Winter Solstice
Today happens to be one of my favorite days of the year: winter solstice. Why? I’m a real summer guy and the lack of sun really gets to me, so when summer solstice hits I have my first wave of bummers, and when daylight savings hits my second wave of bummers hits. While the difference is negligible now, the ups and downs of summer vs. winter was very significant to me and I couldn’t wait for winter to be over.
Much of this is probably stemming from college experiences. But you know, over the past few years I’ve talked to so many people from the midwestern states and to them winter’s just a state of being. It’s not that winter is depressing; it’s just that I want it to be summer. So while I’m not bummed out about winter anymore I still find myself giddy when it’s winter solstice.
It only gets better from here. I love that feeling. I hit absolute bottom and I know for sure that I can’t go any lower. It’s a very comforting feeling to have some level of assurance in a life that offers pretty much no guarantees. I guess this is why so many people like the financial stability of a job; it guarantees them a paycheck every certain amount of time as long as the circumstances don’t change.
Something you probably didn’t know is: winter solstice is actually an important date in east Asian Buddhism and particularly Korean Buddhism. Why? Because it happens to be a good opportunity to mix in Buddhist practices with existing cultural practices.
Koreans traditionally eat red bean porridge called patjuk on winter solstice because the red color chases away evil ghosts. So the winter solstice day already had some spiritual meaning associated with it, and from a Buddhist perspective it’s an opportunity to share food and kindness to others while collecting yourself for the practices to come in the upcoming year.
I learned about this last year as I was reading some Buddhist news around December, and I thought to myself: it’d be nice if I could visit a temple next winter solstice. So that’s what I did today! Our Buddhist order has a training center in Cuyama Valley in Santa Barbara County of California and we had an event today to bid our farewell to the deceased of 2024 and share a bowl of red bean porridge.
Theravada practitioners usually meditate in the wild alone with nature. Korean temples usually tend to be in the mountains. Our training center was no exception and boy, was our temple in the middle of nowhere.
What do you think of when you hear “America”? When I hear the word “America” this kind of imagery is what comes to mind. Instead of the country United States of America I think of this great continent that is North America. The vast amount of open space where I can actually see the curvature of the sky.
As we were getting ready for service (is that what it should be called? I don’t go to temples enough to learn the English terms for these) we had individual tasks to clean up the temple a little bit. My task was to…
Feed the cats. The temple had some cats living there. This temple has no primary resident living and taking care of the property so the cats usually just hunt for their food (there was a carcass of a bird in the crawl space) but hey, free food is free food, right? They had a great time with some wet cat food. Look at that little paw. Aww.
After service and the red bean porridge we all shared our experience, what we felt like. As we end 2024, my reflection is that I had a really wonderful year. It is the first full year of Buddhist practice for me and I’ve taken a lot of fearless steps in my life and business.
But not everyone feels like me. Some of us said goodbye to our family as they departed this year. Some of us had some health problems. It’s sort of weird that we’re all in this temple and religious practice to improve our life but when we share what happened in 2024 most of us shared what didn’t go so well. While this can be a bit of a downer I think us persevering even after this kind of a year, smiling at the end, shows you the power of practice.
In my coaching I met a lot of clients this year who were having a hard time. Some of it financially, some of it relationship-wise, some of it grief. I haven’t been a coach for that long but comparing the previous two years with this one, I think life’s difficulty has generally been raised for everyone.
This is the good part, though: it gets better from here. You may not notice it today, you may not notice it tomorrow, in fact you might not notice it until three months later. Just like the seasons. The earth’s cooling down for the past few months will have a lingering effect, but the fact of the matter is that the sun will be out for longer and our days will be brighter whether we notice it or not.
In order for the sun to be out longer we have to get to the point where the sun is out for the shortest. All your woes and hardships are inspirations for your hope and effortless ease. How can you know something is easy without it being hard first? How can you have hope without being let down first?
Today I prayed for you. But I’m not a religious prayer, I don’t pray so some supernatural force will make your life better. I pray thinking of your suffering so I can think of the words to reach your heart to make it realize that it is alive. I pray for you because you are my inspiration. I was suffering but I don’t anymore, and when I hear you suffer I have hope that it’s possible for you too.
So join me in this prayer starting tomorrow. You don’t have to wake up at 5AM and bow 108 times. But just start with the belief that regardless of what it feels like, regardless of the thoughts that pop up in your head — your life is going to get brighter.