8th of December since we use the Gregorian calendar. Siddhartha would not have cared about this, or about the different calendars, so mostly Buddhists don’t care, either. It’s about celebrating Siddhartha Gautama’s having come to deeply transformational, universally shareable realizations about the nature of human suffering and how to end it without requiring magical belief, just deep thinking and discipline in the pursuit of universally accessible principles.

Pop quiz: what are those universally accessible principles? The answer comes later.

The 8th of December is also now and henceforth The Fall of the Evil Assad Regime Day. If we’re vigilant and smart, if we block The Great Pyramid Scheme once and for all, it could some day be “The first day of the cascade that led to the end of the mafia states.” If we’re vigilant and smart and work together despite fear and chaos.

There are numerous other things celebrated on the 8th of December. For the hell of it, let’s skim the list.

The 8th of December is also Pretend You’re a Time Traveler Day. People dress up as ‘Doc’ from ‘Back to the Future’, or as a Starfleet crew that’s traveled back in time to World War 3 Earth, or whatever creativity allows.

The 8th of December comes three days after World Soil Day, one day before International Anti-Corruption Day and International Day of Commemoration of the victims of the crime of Genocide, and two days before Human Rights Day. So it’s in good company.

The 8th of December is Constitution Day in Romania and Uzebekistan. It’s one day after Pearl Harbor Day in the DSA.

In the DSA, since 2019 the 8th of December is National Blue Collar Day, apparently because blue collar workers felt underappreciated. Or maybe it was just a political thing. I, for one, am always deeply appreciative of blue collar workers (especially when my power or HVAC goes out, but not just then), along with administrative assistants and food servers. Imagine your life without those people, especially the nice ones! I spent a small amount of time as a blue collar worker early in my life, and I couldn’t hack it.

It’s National Brownie Day in the DSA and National Donair Day in Canada. How fitting is that?

There’s another celebration that takes place on the 8th of December having to do with gods impregnating virgins, but that’s outside my scope.

I hope everyone keeps the 8th of December in mind every year. Bodhi Day. The Fall of the Evil Assad Regime Day. Donair Day. Pretend You’re a Time Traveler Day.

QUIZ ANSWER:

Buddhism was founded by disciples of Siddhartha Gautama (also called The Buddha) in the 6th century B.C. in the Indian Subcontinent. Gautama was a prince who grew weary of his life of privilege, gave up the material life, and spent years contemplating life, the universe, and everything. A skeletal Gautama following a path of denial was given food by a generous, caring woman named Sujuta. He came to his senses, ate, recovered, and brought his quest to fruition. Food! I love food!

Some cultures infuse Buddhism with magical beliefs, such as the soul and reincarnation, but such beliefs are more cultural than Buddhist. The core of Buddhism is secular. Secular Buddhism is the non-dogmatic, non-magical way of understanding and practicing Buddhism.

Buddhism is often referred to as a path of liberation from our habitual reactivity and self-inflicted suffering. The aim of Buddhist teachings is to understand reality and human nature, and thus the nature of suffering, and to let go of the causes of suffering. Buddhist teachings are something we do, not dogma.

There are hundreds of millions of Buddhists across the world with different schools of thought, but all are based on the following principles and practical goals.

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism are:
• suffering (a self-inflicted condition) exists
• there are causes of suffering
• there are ways to interrupt those causes so as to end suffering
• there is a real-world way of life which is conducive to interrupting those causes so as to end personal suffering and one’s contribution to the suffering of others.

That real-world way of life is bullet-pointed in the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path, organized into three general categories (Wisdom, Ethical Conduct, Contemplation):

Wisdom:
• Right View (seeing the world as it is, not through interpretations; understanding impermanence, interdependence, and the causes of suffering and abuse)

• Right Intention (understanding the true causes of our thoughts and actions, and how they cause suffering in ourselves and abuse of others; commitment to the intention of non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion)

• Right Speech (lying, gossiping, divisive or abusive speech cause harm; avoid communicating in harmful ways).

Ethical Conduct:
• Right Action (be morally upright in one's activities, not acting in ways that would be corrupt or bring harm to oneself or to others)

• Right Livelihood (keep your life going by ethical livelihood and mindful practices; do not cheat, lie, or steal)

• Right Effort (what it will take to be able to put into practice all the other parts of the path; without effort, there is no practice; we must be determined to put into practice all the other points of the path if we want to experience any kind of positive change; right effort affects all of our interactions in the world).

Contemplation:
• Right Mindfulness (objectivity: paying attention to everything we think, say, and do; being conscious: aware, mindful, deliberate, not “on autopilot”)

• Right Concentration (the practice of focusing the mind solely on one thing, i.e. being able to recognize, ignore, and atrophy internal distractions, and to unplug from external distractions; once mindfulness and concentration are established, then you can develop greater insight overall because your mind is no longer cluttered with thoughts and reactions that inhibit wisdom and cause suffering).

Influenced (as I am) by a Taoist perspective, the eightfold path can be seen as both cyclical and fractal. It is not a linear "path" with a start and end, but a practice which must be actively and repeatedly applied to all aspects of one's life (our sophisticated aspects and our unsophisticated aspects, and all aspects in between). The Eightfold Practice.

This is the essence of Buddhism. Everything else is local religion layered on top.

Also, don’t get hung up on the word “meditation”. It just means mindful, focused, uncluttered, unplugged thinking as described in the Eightfold Path above. But it requires practice to accomplish that kind of thinking, and so a word less mundane than “thinking” must be used. Don’t believe everything you think.

Notice how similar this 2,700 year old approach is to so many other systems of personal transformation you may have encountered. Notice how different it is from some others.

Some historians have theorized that a young Jesus of Nazareth absorbed Buddhist teachings during his travels.

In combination with discovering that masking perpetuates PTSD, these principles saved my life. I say share them freely!