Today is Māgha Pūja ... - Dhamma by Ajahn Jayasāro

Today is Māgha Pūja, the first of the three annual Buddhist holidays celebrated in Thailand. On this day we commemorate the occasion on which the Buddha delivered the Ovāda Pātimokkha discourse to the 1,250 arahants who had converged without prior agreement on the Bamboo Grove Monastery where he was residing.

In this discourse the Buddha lays down the basic principles of the teachings that his enlightened disciples could memorise and use as a reference as they wandered throughout India, spreading the Dhamma. The Buddha declares Nibbāna, liberation from all suffering and its causes as supreme; patient endurance as the most powerful tool for eliminating defilements. Non-harming is the defining virtue of the monastic. One intent on the goal must be devoted to morality, moderation, seclusion and meditation. The Buddha summarises the teachings as the effort to abandon all that is unwholesome in the mind, to cultivate all that is wholesome, and to purify the heart

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