Fwd from a friend, a newsletter emailed to Intel employees:


Bodhi Day, December 8, celebrates the day of the Buddha's enlightenment.

As a young man, Siddhartha Gautama was disturbed by the suffering of
humanity. So he decided to find the solution by forsaking his family's
wealth and wandering the country, meeting people and leading a life without
comfort. Although his travels brought him a deeper understanding of the
suffering in the world, he did not feel any closer to finding a solution to
human suffering.

After several years, Siddhartha decided to abandon his harsh lifestyle and
turned his attention to meditation. In 596 B.C., Siddhartha sat under a fig
tree for seven days and nights, deep in thought, before finally being
"enlightened" to the human condition. On the eighth morning, he realized
the Four Noble Truths of Suffering and the way to overcome them by the
Eightfold Path.

The fig tree under which Siddhartha sat is referred to as the Bodhi Tree, Be
Tree, the Tree of Awakening, and the Tree of Enlightenment.

Today, Buddhists observe the importance of this event by celebrating Bodhi
Day. The day is observed in many ways, usually through prayer, meditation
and teachings. Some North Americans incorporate Bodhi Day with Christmas
traditions by:

Stringing multicolored lights around their home. These lights represent
enlightenment and are multicolored to represent the many individual pathways
to personal enlightenment.
Decorating a potted live ficus tree with lights, strings of beads
representing the unity of all things, and three shiny bulbs representing the
three jewels of Buddhism.
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Now, when people ask me why his name is Bodhi, I can just pass this
around maybe, like Intel did (Just a bit of "diversity training")!
Aside from the fact that I just liked
the way it sounds, my birthday was the 7th, and Bodhi was sort of
an early birthday present last year. I knew I wanted to name him that
before knowing the full meaning of the name, just part of the history.
Shelly & The Boys
http://www.geocities.com/shellybrosnan/bodhi14mos.html