On September 6, 2025—the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, coinciding with Ullambana Festival (also known as Buddha’s Joy Day)—Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou conducted the Ullambana ceremony in accordance with Buddhist rites. The merit generated from offering food to the Buddha and to the monks is dedicated to liberating ancestors across lifetimes, including those who suffered grievances in past kalpas. The blessings are extended to all beings in the Dharma realm. The ceremony participants prayed for the increase of blessings and wisdom as well as the elimination of calamities and hardships for people in the present, for the deceased ancestors to be reborn in the Pure Land and be closer to Amitabha Buddha, and for world peace and the well-being of all people.
Ullambana, originally meaning deliverance from suffering, derives from the idea of saving beings from great sufferings in the underworld. The Buddha once explained to the Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana how to relieve his mother’s grave offenses. On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when the monastic community completes the Rains Retreat completion and observes the day, he offered a hundred-flavored meal into the Ullambana bowl to serve monks from all directions, relying on the inconceivable virtue and blessings of the Triple Gem. This practice can help seven generations of parents, and the current parents facing hardship, to release them from the sufferings of the hungry ghosts and to attain rebirth among humans and heavenly beings, thereby enjoying happiness and blessings.
