The Laba Festival fell on January 27 this year, a traditional Chinese holiday celebrated on the eighth day of the La Month (or La Yue), the twelfth month of the Chinese calendar, which is also the enlightenment day of the Buddha. To commemorate the enlightenment of Sakyamuni Buddha, Lingyin Temple hosted a large offering ceremony at the Mahavira Hall on this enlightenment day of the Buddha to give sutra lectures and pray for blessings. Ven. Guangquan spoke at the sutra lecture and illustrated the origin and tradition of Laba congee to the Sangha of Lingyin Temple and Hangzhou Buddhist Academy, as well as around 800 Buddhist believers and visitors at the temple, who joyfully participated in the ceremony. 

 

After Ven. Guangquan’s sutra lecture, the offering ceremony began. With the music of drums and Buddhist chants, two long queues of people offering flowers and fruits to the Buddha stretched from the Hall of the Heavenly Kings to the Mahavira Hall. Buddhist masters in ceremonial garments, lay Buddhists in monk’s robes and Buddhist believers at the temple all witnessed this offering ceremony initiated by extraordinary positive merits and virtues. In the chanting of the holy epithet of Shakyamuni, everyone raised the offerings over the forehead in turn with utmost reverence to the Buddha. Offerings of flowers and fruits, food and incense were passed reverently from one to another to the statue of Shakyamuni decorated with flowers. 

 

To ensure a safe and orderly Laba Festival, Lingyin Temple didn’t distribute free Laba congee this year; instead, sutra lectures and an offering ceremony were hosted to commemorate the enlightenment of the Buddha for the first time. The Sangha of Lingyin Temple dedicated the merits and conveyed their best wishes for world peace and prosperity and happiness for the people in the year of 2015, the Year of the Goat.