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Truly, Vesakha Puja, otherwise known as Wesak or Buddha Day is without question Theravada Buddhism's pre-eminent festival and is important to other Buddhist Schools as well. According to the Pali Canon the person who we now know as the Buddha was born on a full moon of the ancient lunar month of Vesakha, he achieved Full-Enlightenment and became the Buddha on a full moon of Vesakha and he passed away into Parinibbana on just such a full moon. So on every Vesakha Full Moon we honour the Buddha by remembering and celebrating his birth, his Enlightenment and his ultimate passing into a complete Nibbana - his Parinibbana.
While we cannot be absolutely certain of his precise dates - tradition has it that he was born in 623 BCE, but modern scholars prefer 563 BCE and recently there have been some who believe that it was even later - that he really lived and where he lived has long been well established. The places most eminently associated with the Buddha have since his lifetime been places of pilgrimage and the Buddha himself spoke of four places made sacred by their association with him which faithful followers should visit with awe and reverence. Three of these four are the places where the three events that we celebrate this month took place, the other being Sarnath where the Buddha delivered his first sermon.
The picture at the head of this newsletter is of the birthplace, the Lumbini Garden, as it is nowadays. In the centre you can see the pillar erected by Emperor Ashoka marking the spot where Prince Siddhattha, the Buddha-to-be, was born. Queen Maha Maya had been on her way to her parents' home for the birth of her first child when she stopped to rest for a while at the Lumbini Garden and the baby was born. It is written that, remarkably, the child stood firmly and having surveyed the four quarters stated that this was to be his last birth with no more renewal of being in future lives.
Many years later, having become aware of old-age, sickness, death and the search for something beyond, and having left his wealth and family and endured six years of wandering and discipline, including extreme deprivation and asceticism, Siddhattha came eventually to a great tree near the River Nerañjara. Here he finally succeeded in winning complete Enlightenment after which he was known as the Buddha. 
The place, marked by the ancient Maha Bodhi temple (pictured to the right) is called Bodhgaya and the tree is known as the Bodhi tree. When he became the Buddha he was thirty-five years old.
The final passing took place at Kushinagar when he was eighty. The next picture is of the Main Stupa at Kushinagar built on the spot where, again in the open and under the trees, the Buddha passed into final Nibbana. 
Next to it is the barrel-roofed Nirvana temple which houses a huge image of the Buddha reclining and entering Parinibbana. When I was there I remember it used to be a Burmese novice's practice to collect flower heads and petals and strew them over and around that image every morning. As the Buddha was passing away his last words were an encouragement to his disciples to work out their own salvation with diligence.
For the sake of convenience all our public celebrations are held on the nearest Sunday to the actual occasion and only rarely is it the real day. Happily this year the actual Vesakha Puja, the full moon in our Buddhist calendar, is on Sunday May 10th and that is when we will celebrate.
It seems hardly any time since our last big occasion. That was the Thai, Burmese and Sinhalese New Year, otherwise known popularly as the Water festival. We had a very good turnout for that with a particularly good showing from the Thai students locally and from Nottingham. One difficulty we had though was with being heard in all the different areas and communicating with and moving people onto the next item on the programme, so one day we will have to try and get an efficient PA system installed. Otherwise it all went off very well and people were very generous. Anumodana!
I forgot to mention in last month's newsletter that at the last Angulimala Workshop Hal Westhead did a little presentation about Saneline, a telephone helpline for those coping with mental and psychological problems. Occasionally people phoning in require spiritual guidance and Hal was interested in recruiting a few Angulimala chaplains to help. If anyone's interested you can reach Hal on 01625 429050.
Still with Angulimala, it has been reported that the moulded bases that have been created to assist and speed the installation of prison Buddhist shrines are now available. I would like to give this Prison Buddha Grove project an appreciable boost and I would love to see Buddhist groups with a prison in their locality getting involved and making sure that their local gaol has its Buddhist shrine and that it's looked after.
Our nearby and newish privately run prison, HMP Blakenhurst, received a visit the other day from the Princess Royal and as it's a prison I go to they invited me to join the line-up in the chapel. I did try and warn them that it wasn't appropriate for me to shake the Princess by the hand but they said she didn't want to shake hands with anyone so that seemed all right. In the event when she came in and was introduced she enthusiastically started pumping everyone's hand. I was wondering how I was going to get out of this when they introduced her to the elderly Imam who speaks no English. Imams also have to be careful about physical contact with the opposite sex. 'Don't then!', was her slightly abrasive response to his refusal. 'Oh dear!', I thought, 'I'm next!' and I quickly made sure that by the time she advanced on me my hands were irrecoverably lost amongst my robes.
I was very touched by all the inquiries about our well-being during the great flood which affected these parts a few weeks ago. Of course it was very wet here but our hermitage is actually quite high and so the property itself was all right but getting to us was something else! I was visiting Springhill prison during the afternoon when things really got out of hand and instead of a gentle, fifty-minute troll up the motorway, our return journey was a two hour adventure.
Take care and stay happy!