Why do you eat porridge on the eighth day of the lunar month, and what does it mean to cook porridge

Eat fragrant and drink water foam is good.

Folklore Laba porridge allusion Origin Liu Xiu, drink Laba porridge on the eighth day of the lunar month, do you know why? Folklore allusions to Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty.

Drinking Laba porridge on Laba Festival contains the meaning of offering to the god of agriculture and praying for a good harvest. In Buddhism, drinking laba porridge allows the people who eat it to receive the blessings of the Buddha. The meaning of Laba porridge is: warmth, perfection, harmony, auspiciousness, and happiness.

The eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the day of Buddha's enlightenment. On this day, the temple will hold a commemorative puja, called the enlightenment meeting, the Laba meeting, and the "Laba porridge" for the Buddha to feast on. Why did the Buddha make offerings of Laba porridge on the day of enlightenment?

The reason for this can be traced back to Prince Siddhartha, who practiced penance in the ascetic forest for six years, eating one hemp and one wheat per day, and tempering his desire to seek enlightenment with indifferent materials. Gradually, the prince realized that it is not easy for people in the world to attain the path of liberation by chasing material desires and indulging in excessive pleasures among the sounds and sensuality of dogs and horses, but if they are obsessed with asceticism, they will only suffer physically and mentally, and they will not be able to realize Bodhi, and it is best to abandon the two sides of bitterness and happiness and live a life of the middle way without suffering or happiness, so as to enter the path of liberation.

When the prince had this realization and understood the inadequacy of asceticism, he immediately got up from his ascetic seat and walked down the Nilian Zen River, so that the flowing water that had been pure for many years washed away the filth on his body. But because of the prince's thin form, he fell down on the bank of the Nirenchan River with fatigue and weakness, and after a while, the prince stood up with his hand on the branch of the tree hanging down from the bank, and after not walking a few steps, he collapsed on the shore again. At this time, there was a shepherd girl named Nandapola by the river, grazing on the grassland by the river, and she suddenly saw a thin young man lying on the bank of the river, as if she had no strength, and she immediately felt sympathy, and came to offer the prince with milk in her hand.

The prince accepted a glass of milk from the shepherdess, and the delicacy of it was incomprehensible. After drinking, the five bodies were smooth and gradually regained their strength. So he crossed the river, walked to the Vajra seat under a luxuriant Bodhi tree on Mount Gaya, sat upright and meditated, and finally saw the stars on the night of the eighth day of the twelfth month and became enlightened and attained enlightenment.

Due to the allusion of the shepherdess's offering of chyle, later Chinese Buddhists took effect and offered porridge to the Buddha with grains and fruits on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month every year, which was called "Laba porridge". Along the way, this custom has gradually spread to the people, and ordinary people also cook Laba porridge on this day, which has become one of the folk customs.

Eating laba porridge has a certain commemorative significance. In addition to the significance of remembering the Buddha's enlightenment by seeing the stars at night, there are also the meanings of warmth, perfection, harmony, auspiciousness, health, cooperation, nutrition, indifference, convenience, gratitude, joy (replacing tea with porridge), and bonding.

A recipe for laba porridge

Ingredients: black rice, lotus seeds, red beans, longan, barley, lilies, raisins, wolfberry, chestnut, peanuts, black sesame, black beans, rice, almonds, wolfberry.

Flavoring: Old rock sugar.

1. Prepare an empty plate, put 30 grams of peanuts, 30 grams of red adzuki beans, 30 grams of red kidney beans, 20 grams of lotus seeds, 30 grams of barley, 15 grams of dried lily, and prepare according to this recipe.

2. Wash all the ingredients twice, wash off the surface impurities, put them in the night in advance, and soak them in water for 12 hours, which is conducive to shortening the cooking time of porridge.

3. Prepare 40 grams of glutinous rice, 40 grams of black rice, 40 grams of black sesame seeds, 40 grams of yin rice, yin rice is not very common, it is a kind of processed rice, it is very common in Hunan, Hubei, it is steamed and dried with glutinous rice, and the finished product is cooked.

4. In addition, in the preparation of dried fruits, 5 large red dates, 4 chestnuts, 20 grams of raisins, 20 grams of walnut kernels, 10 longan meat, 20 wolfberries, wolfberries should be put last, and the cooking time should not exceed 5 minutes.

6. This is the main ingredient to soak overnight in advance, after 12 hours, you can control the moisture, and the next step is to start boiling.

7. Add 1300 grams of water to the pot, except for the wolfberry, pour in all the ingredients, after boiling over high heat, turn to low heat and continue to cook for an hour, 5 minutes before leaving the pot, put in the wolfberry, if it is a pressure cooker, it only takes 25 minutes.

According to legend, the day of the enlightenment of the Buddha Shakyamuni happened to be the eighth day of the lunar month, the ancient Indians in order to commemorate and celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment, they named this day Laba Festival, as for drinking Laba porridge, because they remembered that the Buddha suffered so much before enlightenment, so they drank multigrain porridge to remember the suffering.

