We will not have an EDG meeting on August 18th.

At this time, English Dharma Group is joining the Ullambana Ceremony at the Grand Hall of Jade Buddha Temple.  Venerable Hung-I will deliver a talk.  There will be headsets available for English translation. Please join us if you can.

The EDG meetings, and Zoom, will resume on August 25th.

About Ullmbana

The Ullambana and Sangha Day Ceremony is based on the Ullambana Sutra (also known as Yulanpen Sutra), which is a Mahayana sutra concerning filial piety –  the virtue of exhibiting love and respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors. It is also the day for helping those beings who are suffering so that they have the chance to obtain liberation.

In the Sutra, it records the time when Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana achieves the supernatural knowledge and uses his newfound powers to search for his deceased parents. Maudgalyayana discovers that his deceased mother was reborn into the preta or hungry ghost realm due to past bad karma. She was in a wasted condition and Maudgalyayana tried to help her by giving her a bowl of rice. Unfortunately as a preta, she was unable to eat the rice as it was transformed into burning coal. 

Maudgalyayana then asks the Buddha for help. The Buddha explains that his mother can’t be saved by only one person due to the mighty bad karma. However, one is able to assist one’s current parents and deceased parents by willingly offering food (and other needs) to the sangha or monastic community on the 15th day of the seventh month (lunar calendar), whereby the monastic community collectively transfer merits to the deceased parents.

Maudgalyayana did as the Buddha had instructed. Due to the strength of the greatly virtuous ones, his mother was reborn in the heavens.

Since then, the Ullambana festival has become an annual Buddhist ceremony to exhibit love and respect for one’s parents, elders, and ancestors through offerings to the Sangha; as well as practicing loving kindness by transferring merits to beings in the hungry ghost realm to help release them from suffering.