Good morning everyone. So today is the solstice and I
wanted to talk a little bit about that.
The solstice has become huge, whether you call it Christmas or
Yule or whatever else has become huge.
And the question to me is why? And you're a lot of comments
this time of year defending the phrase happy holidays that say,
oh, well, there are multiple holidays by multiple religions
this time of year. They all celebrate midwinter.
Do they? Or are all of them, or the vast
majority of them, expressions of the single holiday, Yule or
solstice, that arose in northern Europe and Scandinavia?
Because if we look at the history of Christmas, it wasn't
celebrated at all by the early church.
They could care less what date Jesus was born.
Then Mithrasm and other Roman religions started to celebrate a
festival called Saul Invictus around December 25th, the return
of the sun. And Christians began going,
yeah, that's when Jesus was born.
We're going to celebrate that. And when Constantine took over
as emperor, he codified that as being the day to Christmas.
But it never became popular. It was celebrated as a mass at
church, just another feast day. It never became popular until
Christianity began moving into Northern Europe, the British
Isles, in Scandinavia, and encountering these celebrations
of Yule, which were so important to the people that it was the
biggest stumbling block to Christianity converting people
as of suddenly Christian Christmas became, Oh no, this is
one of our most important holidays.
And all those things you're celebrating, they're actually
expressions of Jesus's birth and the return of light.
And all of this is, is very important.
You're right, but you're just focusing it wrong.
And then Judaism moved in the same direction and said and took
a very minor feast, Hanukkah, and said, Oh, well, all of our
neighbors are celebrating, so let's make this a bigger thing.
And we don't have huge celebration around Hanukkah, but
it's all in response to this huge Celtic, ghoulish Norse
celebration of Yule, of the return of the sun.
And when you look at a bloom or the world, you see why it took
that long to become important to the major religions.
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all occurred
in tropical climates. All arose in tropical climates,
or subtropical at least, where, yeah, even if they noticed the
Cottage of the Seasons and the fact that, Oh yeah, it got an
arc earlier at the end of the year, it wasn't a huge thing.
It didn't go from 12 hours of light to four hours of light.
It went from 11 hours of light to 10 hours of light, so the
celebration of the return of the saw, the longest night of the
year, wasn't that big a thing and still Hinduism.
There are a couple of small festivals that are celebrated
around this time of year, occasionally holy.
The Festival of Lights falls this time of year, but it's on
the lunar calendars if it falls anywhere from September on.
Buddhism has really nothing this time of year until it moved into
China and Japan, where again you're N enough that suddenly
this longest night of the year becomes important.
So we saw the Chinese Buddhist or Chinese and Japanese Buddhist
started celebrating the Buddhist enlightenment in late in the
year. Makes sense.
Enlightenment lights come, we won't like to come back, but it
all comes back to this concept of solstice in places where
solstice was actually important. And now it's being kind of
exported across the world, I think especially of South
America and Australia, where they're celebrating the longest
night of the year and the return of the sun in the middle of
summer when it's hot as hell outside and the sun is shining
most of the day. But we've said, Oh, no, put up
greenery, lights and candles to celebrate the return of the sun
as so they do. And honestly, I, I just started
thinking about this last night. I'm like, I don't know where I'm
going to go with this, but it's one of those things that just
tickles my mind to think about that here.
The only place it was really important was the far north of
Europe, Scandinavia, across into Eastern Europe, et cetera, where
the IT was very true that at the winter solstice it was dark.
The Scotts Gaelic name for December is the Blackness.
So yes, they're going to come up with festivals that suffer
around dithering as community because you want community
around you when it's dark outside, that celebrate feasting
because you want to pack on the pounds for the winter when it's
cold outside. That celebrate bringing greenery
inside to remember the green tiles, that celebrate light
lighting fires, keeping fires going because it's friggin dark
outside. And when we really think about
it, this, this little celebration has become, I would
not hesitate to say, the largest worldwide celebration that there
is and been exported to other religions.
Other religions have kind of go, oh, yeah, that's a good idea, We
need to celebrate that. Yeah.
But other than the fact that, yes, in the northern latitudes,
it was fairly important to celebrate as community, to stay
as community, and to look forward to the returning of the
light and to getting out of your cramped little house that
contained you, your family, your neighbors and your cattle and
back out into the fields. What is it that we are so,
so-called to celebrate? Because if you look at the
summer solstice, there's not nearly the emphasis on it kind
of makes sense. You're at the longest day of the
year and now you know, oh, days are going to start getting
shorter. Not a big thing to celebrate.
You can celebrate the fact that, hey, this is a wonderful long
day, but there's always in the back of your mind.
Now they're going to start getting shorter again.
