Offering flowers on Buddha's birthday

The Buddha's birth statue is solemnly placed by Buddhists among fresh, fragrant flowers.

The Buddha's Birthday in Vietnam is celebrated on the 15th day of the 4th lunar month, lasting from the 8th to the 15th of April (lunar calendar), each pagoda has a different official celebration date. During this time, pagodas and monasteries have activities to celebrate the great festival such as setting up a stage to organize art programs, float parades, releasing flower lanterns, preaching about Buddhism, Buddha bathing rituals... Through these activities, sentient beings and Buddhists remember the day Buddha was born, leading sentient beings to liberation, enlightenment with a peaceful and free life.

Before the grand ceremony, Buddhists will decorate and prepare the altar and main hall of the temple to be solemn and dignified. And offering flowers to Buddha becomes a spiritual belief that shows the sincerity of Buddhists towards Buddha.

At Hiep Long Pagoda (Ward 3, Tay Ninh City), the Buddha's Birthday celebration took place on April 8. To prepare for the celebration, the day before, Ms. Cao Thi Hong Xuyen (Ward 3, Tay Ninh City) and Mr. Nguyen Thanh Duy (Ward 2, Tay Ninh City) were busy arranging flowers and decorating the main hall at the foot of the Buddha's birthday statue. Both of them started working from 7am and did not finish until 8pm.

Ms. Hong Xuyen has been offering flowers to Buddha for more than 20 years. She is a Buddhist who took refuge at Hiep Long Pagoda. When she entered the Buddhist temple, she vowed to offer flowers to Buddha on important occasions. “I see that on important holidays, fresh flowers will create a solemn and brilliant atmosphere for the temple, so every time I go to a ceremony, I buy flowers to offer. When I bring them in, there is no one to arrange them, so I try to arrange them myself.

Seeing that it was okay, I started arranging flowers at Hiep Long Pagoda, then went to other pagodas. One year, I arranged flowers for 3-4 pagodas a day. Most of them were small pagodas where Buddhists were still struggling. All of them were voluntary work" - Ms. Hong Xuyen said.

One time when he went to the temple to pray to Buddha, he saw Ms. Xuyen arranging flowers. Out of curiosity, Thanh Duy learned more and helped her. Seeing the meaningful work, Thanh Duy started to study and became interested in flower arranging. “Before, I really liked arranging flowers, but I couldn’t arrange them well. When I came here, Ms. Xuyen taught me, then I went to arrange flowers for many temples, learned more about many models on the internet, and gradually became passionate about this job.

On Buddhist holidays, I, Ms. Xuyen and the other members of the group mobilized money to buy flowers and then arrange them. I was also in charge of decorating two flower floats of the Board of Directors of the Ba Mountain Pagoda System and the Board of Directors of Buddhism in Go Dau District to parade with other flower floats in the province on April 14th," Thanh Duy said.

Also with a passion for flower arrangement, for the past 3 years, on Buddhist holidays, Mr. Thanh Duc (Ward 1, Tay Ninh City) and his aunts and uncles in the group go to Go Ken Pagoda to display flowers. Everyone mainly puts in the effort, but when there is a shortage of flowers, they spend their own money to buy flowers to arrange.

“A few years ago, I only arranged flowers in simple ways such as borders and flower baskets. This year, I started to create new designs with more elaborate and sophisticated details and arrangements,” said Thanh Duc.

Ms. Pham Thi Ngan (Truong Tay commune, Hoa Thanh town) is arranging chrysanthemums as a border at the foot of the statue of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara at Go Ken pagoda and said: "Usually, after taking my child to school, I have a lot of free time. Seeing that the pagoda needs someone to help arrange flowers, I went with another friend.

Here, those who have experience and skills arrange elaborate flower vases, but we just arrange flowers around the existing borders, so it is not difficult. Going to work is very fun, it is meaningful and brings blessings to myself" - Ngan said.

Not directly working at the pagoda, a group of friends of Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Bich (Hiep Ninh ward, Tay Ninh city) discussed buying flowers to offer at Go Ken pagoda (Hoa Thanh town) and pagodas in Tay Ninh city, including Nhu Lai, Hiep Long, Thien Phuoc, and Hong Phuoc pagodas.

“Every year, the group buys flowers and strings flowers to offer to Buddha, but this year is a little different, because some of the group members have work, so we buy flowers to offer to the temple and other Buddhists come to string flowers. Offering flowers to Buddha is a beautiful cultural feature in Buddhism, to express respect to Buddha and pray for good things in life” - Ms. Ngoc Bich shared.

Ngoc Dieu

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