On July 14th/15th, it is said that starting from July 1st every year, the King of Hell orders the door of hell to be opened, so that the ghosts who have been suffering and imprisoned in hell all year round can get out of hell and get a short life. Wandering around, enjoying the blood of the world. Therefore, people call July the ghost month. This month is considered an unlucky month for neither getting married nor moving. Inclusive holiday customs on July 14/15 are complex. It is not only a folk ghost festival, but also a Taoist Ghost Festival and a Buddhist Obon Festival. It is a combination of monks, Taoists and seculars. In Taoism, there are the so-called Heavenly Officials, Earthly Officials, and Water Officials, collectively referred to as the Three Officials. These three officials are the representatives of the Jade Emperor in the human world. They inspect the good and evil in the human world every year and report to heaven. The official birthdays are the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the fifteenth day of July, and the fifteenth day of October, also called Sanyuan. July 15th is called Zhongyuan. This is the time when local officials forgive sins. On this day, he would take out a thick roster, draw a sketch based on the performance of gods, mortals, and animals, and absolve sins and avoid punishment. It should be related to the fact that local officials held some sacrificial activities during the Hungry Ghost Festival to save the atonement of those ghosts. July 15th is a Buddhist holiday in Orchid Basin. It is said that Sakyamuni had a disciple named Mulian. Although his mother was young and beautiful, she had no good words or deeds. She was stingy with money and particularly hated monks. After her death, she was cast into the ranks of evil spirits. Mulian followed the instructions of the Buddha Group, prepared various dishes and fruits, put various utensils into the pot, and offered them to ten monks. Her mother then left the world of evil spirits and went to heaven. In view of this, the Buddha extended it and required Buddhist disciples to be devoted to filial piety. On July 15th every year, they will make an orchid pot to offer to Buddha and monks to repay their parents' kindness. The significance of the Buddha Bone Festival. The fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month is the largest festival in the underworld - the Ghost Festival, also known as the Ghost Festival or the Bone Festival. It is one of the three important festivals in the underworld in China. There are folk legends about the Lantern Festival celebrated by the dead and the Ghost Festival celebrated by the underworld. It is said that on that day, the Ghost King will wear his best clothes and celebrate the festival with the ghosts. Let us living people bless them together and wish that people in the other world will have their wishes come true and enjoy this world before they have time to enjoy it. of happiness. Therefore, many local communities in China will hold activities such as offering sacrifices, praying to Buddha, sweeping tombs, reviewing flowers, admiring flowers, and fishing to celebrate. July 14th/15th is the day when the door of hell opens. Whether it is burning paper money to send blessings, holding daisies to send blessings on the Ghost Festival, worshiping ancestors online, or lighting river lanterns, it is the spontaneity of human spirituality, an extension of emotion, and a way for people alive today to remember the past and send it to their ancestors together. The most basic belief of blessing. At the same time, "The living should cherish every day they are alive, and do not let down the society and friends, and do not let down the relatives who have left forever. Because one day we will meet them. At that time, you can proudly say that you are a human hero, you He is the ghost hero of the underworld! "According to Taoist cultural logic, the time and space of a year should be divided into upper and lower yin and yang. Moreover, Chinese Taoism believes that the three basic elements that nurture all things in the world are heaven, earth, and water. Therefore, Taoism regards the first half of the year as the Heavenly Official and the second half as the Earthly Official. What needs to be explained here is that the "official" here does not refer to the human official, but refers to the fragments in the flow of time and space, similar to the official in Chinese Go. Chinese Taoism mainly originated in areas with developed agricultural civilization in China. Therefore, Chinese Taoism has always believed that heaven and earth and the earth are mysterious. All things are born on the earth, water is the root of all things, and the earth contains water. In other words, because Chinese agricultural civilization pays attention to the important role of soil and water in all human beings, Chinese Taoist cultural concepts have always included the "ontology", "epistemology" and "methodology" of observing the world with the earth as the center. According to this world view of Taoism, Taoism customarily calls the fifteenth day of the first lunar month of the "Tianguan" year (the first half of the year) the "Shangyuan Festival"; the July 15th of the second half of the year is called the "Zhongyuan Festival"; because Tu It contains water, and water acts on the soil, so October 15th is the "Xiayuan Festival" in the middle of the second half of every year. The three elements of upper, middle and lower constitute Taoism’s systematic understanding of the trinity of the world. Chinese Taoism is different from many religions in the world. Many religions in the world are about the unity of God and man, or like Christianity, they emphasize the "incarnation" of the Trinity, so religious communicators are often highly deified. The purpose of Taoism's missionary work in China is very clear. The propagators of Taoism are not gods, but humans. Therefore, Taoism spreads moral ethics by "teaching students in accordance with their aptitude." For people with high wisdom, the principles of the Tao Te Ching are very clear. For those who are not wise enough or do not have much time to deeply reflect on their own moral and ethical construction, they write stories to illustrate the point. "Teaching through fun" is a missionary method originated from Chinese Taoism.

