What Day of the Week Were You Born?
Posted by Stuart at 07:23 PM on May 24, 2006 Luckily I have been able to find some time to read a little bit this week. Today I finished reading "Gestures of the Buddha" by K.I. Matics. There have been many times that I have been visiting a temple in Southeast Asia and I have wondered what the various poses of the Buddha images meant. So when I saw this book in the bookstore, I had to pick it up.One of the interesting aspects of Thai Buddhism is that there is a special Buddha pose that represents each of the seven days of the week. Every Thai person knows what day of the week they were born, and so that particular pose for their birthday is a special one for them.
But, as any American reading this knows, chances are I have no idea what day of the week I was born. So I found the little javascript below that tells you what day of the week any calendar day was.
It turns out that I was born on Sunday. So my pose is a standing Buddha with his hands clasped in front of him and his eyes open. It represents the time immediately after he became enlightened and he stood at the bodhi tree and stared at it for seven days without blinking. During this time, he meditated on the suffering of all living things.
I looked back through my photos and I can't find one of the Sunday pose. I'll have to be sure to take a picture of it the next time I see one. In the meantime, you can find out what day of the week you were born on below, in case you didn't already know.
On what day of the week were you born?
Enter your birthday (then hit the "Update" button):
This free script provided by JavaScript Kit And once you've found out what day of the week you were born, you can see which Buddha pose represents your day of birth.Mine is Tuesday
Craig's is Thursday ....
Baby will be (if born on the due date) ....Monday
So what all does it mean? what is the significance?
Love you!!
Charles, why Tuesday?
According to the chart that the link went to, Tuesday's example was a Buddha in a lounging position rather than the painful looking lotus position. Tuesday's version looked more relaxing. ;-)
Charles.... Haha! That's what I thought, but I just wanted to hear it from you. Actually, the Tuesday pose represents the Buddha on his deathbed. So maybe that's not such a good thing. On the other hand, for him, "death" meant finally reaching nirvana, so maybe it's a plus after all ;)
I think as far as comfortable goes, the Sunday position (that's me) is pretty relaxed. But my favorite one, just aesthetically speaking, is Saturday, with the Buddha sitting under the 7-headed Naga.
I wasn't too thrilled with Tuesday, because of the death factor ..... Another of my first takes was .... gee - thanks for the reminder that my death does in fact take away my indiviudality as we know it today, on earth, as we live and breathe.
BUT .... another way to look at things is in the light of my belief that we were all created individually by God; therefore, will we ever "lose" our individuality?
Fascinating Stuff! But I was hoping for the seated meditating Buddha, but got the active guy marching down the sidewalk.
Sunday. Good day to fall on...or stand on in this case.
i wanna know what it means to be born on a tuesday
Why couldn't I have been born on a Tuesday? :-(