DDM Celebrates Bathing of the Buddha Festival
On 8 May 2011, Dharma Drum Mountain hosted a jubilant and special event at the Zhongshan Square of Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei to celebrate the Bathing of the Buddha Festival and Mother’s Day.
Approximately 2000 people showed up already with their families at the square prior to the commencement of the celebrations at 9:00a.m.
Honorable guests, including DDM’s Abbot President, Venerable Guo Dong, Vice President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Vincent Siew (Wan-Chang Siew), Minister of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Yen-Hsiang Shih, and monastics from the DDM Sangha Community, attended the opening ceremony to offer their warmest blessings and encouragement on the stage.
They visited every stall, each with different themes, accompanied by Venerable Guo Dong. A number of guests even stopped to join in and have fun with other participants.
Venerable Guo Dong said that the event is very meaningful and that the activities, each designed with special themes, would teach us about gratitude and explain why we have to show gratitude to the Buddha, to our parents, and to our beautiful and delicate land.
Lastly, the Abbot President encouraged everyone to build harmonious relationship with other people and with the environment by showing compassion, tolerance and respect, and learning to resolve difficulties with Dharma wisdom.
Not only did he offer his deepest gratitude to DDM, which has been striving unceasingly to become a cornerstone of social stability, Vice President Siew also encouraged everyone to take this unique occasion to pay our deepest gratitude to our mother and to the Buddha. He said that the concept of ‘Protecting the Spiritual Environment’, taught by the late Venerable Master Shemg Yen, is actually the best moral and attitude guide for people to follow nowadays for the conservation of ecology and social harmony.
This year was the fifth year that DDM has celebrated the Bathing of the Buddha Festival and Mother’s Day. The event proceeded until 4:00 p.m., attended by approximately 20,000 people who showed their support of DDM.
(by Jin Yang/edited by Jessica Chow)