Obon Summer Festival
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The Significance of Obon
O-Bon, the summer season when we Shin Buddhists honor the memories ofthose who gave us life, is celebrated as a gathering of joy.
Ekoji celebrates this important occasion with an evening of old and new Japanese folk dances and a lighting of memorial candles on Saturday evening with a
service in the temple on Sunday. This traditional combination is a custom that originated 2500 years ago in India. One of Sakyamuni Buddha’s followers, the famous disciple Mogallana, was distraught because, in a vision, he saw his late mother suffering in the hell of hungry ghosts. It was not that she was an evil person, but that as a parent, she had strong motherly attachments to the son and wanted so much for him. When Mogallana asked the Buddha how he could relieve his mother’s suffering, the
Buddha advised him to honor his mother’s memory by selfless giving of dana on her behalf. Mogallana gathered donations of clothing and food for the Sangha and at the end of the rainy season distributed these at a gathering out under the starry skies. As he did so, he had a vision of his mother now enjoying the peaceful tranquility of Nirvana, and he began to dance in joy. As Buddhism moved from India into Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan and to the United States, so did the custom of O-Bon as a joyous gathering of fond remembrance. In a warm and gentle way, O-Bon reminds us that everyone in the community has been touched with the loss of a loved one and like Mogallana’s mother we too can enjoy the peaceful tranquility of Nirvana. In the observance of O-Bon, the solemnity of the Sunday Bon Service, is balanced by the Saturday evening dance outside on the temple grounds. The circling, swaying bodies of the dancers, moving in unison to the tempo of the music and the beat of the drums, symbolize the unity and support we all receive as we journey through life. The circular dance, moving around the Yagura, may also be seen as symbolic of the cyclical nature of life and the unending chain of being and becoming of which we are all a part. Well-known Shin Buddhist scholar, Dr. Alfred Bloom, suggests “the central Yagura shows that within all the transient phenomena of life is that center, Buddha-nature if you will, from which the harmony infusing our lives radiates. We should not, perhaps, press the symbolism too far. However, it is important today to attempt to discover meaning in traditional observances such as O-Bon to counter the dehumanizing and barren tendencies of our modern secular society.” For each Shin Buddhist family, O-Bon is not only the gathering of joy, but a time to hold special family services at the temple honoring the memory of deceased family members and friends. O-Bon is a gathering of joyous and loving remembrance as it brings the family together in a special way for each of us to once again touch the heart of the Buddha Dharma. NAMO AMIDA BUTSU