I think in in Buddhism, we probably would more likely
emphasize the equinoxes, that equality between dark and light,
that balance. But at the same time, if we look
at Buddhist teaching, it's also important to celebrate the
solstices because there are times that darkness is going to
have dominion. There are times that things are
going to be bad, but it's important to celebrate the fact
that those times are fleeting. They're passing.
They may be here now, but even now, in darkness, we can
celebrate the fact that light will return.
I was always bothered in my religious studies days by the
fact that whenever we studied and remember, I was in College
in the late 70s so we still called the class primitive
religions. But whenever we studied
primitive religions, we were told that, Oh yes, they were
doing these celebrations to bring back the saw.
And the logical part of my mind was going, well, wait a minute.
There had to be a time that they started.
And when they started, somebody had to remember that the year
before, before they started these celebrations, the sun and
still come back. And, you know, there were a
couple of Druid priests going. I'm not going to celebrate.
See what happens. Oh, damn, the sun still came
back. What do you know?
These people lived close to nature.
That's why I tend to think that all of these celebrations were
more celebrating the fact that we've reached the depth of
darkness and now the sun is coming back.
Rather than chasing away darkness or seeding with the sun
to come back. They were observing the fact
that, hey, this is going to happen.
We've passed the longest night, it's time to celebrate.
And that, I think is reflected well in Buddhist and even
Taoist, which is a huge influence in Zen philosophy,
that yes, when you encounter darkness, it is passing, it is
going to go away and be overcome by light.
And when you get to summer solstice and everything is
bright and beautiful, that's going to go away too.
Remember that these things are all fleeting, that they pass.
And so to me as a Buddhist priest, the centrality of the
winter solstice is not about the fact that we've reached the
darkest night and are now heading toward the light.
I should say it's not about the the dark light portion of that
statement. It's about the we've reached in
our now passing. It's about the transition
because Buddhists observation of reality.
And remember, that's to me, that is where the Buddha is coming
from. He observed that things pass,
that things move from one state to another.
The centrality of this time of year is in the recognition that
this is one of those peak points where it's easier to see the
transition. It's easier to see the movement
from say, December 10th to January 10th in the light of the
sun than it is to see the movement the change in daylight
from July 10th to August jump. You don't really notice it
there. Was it time to notice that
things do change and move not only in nature, but in our own
lives? So with all that being said,
Happy Solstice. Enjoy the return of the light.
Just remember the darkness is going to return too.
Now, it's not a bad thing. If it weren't for darkness,
there'd be no time to rest and recover.
How could we do much of that anymore?
But that's what this time of year is about, is resting and
recover. So enjoy your rest, get ready
for spring. Serge put into the chat Winter
Summer solstices are verted between the hemispheres, the
December solstices, winter in the north and summer solstice in
the South. Yeah, as far as naming goes,
they did after colonialism or as colonialism collapsed.
They did basically in the Southern hemisphere say fuck
this, we're not going to call it winter solstice anymore because
it's not for us. It's supper.
But we still do. They still celebrate all of the
festivals around winter solstice at the summer solstice time.
My. Mom said the reason that they
moved from Corpus Christi was she was Christmas shopping one
year and she realized that all she had on was done booty shorts
and bikini top. And she was like, yeah, that
felt really unnatural, so. And I'm sorry for being on my
phone. I was looking for a post that I
had made a few years ago after doing some research about, I
think it was Pope Julius in the six hundreds.
They were, you know, lots of colonialism, and he was newly
elected or whatever it is you call the selection of a Pope.
And there were lots of people from different religions who
were, you know, cohabitating in the same general space.
And there was lots of fighting going on because of whatever
winter holiday people had. So in the using the audacity of
the Catholic Church, he was like, OK, well, let's just call
it December 25th. And then everybody can celebrate
whatever they celebrate on that day.
And I thought that was really interesting that especially a
Pope would say, OK, well, you know, we don't need this
fighting. Let's everybody just get along.
I'm calling it this day. So there's lots of, you know,
bad stuff in there. But I just thought it was cool
that he was like, OK, everybody just come down and celebrate
your own holiday. Which is basically I there's a
meme that pops up on my feet every year at this time saying
Happy Solstice, the time when the whole world celebrates
paganism and drops their own drops their clinging to their
religion. Right.
So, but yeah, there is also interesting that the only real
opposition to December 25th being celebrated as Christmas
was from the early fundamentalist Puritans who were
able to read the Bible and go. This obviously was not December.
It it was springtime because the lambs were being born and you
all got it wrong. So don't celebrate this hawkish
Catholic thing and let go of it. And then of course, my husband's
family was Jehovah's, or still is Jehovah's Witness.
And so he grew up not celebrating it before.
