The true meaning of Christmas

Every year, millions of people around the world gather together on the night of December 24th to celebrate Christmas Eve. But what does this date actually mean?

Traditionally, Christmas is a celebration of Jesus's birth, even though the exact date is unknown; so, in order to understand the meaning of Christmas, it is necessary to understand the meaning of Christ. This single thing alone has lead to many wars over the centuries: for Christians, Jesus is God Himself, the Messiah promised in Jewish scriptures; for Jews, he is an enemy of God, drawing people away from Him; for Islam, he is a prophet, messenger of God, Messiah, though he is not God made in flesh, as for Christians. These three ideologies (and derivations of them) have been living together for centuries and conflicting each other, in a dangerous mixture of political and ideological interests.

In the core of Jesus's teachings is the belief that the Kingdom of Heaven can be attained by the cultivation of two main practices*: (i) love God above everything; and (ii) love your neighbor as you love yourself. Within the Buddhist framework, these can be interpreted, respectively, as the practices of selflessness and compassion: 'love God beyond everything' is letting go of your own ego, not succumbing to your desires and not acting selfishly, but thinking on the 'big picture' in the first place; 'love your neighbor as you love yourself' is understanding that we are all human beings alike, and we all have our fears, dreams, desires, flaws and qualities. The combination of these two practices should lead to the development of a higher conscience that would, ultimately, lead to the kingdom of Heaven** (or, as we say in Buddhism, to the state of Nirvana).

So, as a celebration of Jesus's birth, Christmas should be a time to celebrate compassion and selflessness. A time to abandon your ego and go after that person you don't get along with very well and give him/her a big hug, a smile and apologize for something you might have done. It is a time to accept others's actions, respect their choices and their thoughts, even though they might be different from your point of view: let go of these attachments to your ideas of right and wrong. This is also selflessness. Christmas is also a time to spend with your friends and family, even though you don't like your in-laws, or the same foods and gossips of every year. As cliche as it might seem, this is a time to open yourself to giving and receiving love; to spread charity, to listen to people who need to talk out their afflictions, to embrace those who need a little cherish, and to feed those in hunger. This is compassion. This is what Christmas is about, much more than the big table of abundant delicious food and the pile of presents under the old plastic pine tree. So, let's seize this time to deepen our practices and develop these attributes, which should be cultivated throughout the whole year.

A merry (late) Christmas!!! 

Some pics of my first white Xmas here in Japan:

 On Dec 25th, being Santa!! We delivered around 2,000 gifts sent from all over the country for kids and adults of the tsunami-affected state of Iwate.

Preparing Oden (soup) at the Temporary Houses in Iwate.

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* Of course, there are much more teachings, but the central points are, in my point of view, summarized in these two practices. As simple as it might seem at first sight, we have some deep philosophical problems, beginning with the definitions of God, neighbor and everything. Religious leaders have been arguing over these for millenia...

** There is also several lines of thought on what does Kingdom of Heaven mean, as happens with Nirvana and the Pure Land of Amida Buddha. There are those who envision it as some real place where good souls go after their death; and there are those who see it as a mental state. My vote goes for the second one.