Later, Buddhism spread to China, and the Laba Festival also followed, so at this time of year, many temples will openly give Laba porridge. However, the Laba porridge drunk by the ancient Indians is for the purpose of remembering bitterness, so it will be relatively rough and simple, but because China is a big country in food, even an ordinary bowl of Laba porridge is now made by the Chinese people to taste good, and the nutritional value is also high.

Nutritional value: Laba porridge made of whole grains is rich in nutrients, which can help us replenish qi, calm the nerves, nourish blood, and strengthen the spleen. Because Laba porridge contains very rich ingredients, among which red dates can replenish qi and blood, and peanuts can replenish the kidneys, so drinking Laba porridge when Laba can also help our body keep out the cold.

This year, Laba and Dahan collided on the same day, and it is more suitable to drink Laba porridge at this time.

The custom of drinking Laba porridge during the Laba Festival is in Buddhism. The eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the day of the Buddha's enlightenment, and the ancient Indians in order not to forget the suffering suffered by the Buddha before his enlightenment, and also to commemorate the Buddha's enlightenment on the eighth day of the twelfth month, they ate mixed porridge on this day to commemorate.

Since Buddhism was introduced to China, various monasteries have made porridge from fragrant grains and fruits to give to disciples and good men and women. In the Song Dynasty, the folk gradually formed the custom of boiling porridge and drinking porridge on the day of "Laba", and it continues to this day.

Meaning: warmth, perfection, harmony, auspiciousness, health, convenience, gratitude, joy, and marriage.

On the eighth day of the lunar month, the people of our country have the custom of eating Laba porridge. Laba porridge is said to have been passed down from India. Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, was originally the son of King Pure Rice of the Kapila Kingdom (in present-day Nepal) in northern India.

There was no harvest at the beginning, and after six years of asceticism, on the eighth day of the lunar month, he became a Buddha under the Bodhi tree. During these six years of asceticism, he ate only one hemp and one rice a day. Later generations will not forget his suffering, and eat porridge on the eighth day of the lunar month every year to commemorate it.

Laba" became the "Buddha's Enlightenment Day".

The meaning of the soup soup in Laba Festival is about three:

The first is to embody the spirit and concrete practice of Buddhism's compassionate thought, and to provide food and clothing to all the poor and hungry through soup kitchen;

The second is to enable some people who want to seek good fortune in the world to plant good roots and blessings, and achieve the good fortune karma of blessings, longevity, jubilee wealth, and other fruits;

Third, for some practitioners of Buddhism, soup soup can help to accumulate and increase the merits and resources of the path, and secondly, it is a way, method and specific practice to embody and practice the four immeasurable minds of "compassion and joy" in Buddhism.

Because of this, every year in the winter moon, when the wax moon is approaching, some good believers and Buddhist believers begin to prepare porridge materials to support the temple in order to prepare for the needs of porridge. On the night of the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, various monasteries, lay forests, Buddhist groups, and even some people who believe in Buddhism will start to boil porridge in a big pot after finishing the shed, and they will stay all night, until the end of the eighth month of the first month, the sky is not yet bright, so they will put the table in front of the door and openly give porridge.

Laba porridge is a type of porridge made with a variety of ingredients during the Laba Festival, also known as Qibao five-flavor porridge. Laba porridge is eaten to celebrate the harvest, not to commemorate someone.

In ancient China, the Son of Heaven used dry things to sacrifice to the gods in December every year in the lunar calendar. The wax sacrifice includes two aspects: one is the sacrifice; The second is prayer.

The sacrifice is to worship the god of the eight grains and stars, and to offer dry things to express the meaning of celebrating the harvest. The dry thing is called Laba, and the eight is the star god of the Eight Grains, so it is called Laba. In terms of time, the wax sacrifice is carried out on the eighth day of the lunar month every year.

The eighth day of the lunar month is also known as Laba. Prayer is an important aspect of the ritual, which is a prayer for good weather in the coming year to ensure a good agricultural harvest. On the eighth day of the lunar month of each year, the dried things are used to worship the god of the eight grains and stars, and the prayer is called the Laba Zhu or the wax eight blessings, and the blessing is the same as the porridge, so on the eighth day of the lunar month of each year, the dried vegetables and fruits are mixed together, cooked into porridge, and the god of agriculture is offered to express the meaning of celebrating the harvest and praying.

Use Laba porridge to homophonize the meaning of Laba Zhu, which is the origin of Laba porridge. The meaning is to cook porridge with dried food, worship the god of agriculture, and perform prayers and ask for blessings to celebrate a good harvest.

Another theory is that Laba porridge was originally boiled in Buddhist temples for Bodhisattvas - the eighteen kinds of dried fruits symbolize the eighteen arhats, and this custom has been popularized among the people since then.

Folklore Laba porridge allusion Origin Liu Xiu, drink Laba porridge on the eighth day of the lunar month, do you know why? Folklore allusions to Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty.