{"id":36733,"date":"2011-04-07T15:08:43","date_gmt":"2011-04-07T20:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=36733"},"modified":"2011-04-08T07:49:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-08T12:49:29","slug":"buddhas-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/buddhas-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Buddha’s Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Friday, a dog believed to have survived the earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11, not to mention three weeks at sea, was rescued off Kesennuma, in the northern part of the country. The dog was spotted by a television crew trotting around the roof of a house that had been swept away. Photo & caption: Reuters \/ NY Times <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was listening to NPR this morning as I awoke, and happened to catch Garrison Keillor speak the following:<\/p>\n

It is Buddha’s Birthday, also known as Hana Matsuri<\/em> in Japan. The story goes that when the Buddha was born, dragons flew down from heaven and poured fragrant water over the land, like a sweet rain, and all the flowers on land and water bloomed simultaneously. So on this day, statues of a young Buddha are decorated with flowers and carried to temples in procession, and children in Japan take turns pouring sweet tea over the Buddha’s head. It is a day of gratitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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We have much to be grateful for today, though it often seems quite a challenge. I am seeing reports that another high-magnitude earthquake has hit Japan today, accompanied by tsunami warnings, and it makes me wonder how determined the human spirit must be to feel gratitude in such a case. Or maybe it is not so hard after all, when the stark alternative is staring you in the face. Something tells me there is much I could learn from the dog pictured above and the priest in the photo below.<\/p>\n

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As snow fell, a Buddhist priest prayed for the souls of victims still not found in the rubble of the tsunami-devastated coastal city of Yamada, Japan. Photo & caption: European Pressphoto Agency \/ NY Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to NPR this morning as I awoke, and happened to catch Garrison Keillor speak the following: It is Buddha’s Birthday, also known as Hana Matsuri in Japan. The story goes that when the Buddha was born, dragons flew down from heaven and poured fragrant water over the land, like a sweet rain, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}