celebrating vesak 2554

today, we commemorated vesak 2554. in fact, we started the commemoration since the start of this lunar month by going on a vegetarian diet. and for me, i cut my hair as per usual. to commemorate the occasion itself, in addition to the usual 3-steps-1-bow ceremony with the usual group of friends (bee, schneider, kl and family), this year we also did 2 new things, namely liberating lives and we participated in a candle-light procession. but what i thought was significant and meaningful for me this year was the fact that there was a lot more discussion about buddhism between bee, myself and some of our friends. i thought this allowed us to deepen our understanding of buddhism itself. it also allowed me to better understand other people's perspective of the teachings. in addition, it was a reminder for me to constantly strive to improve myself and to adopt a positive attitude as i start a new phase in my working life next week. happy vesak 2554! :-)