Essentially that same reason that, hey, there's no reason to
celebrate Jesus's birth, that that wasn't important except
that it brought in it to the world and we don't celebrate
this world. So yeah, the and as always,
whenever I hear that Christmas is being banned and always like,
yeah, the only people who've ever abandoned are are
Christians, so. I don't know if this is a
product of the Solstice or my age, but as clearly my friends
and I, it turns into more of a nostalgic slash reminiscent
time. I guess.
Kind of preparing for the end of the year and thinking back and
thinking ahead of what you want. But I'd always thought there
should be a holiday at the end of February because I'm OK at
this time of year. But the end of February, when
there haven't been leaves on the trees or any of that for like
months, and it's still brown and the snow, if there is snow, is
all dirty, that's when I'm ready for slump a day.
Yeah, it's funny you say that because my boss, we had a
holiday party at work last Sunday and my boss said was
arguing for exactly the same thing.
He's like, Christmas needs to be moved to the end of February.
So we've already got Thanksgiving this time of year.
That takes care of that. We need something the end of
February because that's when people need trick up.
Yeah. So 1 holiday one could make for
February or end of February would be seed bank holiday or
anyone that's into gardening and that that's that's one I would
claim. Thanks.
Good morning. And thank you, Sensei Glenn, for
your talk. Before Buddhism, I was fully
engaged in Panzism as a philosophy and, you know, living
with nature, kind of a Dallas Buddhist thing.
So the solstices and the equinoxes weren't so much a
celebration, but kind of a recognition and a time just to
say something nice to your friends.
Because they could actually be marked by the Earth's position
within the orbit of the sun, which caused the change in light
or whatever, depending on your latitude, as opposed to the kind
of random date they chose of the Earth's orbit to be New Year's
Day. So I've always kind of, my wife
celebrated Christmas and so I kind of threw in the winter
solstice with that. So we had kind of a longer week
of celebration. But I do appreciate your
thoughts this morning. Thank you and happy Solstice to
everyone. You were talking about how we
don't live so close to nature anymore and how holidays like
this and equinoxes are a good reminder that things are
temporary. But I think as women, because
our very nature is cyclical, that we're more used to that.
And I think that most of my women friends are very much
affected by as much as they like, you know, the darker time,
you know, where you rest more and you make soup and, you know,
you read, which I do a lot of in the winter.
It also is they're very much affected by, you know, people
need vitamin D too. And I think it helps a little
bit to have that reminder in the form of any sort of a holiday
that our nature as humans is cyclical too.
I have a girlfriend of mine who gets seasonal affective disorder
really bad. And from the day of the autumnal
equinox, she posts on Facebook every day like this, many days
until the return of the light. And honestly, I find that very
helpful. Like, I don't even really, I'm
not really even affected by the seasonal depression, but I
always really enjoy seeing that. It's a good reminder for me.
As someone who claims Buddhism, you know that we're moving
along. Yeah.
No, I really, I really like the and as far as paganism dealing
real, real ones that I'm familiar with are kind of
European paganism, the Druidic traditions in that area.
But the fact that they celebrated not only the quarters
but the eighths. So it wasn't just the solstices
and the equinoxes, but the Vin point in between each of those.
And I think the reason is that continuous reinforcement of
things are moving along. So we get to February 1st.
And in Celtic paganism, you celebrated the Feast of Bridget
because it's that midpoint in winter.
And it's like, no, we need to celebrate the fact that, hey, I
know it's still cold outside, but it's getting better.
There is a statement in Irish Christianity that the light
returns on Christmas, the ice breaks on Saint Bridget's Day,
and the rivers flow on Saint Patrick's Day which is basically
solstice, midpoint and equinox. So this is that recognition is
just very phrasing it as Christian remembrances rather
than the Pagan. But it is that remembrance that
hey, as we go along, it's important to have that
celebration that hey, yeah, things are moving along.
And that is what we we kind of are missing in the midwinter
period because we kind of don't have anything.
And we are OK Christmas is over now.
Eastern April. Wow.
And. That's a long time, everyone.
Takes all the decorations down and everyone.
Yeah, again, my boss swears that he's not taking your Christmas
lights down at work until March. He's like, these are winter
lights. They're green step for the
winter. Yeah.
So I was just curious. I had a question, do you do
people tend to walk clockwise up quanter clockwise around the
temple just out of curiosity? Thanks.
In pragmatic Buddhism it don't matter.
In Zen and most other Buddhisms clockwise sun wise.
OK. Got it.
Thanks. Yeah.
And if we Stephen Bachelor has a wonderful book called After
Buddhism where he traces a lot of the teachings and talks about
a where they came from and B where they could be going in the
current world. But he does this by talking
about the the history of why things are done the way they
are. And one of his points is in very
traditional Buddhist temples, especially in the Theravan
tradition, the Buddhist statue will always be placed in the
West of the temple, facing to the east, because that's where
the Buddha sat, supposedly under the Buddhi tree.
