Uposatha
These are specific days in a month where Buddhist practitioners, monks and lay devotees makes a conscious effort to strengthen their practice and commitment to the Buddhist path, as well as to deepen their knowledge and understanding.
The laity take extra pains to try and adhere to either 5 or 8 precepts. They also spend time to reflect upon the Buddha’s teachings and practice meditation. This is also an opportunity for devotees to make offerings to monks, receive tutelage from them, as well as practice meditation with groups of like-minded devotees.
For monks, besides a renewed effort to strenthen their practices, understanding and knowledge, confessions, as well as reiterations of monastic rules of conduct also take place.
In general, Uposatha is observed about once a week in some countries, in accordance with the four lunar phases: the new moon, the full moon, and the two quarter-moons in between.
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