Wesak Day activities

I did head back to Nandaka Vihara yesterday around nine in the morning with my daughter, thinking we'd spend just about an hour there. But the weather had other plans. The rain came, and we couldn’t get home. So we ended up staying until after the lunch dana. There wasn’t much to photograph yesterday, unfortunately, as we had missed the parrita chanting and pindapata. Everything else was pretty subdued.

I returned again to the meditation centre this morning – the actual Wesak Day public holiday. I had expected the place to be more packed than the day before, but to my surprise, the crowd was a lot thinner than I imagined. It seems that with so many Buddhist centres holding their own Wesak celebrations this year, the crowds have naturally spread themselves out. As a result, Nandaka wasn’t all that busy.

The day’s observances began a little past eight with paritta chanting in the new meditation hall, followed immediately by the pindapata ceremony – largely ceremonial in nature. Devotees formed a line that led from the hall out onto the road, then looped back through the main gate and into the old meditation hall. I managed to capture the procession on video – the YouTube clip at the end of this story gives a good sense of the morning’s atmosphere and activities.

Coincidentally, Khoo Chean Jin and the Penang Urban Sketchers had chosen the Nandaka Vihara as the venue of their latest painting activity on this Wesak Day