Birthdays in our culture are a rather strange phenomenon. They are usually all about the person who is born, and so we really like to celebrate our birthdays. But our birthdays should be a celebration and a thank you to our parents because it is our parents who gave us this body, who kept us alive when we were infants and who brought us up. It is a day to express a lot of gratitude to our parents. Why do we celebrate our birthdays? We are a year closer to death, so why are we celebrating?

A birthday is also a good reminder of impermanence and samsara. Birth is said to be one of the sufferings of samsara. On the other hand, we can see our birth, given that we are in samsara, as something fortunate because we have the opportunity to encounter and practise the Dharma. Having that precious human life is really something to celebrate. Our having it is due to the good karma created by whoever we were in previous lives, so we should thank all those people we were in previous lives for practising. It is also due to our parents giving us this body, our teachers who help us learn the Dharma and put it into practice, and all sentient beings who are in the field with whom we practise. On our birthdays, it is good to remember all these various aspects of what it means to be born.

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