Buddha's Descent Explained by Gabriel Weiss
On November 15th many Buddhists around the world, particularly within Tibetan and Bhutanese traditions, celebrated LhaBab Duchen, a mythical experience of Buddha's descent from a heavenly realm. What's that all about? So one version of the story goes, Buddha's mother passed away soon after Buddha's birth (at that time his name was Siddhartha), and so about 40 years later, sometime after Siddhartha had awakened or attained enlightenment becoming a Buddha (Buddha basically means "awakened one"), he decided he wanted to repay his mother's kind-ness, (you know, for carrying him for 9 months and giving him life). So Buddha ascended to the heavenly realm where she was residing and there offered teachings for a month or so, positively blowing everyone's mind! Buddhism is a karmic religion, it is believed that all beings continually reincarnate after death, leading successive lives, the context of which is largely determined by one's actions and mental-emo