He sat on the West side of the tree facing the rising sun.
And Bachelor went on to say this.
The Sakya tribe from which the Buddha came were actually not
Vedic practitioners at that time.
They were some worshippers. And so the orientation was very
important. It was very important to them to
know that the Buddha was facing into the sun when he attained
enlight because that confirmed the enlight.
The tradition has gone on in time.
There are some other sects who switch it and put the Buddha
statue in the east because now the Buddha having been
enlightened becomes the sun to provide enlightened for the rest
of us. But the movement tradition is
always always been sun wise. So clockwise.
A student of mine went to a Zen temple in North Carolina and he
made the mistake of turning to the left when he got off his
cushion and the lady behind him slapped him and said we turned
right. So there are people who are hold
very closely to it. Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate that. It's, it's definitely
interesting because then then you could, one could also ask
another second question, which would be, would meditation be
better reserved for before noon or afternoon?
Yeah, good question there too. And I think.
Whenever I have. Time to sit down.
Yeah. Thank you.
Yeah, I think a lot of people do meditate in the morning to kind
of start their day. I tend to do it more in the
evening to end mine. But again, when is the best time
to meditate? Whenever the fuck you can sit
down. Oh, it's got throwing that bomb
in there, don't you? You're worse than me.
Hey, Joe did it last time. Yeah, we, yeah, we were about to
go for a non explicit talking and so they would come.
Hey, Glenn, thanks for the talk. I was.
Interested in what you were saying about some ancient
religion celebrating things on the eighth of the year that
still happens today. I don't know how involved in
their religion it is, but the Sammy people that live in the
extreme north of Finland, Sweden, that area that white
people tend to call Lapland and they call Suomi.
I think they celebrate on the eighth because they are to this
day reindeer herders and have been for 10,000 years up there.
They they're the indigenous people in that region.
And it's important in terms of reindeer herding that you do
things on the first day of fall winter or of spring summer.
Then there's also a first day of summer.
But if you don't start moving that herd on the first day of
spring summer, then you're fucked.
See, I do it to you, Glenn. And I don't know a lot about
their religion, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if there were
festivals on the eights where they aren't like actively
birthing reindeer or whatever. But when I visited that region,
I was very taken with that tradition and have taken it back
here. And so I do a little personal
celebration just internally of the first day of fall winter,
which is where the aspens are still bright, bright yellow, but
they've got snow all over them. And that's just such a beautiful
transition moment that I really like to sit in that.
And so maybe even some of the members of your song are
celebrating on the eights. Yeah, I think there are
definitely, there are definitely people who still celebrate the
eights. It's still honestly incredibly
important to Irish Catholicism. They've simply replaced the gods
and goddesses with Christian Saints and put the same day on
the eighths or close to them. So yeah, it's still still
important to a lot of traditions, especially I think
agricultural traditions because again, if you don't start
preparing your land until March 21st, you're probably falling
behind a little bit. You need to start getting ready
around February 1st to get it prepared.
If you don't do your harvest until done the fall equinox,
you're probably running late. Part of good part of your crop
is rotted in the field. So yeah, the eights are very
important in agricultural communities.
They just don't necessarily call them that because it doesn't
fall with the majority religion anymore.
It becomes folk tradition. I'm.
Not sure where I'm going with this, which is why it was very
easy to let that go right then it it seems that it is an
interesting. I guess this is just an
observation in Buddhism. I think especially in the way I
practice, I'm very concerned with attachment and aversions,
kind of these intrinsic human qualities.
And it seems to me that these solstices kind of marked the
transition of wanting more of something and then mourning the
loss of something, right? Like right now we started being
like, all right, every day we're going to get more and more
sunlight. I can't wait to have just a
little bit more and just a little bit more and just a
little bit more. And then at the summer solstice,
we're like, yeah, we got all the sun.
And then they easily, right. The next day we're like, oh, but
now it's going again, you know what I mean?
And then so I think just like in an observation of this is kind
of this human cycle of wanting more and never really being
satisfied and then mourning the loss of things that are changing
and then also not understanding that either.
So. Yeah.
And I think it's, it is a good point and it to me should guide
the way we approach the solstices and equinoxes and the
apes, where if we approach them as simply recognition of, then
it becomes very different from celebration or morning.
It's just the recognition that hey, we've reached the longest
night now we start getting more sun and February 1st comes and
it's like, hey, we can actually notice now.
And March 21st comes, ah, of balance.
Then when you're noticing those things, you're sitting in
reality. But yes, would you if, if you
allow that to move over into attachment and aversion, then it
becomes those, those moments of sitting with reality become
instead moments of essentially increasing your own
dissatisfaction. So very good point.
Thank you. Well, thank you all for the
discussion today. We'll go ahead and close up for
the day.