For the past five years I’ve gathered under the full moon with hundreds of others at Sanskriti Kendra in Delhi on Buddha Purnima. Buddha Purnima or Vaisaka is one of the most important festivals for Buddhists and it commemorates the birth, death and enlightenment of the Buddha.

The Buddha Purnima celebration at the beautiful artist collective, Sanskriti Kendra, holds a very special place in my heart and is my favorite evening in Delhi each year. After watering the Bodhi tree which is born from a sapling from the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, all of us engage in walking meditation, sitting practice and then light candles under a Banyan tree before we share a delicious meal together in mindfulness.  My first Buddha Purnima was five years ago and I have participated in the celebration every year after. Three years ago I shared the writings about mindfulness and metta practice from my 9^th grade students!

As a farewell offering to my Sangha I led a guided meditation. Thanks to my friends that videotaped you can experience the evening and the meditation below :) I’m so grateful for the time I’ve had in India and feel blessed to have had so many friends join in the celebration last night as I transition into the next phase of my life back in the United States.   

Part one includes what we call in Plum Village, “Five Finger Meditation” which is a quick way to calm and relax yourself. I often use it as a warm up before my sitting practice.

Part two is my favorite guided meditation in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. I adapted Exercise 18, “Looking Deeply, Healing,” from Blooming of a Lotus.

Part three includes my dear friend and mentor, Dharmacharya Shantum Seth’s Dharma talk on suffering, chanting by a beautiful Vietnamese Bhikkuni (Buddhist Nun), and offerings at the Banyan tree under the full moon.

Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have ever known, as though by being in each other's presence we exchange our cells, pass on some life force and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike the springtime when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, "Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place"…This is why it is important who we become, because we pass it on. – Natalie Goldberg (Author and Student of Thich Nhat Hanh)

Just hours before I left for Buddha Purnima my wonderful colleagues in our Student Support Team gave me the beautiful flowers pictured above and the card below. I feel blessed to carry so many amazing people “in me” to root in other places :) May the blessings of the Triple Gem always be with you.

No coming

No going

No after

No before

I hold you close to me

I release you to be so free

Because I am in you

And you are in me

-          Thich Nhat Hanh (Plum Village Song)