Besides being the time of the year when Buddhist temples sport a beautiful display of lights, it is also the time when Buddhists spend the whole sacred day at temples meditating, chanting prayers and offering alms to Buddhist monks. 

An example of the celebrations at a temple during Wesak Day is the Vihara Temple at Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur. The celebrations start at sunrise when devotees gather at the temples to meditate. In the evening, a candlelight procession from the temple to Kuala Lumpur city takes place. Many thousands of Buddhists and spectators line the route of the procession, which is led by a decorated float with a statue of the Buddha in it. 

After the procession returns to the temple, a special open-air blessing service is performed and a sermon on the significance of Wesak Day is held. Traditionally the rest of the night is spent with devoted meditating, chanting and offering prayers to Lord Buddha by monks in saffron robes. 

To summarise, Wesak is important because it marks three key events in Lord Gautama Buddha’s life – his birthday, the enlightenment and his achievement of Nirvana. 

Even though followers of Buddhism have been celebrating Buddhist festivals for centuries, the decision to celebrate Wesak as Buddha’s birthday was only taken at the first conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists held in Sri Lanka in 1950.