Winter Solstice

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Nicholas Weeks
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Winter Solstice

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

Today 21 December @ 8:27 Pacific time is the Solstice. Does Theravada Buddhism practice anything special on this date or just ignore it?
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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Dhammanando
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Dhammanando »

Will wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 2:24 pm Today 21 December @ 8:27 Pacific time is the Solstice. Does Theravada Buddhism practice anything special on this date or just ignore it?
It's ignored. We use a lunar calendar, so the sun is only relevant for determining day and night.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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Kim OHara
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Kim OHara »

:thanks:

Thinking about why this might be, I realised that the solstice-equinox-solstice-equinox rhythm is far less obvious or important in southern Asia (and equatorial countries generally) than in northern Europe, or in southern Australia where I grew up.
Day length and temperatures hardly vary through the year and the seasonal change important to the farmers (i.e. nearly everyone, until recently) is the annual arrival and departure of the rainy season.
Where I am now, on the edge of the Tropics, our day varies from 11.5 to 12.5 hours - enough to notice, but only just - and we're waiting for rain - the monsoon usually arrives in January.

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Sam Vara
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Sam Vara »

Kim OHara wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:34 pm :thanks:

Thinking about why this might be, I realised that the solstice-equinox-solstice-equinox rhythm is far less obvious or important in southern Asia (and equatorial countries generally) than in northern Europe, or in southern Australia where I grew up.
Day length and temperatures hardly vary through the year and the seasonal change important to the farmers (i.e. nearly everyone, until recently) is the annual arrival and departure of the rainy season.
Where I am now, on the edge of the Tropics, our day varies from 11.5 to 12.5 hours - enough to notice, but only just - and we're waiting for rain - the monsoon usually arrives in January.

:namaste:
Kim
Yes, that's my thinking too. Winters in Northern Europe and Asia, before the ability to preserve food and even keep livestock alive, were extremely gruelling. The differences between seasons can be very marked and leads to completely different patterns of livelihood. For many people in Northern Europe today, the solstice is of little importance, but to Iron Age and Bronze Age people it was not only known about with astronomical precision, it was marked by structures which took barely-imaginable efforts to create. Stonehenge, for example, and Maeshowe in the Orkney Islands. The latter is constructed (out of huge blocks of stone) so that the last rays of the sun at the winter solstice shine directly inside. And, of course, the pagan festival which took place at this time of year was adopted by Christians in the absence of a known date for a Christ-Mass.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Kim OHara »

Sam Vara wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:59 pm ...And, of course, the pagan festival which took place at this time of year was adopted by Christians in the absence of a known date for a Christ-Mass.
Yes, it was good of JC to come and go on a solstice and an equinox - although, if his dad had really been on to it, he would have arrived at the spring equinox to take advantage of all the 'new life' symbolism.

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Sam Vara
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Sam Vara »

Kim OHara wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 11:16 pm
Sam Vara wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:59 pm ...And, of course, the pagan festival which took place at this time of year was adopted by Christians in the absence of a known date for a Christ-Mass.
Yes, it was good of JC to come and go on a solstice and an equinox - although, if his dad had really been on to it, he would have arrived at the spring equinox to take advantage of all the 'new life' symbolism.

:coffee:
Kim
I think the Spring "new life" bit was already booked in advance for the resurrection.

[Edit] I'm conscious that we are occupying the "General Theravada Meditation" section to engage in this. If challenged by the mods, I'm going to claim that it's about Summer-Samadhi. :smile: But I'll stop now, I promise.
Spiny Norman
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Spiny Norman »

Sam Vara wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:59 pm And, of course, the pagan festival which took place at this time of year was adopted by Christians in the absence of a known date for a Christ-Mass.
"Adopted"? More like stolen. :tongue:

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Nicholas Weeks
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Re: Winter Solstice

Post by Nicholas Weeks »

For 2023 the Winter Solstice in on 21 December, as is often the case. Here is HP Blavatsky on this ancient sacred time:
We are in the Winter Solstice, the period at which the Sun entering the sign of Capricornus has already, since December 21st, ceased to advance in the Southern Hemisphere, and, cancer or crablike, begins to move back. It is at this particular time that, every year, he is born, and December 25th was the day of the birth of the Sun for those who inhabited the Northern Hemisphere. It is also on December the 25th, Christmas, the day with the Christians on which the “Saviour of the World” was born, that were born, ages before him, the Persian Mithra, the Egyptian Osiris, the Greek Bacchus, the Phoenician Adonis, the Phrygian Attis. And, while at Memphis the people were shown the image of the god Day, taken out of his cradle, the Romans marked December 25th in their calendar as the day natalis solis invicti. [Birth of the Invincible Sun]

Sad derision of human destiny. So many Saviours of the world born unto it, so much and so often propitiated, and yet the world is as miserable—nay, far more wretched now than ever before—as though none of these had ever been born!
Good and evil have no fixed form. It's as easy to turn from doing bad to doing good as it is to flip over the hand from the back to the palm. It's simply up to us to do it. Master Hsuan Hua.
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