Full Moon Day of Waso – July 20, 2024

History of Full Moon Day of Waso

Born in Lumbini, India, Siddhartha Gautama was a member of the aristocratic Shakya clan during the reign of Magadha ruler Bimbisara. When the sheltered young man, the story goes, embarked on a journey outside the walls of his palace, he saw the reality of suffering beyond aristocratic luxury, and subsequently renounced his place in society and adopted the life of an ascetic. After many years of meditation and mendicancy, he is believed to have attained enlightenment — the knowledge and understanding of the cycle of life and death, and how to lead a ‘good life’ of moderation. He began traveling across the Gangetic plain to spread his message of a Middle Path.

The first sermon ever delivered by Gautama was over 2,500 years ago in the Deer Park in Sarnath, India. In this sermon, entitled “Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion,” Gautama laid down the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. According to the sermon, there were four universal Noble Truths; the existence of suffering, the cause of suffering, that the cause of suffering can end, and the path to the end of suffering. He propounded that a human’s suffering can end by following the Middle Path, or the Noble Eightfold Path; right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Following this path would allow a person to break away from suffering and attain nirvana.

After his death, Gautama came to be known as Buddha, which means ‘The Enlightened One.”