For many years, the flower lantern releasing ceremony on Buddha's birthday has become an annual activity at Phap Hoa Pagoda, attracting hundreds of thousands of people to attend. This is considered the largest flower lantern releasing festival in Ho Chi Minh City. On this occasion, Phap Hoa Pagoda is also decorated brilliantly with shimmering lanterns, creating a brilliant scene at night on Nhieu Loc Canal.
Ken is stiff at the flower lantern releasing ceremony at Phap Hoa Pagoda (District 3, Ho Chi Minh City)
According to reporters' records from 5 p.m. the same day, thousands of people in Ho Chi Minh City came to participate in releasing lanterns at Phap Hoa Pagoda, District 3. People gathered along both sides of the canal to watch the festival, causing slight traffic congestion on Hoang Sa and Truong Sa streets from Cong Ly Bridge to Le Van Sy Bridge.
People crowded the streets around Phap Hoa Pagoda.
Many young people come to the temple to celebrate Buddha's birthday.
Through social networks, knowing that on the evening of May 30 there will be a flower lantern releasing ceremony on the occasion of Buddha's birthday, Nguyen Phuc Hau (22 years old, District 12) confided: "Because it only happens once a year, today my lover and I also came early to attend and wanted to pray for our family, peace, happiness and smooth work. Even though we arrived early, the atmosphere here is still crowded and fun."
Nguyen Phuc Hau (right) learned about the flower lantern releasing ceremony by watching news on social networks.
Buddhists will perform a ceremony in the main hall before releasing the flower lanterns.
After the ceremony in the main hall, Phap Hoa Pagoda held a lantern-releasing festival right in front of the pagoda grounds. Each Buddhist was given a free lantern, then wrote down their best wishes for their relatives and family and released it into the canal.
According to folklore, lanterns are a symbol of wisdom and transcendence. A lit lantern is like a prayer for a peaceful life, world peace, and prosperity for humanity.
Because there is only one way down the canal, the temple does not allow people to release the lanterns directly into the water. People will pass the lanterns down to a team of volunteers standing on a boat to release them into the canal.
As the evening wore on, more and more people flocked to the site, peaking at 7 p.m. when the lantern-releasing ceremony along the Nhieu Loc Canal began. In the temple grounds, thousands of people were participating in releasing lanterns, jostling each other, trying to hold the lanterns as high as possible, inching their way from the back door of the temple to the release point a few hundred meters away.
Buddha's Birthday is a major holiday held every year on the full moon day of the fourth lunar month to commemorate the birth of Buddha Shakyamuni.
Buddha's Birthday is one of three festivals that make up the Vesak Festival, which the United Nations calls Vesak and has been recognized by the United Nations as a world cultural and spiritual festival since 1999.
Source
Comment (0)