Following the Vesak Day celebration at London Buddhist Vihara, this weekend there is a celebration at Leicester Square kindly organised by London Fo Guang Shan (FGS) Temple. It started at 12:30pm yesterday with opening speech from a few Venerable masters including a representative from London Buddhist Vihara, Ajahn Khemadhammo who gave a speech on “caring for the name and images of the Buddha“, and other VIPs include the Lord Mayor of London. There were quite a few events on the day, one of the main one is the Bathing of the Buddha, so what does it mean and why do we perform the bathing of the Buddha?

On this day, Buddhists take part in the ceremonial bathing of the Buddha. They pour ladles of water scented with flowers over a statue of the baby Siddhartha. This symbolizes purifying one’s thoughts and actions. ~ The Basic Teaching of the Buddha

And in Chinese, this is called 浴佛:

浴佛偈：「我今灌浴諸如來，淨智莊嚴功德聚，五濁眾生令離垢，同證如來淨法身。」

A related Q&A about 浴佛 quoted from 佛學問答類編 - 李炳南老居士解答

問：四月八日各寺浴佛，既說世尊法身是一塵不染，何必用人代他沐浴？（林夢丁）
答：誠如所云，法身無相，安用浴為；此不過後世弟子，追念往昔，藉此儀式，表示敬心而已。

I didn’t manage to take many photos, but thanks to Jac for some nice photos, click for the photo below for more.

Tags: Ajahn, Buddhism, London, London Buddhist Vihara, Vesak, Weblog, 浴佛, 佛教
Categories: Weblog, Buddhism, 佛教