2555th Buddha Jayanti

By Miss Alisha Gurung

The 2555th Buddha Jayanti Celebration which is annually celebrated by the Gurung Samaja Nederland, was held on the 29th of May 2011 in Amsterdam this year. The room that held the event was a bit small and seemed that it could not provide enough space but it turned out just enough at the end.

The lighting of the candles by senior GSN member Mr. Rekh Gurung started off the event. It was soon followed by the welcome speech by the president of GSN Mr Bikash Gurung. He explained to the audience why GSN has decided to celebrate the Buddha Jayanti, ‘’First of all Buddha was born in Nepal. Buddhism goes beyond religion. It is more of a philosophy. Buddhism has answers to many of the problems in today’s modern societies. It is becoming more and more popular in Gurung communities across the country as well as in many western countries.” stated Mr Bikash Gurung. Afterwards a pray was held by Tsewang Namgel a lama, and he too explained what Buddhism is about and what the bell and the dorje symbolised. Then GSN Joint Secretary Mr Raj Kumar Gurung talked about Buddhism in the Gurung community in Nepal, Buddhism in Gurung communities outside of Nepal was followed by GSN Member Mr Gopal Gurung. So the beginning of the event was to teach and give information about Buddhism and it was well said by the four speakers.

Then as lunch came the food donated were served to the people, they enjoyed the food epically the ‘delicious samosa’ as everyone stated provide by GSN General Secretary Mr Mukta Gurung. And as the food came out more people started appearing this could be due to the tasty smell of the samosa or that knew that the quiz competition was going to start. The quiz competition was hosted by GSN Member Mr Sunil Gurung and this was a little test to see if the people had paid attention to the speeches earlier on. So the ladies formed a group of 5 and so did the gents. The competition was neck to neck, until the last question which was the tie breaker. There was suspense in the room who would win the competition? The ladies or the gents? It seemed that the ladies had paid more attention to the speeches then the gents, which was shown by the ladies winning the quiz competition.

When the quiz competition ended another began which was the drawing competition of Lord Buddha’s portrait, this was judged by 3 judges, Lama Tsewang Namgel, Mr Gopal Gurung and Mrs Bhumati Gurung. It was a very hard decision but they concluded that GSN Public Relation Coordinator Mrs. Anju Gurung’s portrait was the best out of many great ones. Mrs Anju Gurung was also one of the participants of the quiz competition, so she was awarded with two gifts. When the gifts were handed out the dancing started, they made room for people to dance, when the dancing ended everyone pitched in to clean and tidy the place. And that was yet another very successful event.