What is the Midwinter Festival? Is there anything to say or need to do?

The Zhongyuan Festival is commonly known as the Ghost Festival, and is known as the Bon Festival in Buddhism. Along with New Year's Eve, Qingming Festival and Chongyang Festival, it is a traditional Chinese festival of ancestor worship and a traditional cultural festival popular in the countries of the Chinese character culture circle.

Second, the origin of Zhongyuan Festival

The origin of Zhongyuan Festival, according to evidence, should be related to the land sacrifice popular in ancient China. The traditional Chinese sect of Taoism would hold a grand puja on the 15th of July to commemorate the birth of the Great Emperor of the Earth, as well as to absolve the sins of the lonely ghosts on earth. This July 15 ghost-sacrificing tradition has been passed down since then. Confucianism emphasizes filial piety and respect for ancestors, and the ancients released water lanterns on the Mid-Yuan Festival to ferry lonely ghosts and spirits, and also offered grains and fresh fruits from the fall harvest to ancestors, reporting the year's harvest to the ancestors and inviting them to enjoy the offerings of their descendants. It is also praying for the ancestors to bless the coming year with good weather

The name "Zhongyuan" began in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the Zhongyuan Festival is also known as the "Ghost Festival" or "Menglanbenhui". According to the record of the Five Varieties Chopping Block, "The Taoist scripture takes the 15th day of the first month as the upper yuan, the 15th day of the seventh month as the middle yuan, and the 15th day of the tenth month as the lower yuan." The Record of Cultivation says, "On the day of the middle yuan in the seventh month , the earth officials descended to determine good and evil on earth, and Taoist priests recited the sutra on that night, and the prisoners of the Hungry Festival were also liberated." The Buddhists also hold a puja for the transcendence of the world on this day, which is called "Yalan Mana", or "Meng Lan Hui". The significance of Monlamphan is that it means to hang upside down. The suffering of life is like a bat hanging upside down from a tree, hanging and suffering. In order to save all beings from the pain of hanging upside down, it is necessary to recite sutras and give food to the lonely ghosts. This coincided with the Chinese festival of the month of the ghosts, and so the festival and the Monlam Festival were passed down at the same time.

Three, Zhongyuan Festival Customs

The Zhongyuan Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 7th month of the lunar calendar, and in some areas on the 14th day of the 7th month. Originally, it is a small autumn, there are a number of crops ripe, folk routinely to worship ancestors, with new rice and other offerings, to report to the ancestors of the fall into. Therefore, every Zhongyuan Festival, family worship ancestors, offerings, rituals such as rituals, worship ancestors.

But the time is not fixed, in the southern part of China, people also have the tradition of offering sacrifices on July 14th. There are also places where the rituals of ancestor worship begin at the beginning of July, and the ancestors are received back home at night, and then offerings of tea and rice are made three times a day until the end of July.