Ghost Month

This month is the seventh month in the lunar calendar, which is also known as The Ghost Month. 


According to Chinese tradition, the Ghost Month is which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out of the lower realm. There will be a lot activities such as preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper during the month.


However, from a Buddhist perspective, the seventh lunar month is month of joy. This is because the fifteenth day of the seventh month is often known as the Buddha's joyful day and the day of rejoice for monks.

The Buddhist origins of the festival can be traced back to a story that originally came from India, but later took on culturally Chinese overtones. In the Ullambana Sutra, there is a descriptive account of a Buddhist monk named Mahāmaudgalyāyana, originally a brahmin youth who later ordained, and later becoming one of the Buddha's chief disciples. Mahāmaudgalyāyana was also known for having clairvoyant powers, an uncommon trait amongst monks.

After he attained arhatship, he began to think deeply of his parents, and wondered what happened to them. He used his clairvoyance to see where they were reborn and found his father in the heavenly realms i.e the realm of the gods. However, his mother had been reborn in a lower realm, known as the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. His mother took on the form of a hungry ghost--- so called because it could not eat due to its highly thin & fragile throat in which no food could pass through, yet it was always hungry because it had a fat belly. His mother had been greedy with the money he left her. He had instructed her to kindly host any Buddhist monks that ever came her way, but instead she withheld her kindness and her money. It was for this reason she was reborn in the realm of hungry ghosts.

Mahāmaudgalyāyana eased his mother's suffering by receiving the instructions of feeding pretas from the Buddha. The Buddha instructed Mahāmaudgalyāyana to place pieces of food on a clean plate, reciting a mantra seven times, snap his fingers then tip the food on clean ground. By doing so, the preta's hunger was relieved and through these merits, his mother was reborn as a dog under the care of a noble family.

Mahāmaudgalyāyana also sought the Buddha's advice to help his mother gain a human birth. The Buddha established a day after the traditional summer retreat (the 15th day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, usually mid-to-late August) on which Mahāmaudgalyāyana was to offer food and robes to 500 bhikkhus. Through the merits created, Mahāmaudgalyāyana's mother finally gained a human birth.

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