Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre Celebrates Buddha’s Birthday – Former Abbot President Gives Teaching on Purifying the Mind

On the morning of May 23, the Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre held a Bathing the Buddha Ceremony to celebrate the Buddha's birthday and express gratitude for the Buddha's compassion. This year also marked the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Vancouver Centre, and former Abbot President Venerable Guo Dong (果東法師) personally visited Vancouver to extend loving care for devotees. Nearly 190 participants attended the ceremony. With reverent and pure hearts, they expressed gratitude for the Buddha's compassionate presence in this world and for bringing luminosity to all beings in the saha world.

The ceremony began solemnly with the sound of drums. Venerable Chang Si (常嗣法師) explained that everyone inherently possesses the same "pure Buddha mind" and "light of wisdom" as the Buddha. During the Bathing the Buddha ritual, participants should contemplate using the pure Dharma water to wash away greed, anger, and ignorance from their minds and return to their original Buddha nature—this being the true meaning of bathing the Buddha.

The Bathing the Buddha ritual was led by Venerable Chang Wu (常悟法師), the Director of the Centre. Under Venerable Chang Wu's guidance, the assembly reverently chanted the sacred name of Shakyamuni Buddha and slowly approached the bathing altar one by one, ladling fragrant water over the shoulder of the statue of Prince Siddhartha. As the scented water flowed down, participants contemplated the purification of their own minds. This was followed by the "Grand Offering Before the Buddha," during which devotees presented flowers, incense, and lamps as offerings to the Three Jewels. Participants prayed to cultivate favorable causes and conditions for learning the Buddha Dharma and attaining liberation life after life.


This year's Bathing the Buddha Ceremony was especially auspicious, as the Vancouver Centre invited Venerable Guo Dong to give a Dharma talk. He explained that although bathing the statue of Prince Siddhartha appears to be an external ritual, its true purpose is to remind us that everyone possesses Buddha nature and is a future Buddha. Through bathing the Buddha with fragrant water, we reflect inwardly and extinguish the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance, along with deluded afflictions and habitual tendencies.

Venerable Guo Dong further pointed out the profound symbolism contained in the fragrant bathing water: "precepts and concentration as fragrance, patience as water, diligence as strength, wisdom as a mirror, and compassion as medicine." He encouraged everyone to "develop Buddha nature, awaken awareness, transform personality, lessen habitual tendencies, purify the mind, and return to the true self," while putting into practice the ideal of Dharma Drum Mountain founder Venerable Master Sheng Yen: "uplift the character of humanity and build a Pure Land on Earth."

After the ceremony concluded, everyone shared a delicious vegetarian meal together and brought home the fragrant water, peach-shaped longevity bun, blessings, and Dharma joy offered by the Centre. The Vancouver Centre expressed that every Bathing the Buddha ceremony is, in fact, a new beginning in the life of a Buddhist practitioner. The Vancouver Centre hoped that everyone may eliminate defiled and distracted thoughts in daily life and instead uphold pure and wholesome mindfulness. In doing so, one is truly bathing the Buddha and drawing ever closer to one's pure Buddha nature.

Original text in Chinese and photos: Dharma Drum Vancouver Centre
Translation: Patricia Yang 
Editing: Keith Brown