The Joyful Moment of Vesak Day

The Assembly of 200,000 Students

19^th May, 2008
Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand

The Vesak Day is one of the most important days in Buddhism as it is the day Buddhists commemorate three important events in the Lord Buddha’s life. It is the anniversary of his birth, enlightenment and Nirvana. On the full moon night of Vesak, the sixth lunar month, Prince Siddhartha Gotama was born on the purpose of enlightenment aiming at teaching the universal inner peace to humankind. On the same day thirty-five years afterwards, Prince Siddhartha gained the profound knowledge through enlightenment. During the first watch of the night under the bodhi tree, his mind was calm and purified by meditation. His insight showed the endless cycle of Samsara – from birth, aging, ailing and death. Also, He knows how to eradicate the seed of birth and re-birth and the roots of all decay. Since then, the light of His wisdom has been radiated to everyone.

 

Forty-five years later, on the same full-moon night when the Lord Buddha had attained Nirvana, he passed away leaving all his heritage of noble teachings to the world.

 

 

More than 2,500 years since the Lord Buddha’s Nirvana, the world has been blessed with his teaching. Every year on the full-moon night of the sixth lunar month, Buddhists worldwide join the celebration for the Lord Buddha and his teachings by meditation.

 

 

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Luang Phaw Dhammajayo
The President of the Dhammakaya Foundation

 

This year, on 19 May 2008, we will have a meaningful celebration with the gathering of more than 200,000 high-school students from all over Thailand known as V-Star (Virtuous Star) along the four wings of Grand Meditation Stadium, Dhammakaya Temple, Pathumthani, Thailand. V-Stars are students who voluntarily join the World Ethics Recuperation Program (Virtuous Star Challenge) taking special days in Buddhism like Vesak Day to do moral and social activities.

This huge group of students across the country will impress everybody who witnesses the event. These youths will be about to learn Dhamma from the stories of the Lord Buddha’s life in the longest exhibition in the world about four kilometers around the Grand Meditation Stadium. We believe even little knowledge in Dhamma can be the starting point of the greatest thing. The youths are expected to learn how to be kind and caring to their school friends. They can generate the cycle of goodness both at home and with other people in the society. The true happiness and inner peace will shine from within. The whole world can be improved by the small hands of children together with the help from their families and schools.