Buddha's Day, or Buddha's Birthday, is a holiday that is celebrated by Eastern Asia that commemorates the birth of Prince Siddhartha Gautama. 

The date of this festival changes each year depending on the Gregorian calendar; for 2020 that day is today, April 30th!

In the Acchariya-abbhuta Sutta, when the Buddha was born, he took seven steps facing north and said: “I am the highest in the world; I am the best in the world; I am the foremost in the world. This is my last birth; now there is no renewed existence for me.”

I mean, talk about a precocious child!

The Chinese and Vietnamese translations to those words are roughly: “Within the sky above and the earth below, my way is the foremost.” The fingers pointing up and down refer to the sky and the earth. I think I prefer this version of his proclamation much better. 

Even though we cannot gather at a temple or a special place today, we can still celebrate Buddha's life by reading buddhist texts, living with the four great bodhisattva vows, and, lets get to the fun part, burning candles and incense and being grateful.