The Rains Retreat Begins

Today Theravada Buddhist monks and nuns are beginning Vassa, the "rains retreat." This is a three-month period of intensive training that begins on the first day after the full moon of the eighth lunar month of the common Buddhist calendar. Monks and nuns will remain inside monasteries and temple grounds, devoting their time to meditation and study. This year, Vassa will end on October 4.

Laypeople make merit during Vassa by bringing food, candles and other essential supplies to the temples. They also sometimes take vows to observe Vassa with daily chanting and meditation or by giving up something they desire, such as drinking alcohol, smoking or eating meat. This last practice has caused some westerners to call Vassa the "Buddhist Lent."

Theravada monks and scholar Bhikkhu Khantipalo objects to equating Vassa with Lent. He writes about the purpose of Vassa:

This is simply to generate some zeal for Dhamma in oneself. To bring the Dhamma to life in oneself. To get away from reading books on it and into doing it. Not just to take a mild intellectual interest in it but to make it the basis of one's life. Not only to go to an occasional lecture on the subject but to consider. "What can I DO?" Not to be content to play with the ideas of "Buddhism" — making sure that these do not touch one's precious self, but to get into Dhamma so that what is rotten in oneself is changed.

Christians might argue the purpose of self-denial during Lent is similar. Lent also involves a spirit of mourning and reptentence, however, which doesn't apply to Buddhism. Let's let Lent be Lent and Vassa be Vassa and not mix them up.