Shrove Tuesday (belated)

I am thoroughly enjoying Cosmo Doogood’s Urban Almanac, published by the folks responsible for the Utne Reader. The calendar portion of the Almanac records various holidays, and people’s birthdays. This gives me a chance to see curious cross-cultural coincidences.

For example: this past Tuesday (Feb 8) was Shrove Tuesday, in the Christian tradition, and Nirvana Day in the Buddhist tradition. The Christian holiday is also known as Mardi Gras (literally, “Fat Tuesday”). It’s called “Fat Tuesday” because people once literally cleaned all the fat out of their cabinets prior to Lent (which begins tomorrow, Ash Wednesday). Lent is a time of reflection and disciplined sacrifice, so many deny themselves the relative luxury of fat. This is the reason many churches have a pancake supper on this evening.

It’s called “Shrove Tuesday” because people prepare to be “shriven” (or liturgically forgiven) of their sins. This liturgical act once took place as part of a personal confession with an ordained priest. One was expected to be painstakingly rigorous in considering sinful acts, thoughts, and omissions. The priest would offer the penitent a penance – generally a discipline such as reading certain psalms for a certain period of time or praying the Lord’s Prayer for a period; perhaps all of Lent for either.

The dates of Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday are determined by the date of Easter, which is determined, in turn, by highly complex set of mathematical formulae, levers and pulleys, all related to the moon.

I’m not familiar with the Buddhist calendar, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were lunar-based as well.

Sin is an alien concept in Buddhist tradition. One might be asked to leave a Buddhist monastery because one is behaving in ways that are unhealthy for oneself or the community, but no one in the community would go so far as to call the behavior “sinful” (see "What's So Special About Sex?" in the January 2005 issue of Shambhala Sun). Heck, they might not even call it “unhealthy” for all I know.

Since I have done superficial reading in Buddhism, my understanding of Nirvana is very limited. In fact, it depends a great deal on an over-view I received in my senior year of high school.

It's easy, having been raised Christian in a predominately "Christian culture", to think of Nirvana as a sort of heaven. But, just as there is no sin in Buddhism, nor is there a heaven. No heaven in the way we normally think of it, as some sort of alternate plane.

Nirvana is that state attained when one has totally divested him/herself of ego attachments. One does this through a process of mindfulness. Being mindful, that is, of the present moment. Being mindful of one's ego needs, desires, and motivations.

I think a parallel may be drawn between this discipline of mindfulness and the discipline of being shriven, for both involve honest and humble self-reflection. The Buddhist's goal is to be constantly mindful. Most Christians do not participate in a formal rite of confession; those who do may only do so two or three times a year.

There is a Christian saint who has called us to this sort of mindfulness. St. Ignatius, in his Spiritual Exercises, called people to perform a daily inventory. I suspect Thich Nhat Hanh would nod his head approvingly.