Uposatha- observation day

Uposatha, pronounced as Upavasatha, is one out of my traditions in Buddhism. It is known as a day of observation and was founded during the age of the Buddha. It was practiced when it was the last day of the month, with the bright full moon in the sky. Uposatha was particular made for cleansing your degraded mind by gathering monks and people to meditate the whole day. This was called laying practice. Although in this picture most people are sitting down, it was called laying people because they wanted Buddhists to feel confort as if they were comfortably lying down. However, with full practice, one would achieve inner peace and joy.

Personally, as I was reading about Uposatha, I realized that meditating was on different levels of difficulty. Although I did not believe in Buddhism, I decided to practice meditating the whole day. However, after about 3 minutes I was already falling apart with bored thoughts and easily becoming distracted. With irrelevant thoughts, I suggested to stop meditating. This was when I realized that meditation was extremely difficult, and Uposatha was something not any ordinary people could practice. Instead it was something that had to be developed and mastered for years.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uposatha

Picture:
http://www.capetownmeditation.com/images/18/Uposatha_Day_(2).jpg