Awakening and Awe: Bodhi Day

Bodhi Day is the Buddhist holiday that commemorates the day that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, experienced enlightenment. It is observed in many mainstream Mahayana traditions including the traditional Zen and Pureland Buddhist schools of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Bodhi Day serves as a reminder of the wisdom that is naturally available to us, the wisdom of cultivating our minds and recognizing our relation to the whole. The service will investigate.


Abhi has served as Senior Minister of Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, in Bethesda, MD, since August 2013.  Previously, he served UU congregations in Clearwater, FL, Madison, WI, and Park Forest, IL. 

In the larger community, Abhi has been actively involved in interfaith, multicultural, and social justice work for over two decades including serving as President of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF), as a member of the Executive Team of Montgomery County’s Interfaith Community Working Group, and the Internal Review Board of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Born in India, he was raised in the Brahmo Samaj, a liberal Hindu movement with close ties to Unitarian Universalism.  As a young adult, he became actively involved as a lay-minister in the Brahmo Samaj.  Inspired by his experience as a lay-minister, in 1994, he took a ‘leap of faith’ and enrolled in Meadville Lombard Theological School, a Unitarian Universalist seminary in Chicago, to study for the ministry. 

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