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The Integration of Ancestor Worship and Buddhist Wisdom 2
The role of ancestor worship and the “hungry ghost”:
– Lighting incense, offering flowers, or praying is not superstition, but rather “genuine communication” with our blood and spiritual ancestors, helping us maintain our spiritual roots, preventing “alienation” (losing our roots) and mental illness. When the hungry ghost (young people who feel lost, thirsty for understanding and love) can “hold the incense stick” and pray, it is a sign that they still retain a connection that can be restored to well-being. The genes of our ancestors are present in every cell of our body, and can be “awakened” through mindfulness, chanting, and a wholesome living environment.
Application of Buddhism in personal and modern social life:
- Meditation – mindfulness, combining the three energies of mindfulness, concentration, and insight – helps us “return to the present moment,” embrace and transform our suffering.
- The sangha as a great family: living together, practicing reconciliation, and serving the community, from village temples to meditation centers in the West.
- Building ethics in politics, education, and cultural villages and neighborhoods: bringing a spiritual dimension into daily life, strengthening communication between father and child, husband and wife, helping to reduce social ills and corruption.
Simple practices – breathing, walking, eating, drinking with mindfulness, the energy of mindful living – bring happiness in every moment, transform delusion, anger, and greed, and help build the “socialist paradise” right in the present moment.