The Vietnam Buddhist Sangha reminds people to avoid collecting money to buy offerings in the form of spiritual services during this year's Vu Lan festival; do not burn votive paper.
Most Venerable Elder Thich Thien Nhon, Deputy Head of the Council of Patriarchs, Chairman of the Executive Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, has just signed and issued a Circular on the organization of the Vu Lan Festival of filial piety in the Buddhist calendar 2568, Gregorian calendar 2024.
According to the Circular, Vu Lan season of filial piety - the seventh lunar month every year, has become a traditional cultural feature of the Vietnamese people for thousands of years.
This is the time for everyone to practice and deepen the vow of filial piety and filial piety towards parents, grandparents and loved ones, and it is also the time to remember and show gratitude to ancestors, national heroes, heroic martyrs, and ancestors of the Vietnamese people.
Accordingly, the Standing Committee of the Board of Trustees proposes that the Central Committee, the Central Institute, the Buddhist Boards at all levels, pagodas, monasteries, monks, nuns, followers, and Buddhist lay people can organize the Vu Lan Grand Ceremony to show gratitude to parents on the days of the 7th lunar month of the year of Giap Thin, in which the main ceremony is on the 15th day of the 7th lunar month (ie August 18, 2024).
The Vu Lan ceremony will be held at the monasteries of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha. The main activities include: holding a mass for the dead, lighting candles in memory and gratitude to the heroic martyrs at the cemeteries; chanting the Vu Lan sutra, the filial piety sutra, the Muc Lien repentance sutra, the Amitabha sutra... to pray for the souls of the heroic martyrs; preaching the meaning of Vu Lan filial piety; the rose pinning ceremony to show gratitude to the parents for their birth; an art program about the merits of fathers and mothers (if any)...
On this occasion, Venerable Elder Thich Thien Nhon noted the organization of the purchase of offerings, avoiding collecting money for offerings in the form of spiritual services and rituals that are not in accordance with the Dharma and traditional rituals.
In particular, the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha requests that people do not burn votive paper, do a good job of fire prevention and fighting, and carry out practical charity work to help people in difficult circumstances to transform it into good karma to show gratitude to ancestors and parents.
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