Le Vu Lan 2008

Le Vu Lan, a popular Buddhist holiday is actually HERE TODAY! On the ride home quite late last night, the kids looked out the car window and exclaimed, "Lookie at the moon, it's following us!" Very cute, I quickly gazed up and observed the perfectly round moon shining in the sky, yet I felt something missing, my moon was a little faded on the edges. Without my parents in town this holiday, my moon isn't shining as bright. I miss them as they're on the other side of the globe. For every holiday, my parents would do the preparation on the altar with fresh flowers and fresh fruits. Actually, it's year round in our family to have those items on the altar. Then on the weekend, we would go to the pagoda together and sit down for a reading. I recall, this reading gets very teary and very emotional, we would all come out in red eyes and puffy nose. It describes the responsibilities of parenting, its difficulties, the endurance parents face to provide the life for their youngsters. Something one would only understand when one becomes parents. (I would already started crying by this point). It also has a story explaining Ngay Muc Kien Lien, loves his mother dearly that when he became enlightened, he was able to see the suffering his mother was enduring in Hell for her wrong doings when she was alive. He wanted to help her. From this love and inspiration, the 15th day of the 7th month of the Lunar Calendar became a traditional Mother's Day for Vietnamese. I found an article explaining more on this, you can read it here: Muc Kien Lien

I have received a lot of visits to our blog on the story I wrote on Le Vu Lan of 2007. Thanks again for your visits. Out of this, I received an email from one reader back in late June, asking if she could quote my piece of writing to an article she was invited to submit for Asia Trend Magazine, a magazine in Orlando, FL. I happily accepted her request and I just wanted to take a moment and thank you everyone worldwide for reading and acknowledging the source. The web has so much info that it's nice to honor the references. So yay to that! From there, I had made some modifications to my writing and added a last minute collage. After the magazine publication, she offered to send me through snail mail a few copies of the magazines and provided the link to the article on the web for Asia Trend Magazine. What an honor! It was our first public article that doesn't require the mouse clicking, although this blog here is already public -But you know what I mean. It was fun =)

Although it's a July Issue, it's never too late to pass it on to you to view it =)

Click on this link
Click on the white search box for Page 26 & 27
There is our article!

And here is a snapshot of it:



Better yet, you can just simply go back to my blog post and read it =)
Le Vu Lan 2007

To those that are celebrating Le Vu Lan this weekend, hope you are enjoying your time and may you find yourself living in mindfulness. Although my parents aren't here, I will carry on the tradition and be the bridge between the old and new, I will take the little ones to the pagoda to allow the first generation in America to enjoy the tradition we had all grown up with.

"Be aware and awake to the present moment. To be truly alive, present and at one with those around you and with what you are doing."

"Tho*? va`o tho*? ra" "Breathe in breathe out".


---AP---