In fact, the "Hungry Ghost Festival" of Chinese Taoism is mainly a festival to spread morals and ethics, that is, it advocates people to pay attention to cultivating virtues on this day. On the Ghost Festival, people with ideas and time gather together to study Laozi's "Tao Te Ching", communicate with each other, and reflect on themselves. For ordinary believers, Taoism has created some stories to "educate and entertain". For example, Taoism invented a man named Chen Ziqing who married the Dragon King's daughter and gave birth to three children on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the fifteenth day of the seventh month and the fifteenth day of the tenth month respectively. These "three officials" are responsible for the three tasks of blessing, forgiving sins and relieving misfortunes. They have infinite power, and they will travel around the world in these three days to check whether people's moral character is good or bad. However, Chinese Taoism is a very tolerant religion that always gives people the opportunity to change and renew themselves. Therefore, the Ghost Festival is not only a festival for rewarding good and punishing evil, but also a festival for atonement. Therefore, the Ghost Festival is also a festival of repentance and atonement among Chinese festivals. A year's worth of sinful people can go through various rituals. Buddhism calls it the "Orchid Festival" legend. A person named Mulian dreamed that her dead mother had become a hungry ghost. So he sent meals to his mother, but failed repeatedly. Mulian told the Buddha about this, and the Buddha advised him to support the monk in doing more good deeds to alleviate her mother's sins in the underworld. Mulian made an urn on July 15 (Brahma means "save the upside down"), so the Buddhist monks collectively chanted sutras for Mulian's mother to free her from the sea of ??suffering. It can be seen that the White Bone Festival on July 15th in Buddhism has two meanings. One is to educate people to support religious monks, and the other is to educate people to do more good deeds to transcend the sins of their ancestors and advocate filial piety. In addition to setting up fasts for monks, Chinese customs on the Ghost Festival also include activities such as confession and lighting of the sacred fire. On this day, the host's seat and Shigu Station were set up in front of Jiekou Village in advance. There is a Bodhisattva in front of the Master's seat, stepping over the ghost king of the underworld, and below there is a plate of peach rice for ancestor worship. On the Shigu stage, there are three spirit cards and a spirit-enhancing device. After noon, every household put whole pigs, whole sheep, chickens, ducks and geese, as well as various steamed cakes, fruits and melons on the Shigu stage. The person in charge placed blue, red and green triangular paper flags on each sacrifice, and wrote words such as "Lansheng Festival" and "Ganlu Gate Opening". The ceremony begins with solemn temple music. Then the mage rings the bell and leads the monks under the seats to recite various incantations and incantations. Then to feed, spread the plate of peaches and rice in all directions and repeat three times. This ceremony is called "setting the holy fire at the mouth". In the evening, every household burns incense in front of their house and places the incense on the ground. The more incense, the better, symbolizing a good harvest. This is called "going wild". In some places, there are water lanterns. The so-called water lanterns are tied to a small wooden board, usually made of colored paper into the shape of a lotus, and are called "flood and drought lanterns". According to tradition, krathongs are used to guide those who do bad things. The lights went out, and the lights on the water completed their task of luring ghosts across the bridge. The shops were closed that day to make way for the ghosts. In the middle of the street, every 100 steps, there is a sweet table with fresh fruits and a kind of "ghost buns" on it. There was a Taoist priest behind the table singing incomprehensible ghost songs. This ritual is called "singing."