Observing Ghost Month
Homage To Ancestors Ceremony: Honouring our living and deceased parents
In keeping with the tradition, Dari Rulai Temple conducts this daily prayer ceremony from New Moon to Full Moon of the 7th Lunar Month, traditionally known as the Ghost Month. Honoring your parents, living and deceased, and the parents of your past seven lives by participating in these Dharma Rites brings blessings to you and your descendants.
The rituals performed during this two-week Prayer Ceremony will help to maintain your connection to and receive blessings from your ancestors who may have attained high spiritual realms, known as ‘ancestral deities’ in some cultures, as well as help extinguish disasters brought about by your deceased relatives who passed away bearing heavy karmas and who are ‘plundering the merits of their descendants’.
Any who wish to render homage to ancestors can make an offering of $32, $72, $108, $300, $600, $900 etc. Your name will remain on an altar at the Dari Rulai Temple during 2 weeks of daily rites to benefit and pay homage to living and deceased parents, the parents of the past 7 lives, and ancestors in general
Modern western society does not teach people to respect and honour parents, nor to take care of them in their old age. If you wish to practice according to the strict discipline outlined in the Ullambana sutra, bring food (not necessary to offer money) offerings to the temple on the last day of the “Homage to Ancestors” Rite and…
“They should vow to cause the length of life of the present father and mother to reach a hundred years without illness, without suffering, afflictions, or worries, and also vow to cause seven generations of fathers and mothers to leave the sufferings of the hungry ghosts, to be born among men and gods, and to have blessings and bliss without limit. “
“those disciples of the Buddha who cultivate filial conduct should in thought after thought, constantly recall their present fathers and mothers when making offerings, as well as the fathers and mothers of seven lives past. Every year, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, they should always, out of filial compassion, recall their parents who bore them and those of seven lives past, and for their sakes perform the offering of the Ullambana basin to the Buddha and the Sangha and thus repay the loving kindness of the parents who raised and nourished them….”
Contact Mary ( corkhanmi@gmail.com) to participate in person / and Zoom in these ceremonies at your local Hanmi Shrine
Registrations accepted until 12:00PM August 30th 2023
Please submit your offering for the total amount, after you’ve finished placing your request
The Ghost Festival, also known as the Zhongyuan Festival (traditional Chinese: 中元節; simplified Chinese: 中元节) in Taoism and Yulanpen Festival (traditional Chinese: 盂蘭盆節; simplified Chinese: 盂兰盆节; pinyin: Yúlánpénjié) in Buddhism, is a traditional Taoist and Buddhist festival held in certain East Asian countries. According to the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh month (14th in parts of southern China)
In Chinese culture, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm.[which?] Distinct from both the Qingming Festival (or Tomb Sweeping Day, in spring) and Double Ninth Festival (in autumn) in which living descendants pay homage to their deceased ancestors, during Ghost Festival, the deceased are believed to visit the living.
Wikkipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival
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