Today’s Laba porridge
Today’s Laba Festival, I wish everyone a warm and sweet Laba Festival!
Whether you are experiencing fever, weakness, body aches, cough or nasal congestion, loss of sense of smell, or have recovered from Yang Yang, I wish you warmth, calmness, acceptance and love for yourself at this moment in this holiday, because any experience is here to give a "gift"! Pay attention to accepting "gifts"!
There have been a lot of festivals recently, including Winter Solstice, Christmas, and now Laba. What I want to express in this article has spanned three festivals, and I finally found the time to finish it.
Two festivals have just passed by: Winter Solstice and Christmas. I wonder if everyone has discounted the sense of ritual in previous years because of the sun? Or is it because of the reduction of the sense of ritual that a deeper sense of meaning can be seen? I want to share my experience.
The profound meaning of the Winter Solstice Festival
The Winter Solstice Festival is our traditional festival. In addition to the winter solstice and Chinese New Year, the north eats dumplings, winter solstice noodles, the south eats glutinous rice balls, and makes wine. Besides this ritual, what else is there?
The winter solstice is the shortest day and the longest night. It is the darkest day of the year, but it is also at this extreme point where yang is born and yin and yang change. It is a very special festival. The ancients believed that starting from the winter solstice, the yang energy of heaven and earth begins to rise and strengthen, which represents the beginning of the next cycle. It is an auspicious day. During this festival, "settle down and calm down" and "sacrifice heaven and ancestors." People return to themselves, become extremely quiet, and accumulate energy to prepare for the beginning of the next year.
At the same time, in this darkest day, many people are experiencing the most difficult days of the year, especially the elderly who have passed away in large numbers around the winter solstice; children who lack food and clothing and are far away from their parents; empty-nest elderly people who are looking forward to the return of their wanderers; men who are under pressure due to performance at the end of the year, and women who are troubled because they cannot handle various relationship challenges. Especially on the first winter solstice after the epidemic was released, I believe many people are suffering in this darkest moment.
For this reason, this winter solstice is very meaningful to everyone. The big universe is changing from yin to yang, and our personal small universe can just follow the trend, return to ourselves, pray for the coming of a turning point, and at the same time pray for light and wisdom for the poor in the darkest place.
For adults, we can re-view the winter solstice as a festival and absorb the energy of the universe. What about children? What qualities can be cultivated in children during the darkest moments of severe cold?
At the beginning of the winter solstice and the ninth coldest day, it is most suitable for cultivating children's tenacity and willpower like plum blossoms. The ancients' number nine ritual is worth learning from. Write one stroke every day, draw one plum blossom petal every day, persist in writing ninety-nine and eighty-one strokes, and finish ninety-nine and eighty-one petals, it will be the day when spring flowers bloom.
My child’s number nine picture
At the same time, in the severe cold, it is also the most suitable to cultivate the warm quality of a candle in children. The deep winter garden during the Winter Solstice allows children to feel the warmth and power of traveling through the spiral and igniting the light of hope, from which we can also observe the growth and changes of children.
Children walking in the winter garden
What is the meaning of Christmas?
Christmas comes from the West. In the past few years, many people were obsessed with learning its form. They bought Christmas trees every year, decorated the Christmas trees, wore Christmas hats, bought Christmas apples and chocolates at high prices, exchanged gifts, and had carnival parties.
Later, people gradually began to see the connotation of Christmas reunion; now, Christmas is not only a holiday for family reunions, friends reunions, giving gifts to each other, and expressing love to each other, but also a sacred moment for reflection, introspection, planning, transformation, and decision-making. It is also a time to show the virtues of love and dedication.
Children especially like this holiday because they receive gifts.
In addition to letting children feel the surprise of gifts, this festival can also cultivate many qualities in children.
If they remain in awe of the mystery of Santa Claus , they will retain a lot of imagination and gratitude.
At the same time, in the link with Santa Claus, parents can observe the changes in their children's thoughts and emotions and do many things to help their children's inner growth.
Give an example:
Every Christmas, my children write letters to Santa Claus. Through the content of the letters, we can observe her development status. This year, through the letter she wrote, we found that she has reached the threshold of , , but she still believes in the existence of Santa Claus, even if she will have doubts because of the different opinions of her classmates.
In the letter, she hoped that Santa Claus would add my WeChat account and wrote my phone number to Santa Claus; she wanted a pair of wings that could fly and be invisible; she hoped that Santa Claus would teach her some magic, and she hoped that Santa Claus would wake her up when delivering gifts.
She wrote this year’s letter with pictures and texts, and it was very detailed. I took her to the post office and put it in the mailbox. I also gave her a brief introduction to the requirements for writing a letter, including the zip code, address, and recipient (fortunately, she didn't pay too much attention to these, otherwise she really wouldn't know Santa Claus's address and mobile phone number).
Then she began to have wonderful expectations and a little anxiety: What if Santa Claus can't give me wings? What if I can’t fly immediately after being given wings? I have wings, can I really fly? If I could fly, I could go wherever I wanted.
Since "Santa Claus" received her letter, he began to think of ways to fulfill her wishes. This year's wishes are a little harder for Santa, not as specific as last year's.
But fortunately, "Santa Claus" was particularly imaginative and creative this year. He satisfied her one by one and guided her in a targeted manner in response to her worries. So, in her own words: "The gifts Santa Claus gave me are great. I am so satisfied. I didn't even expect that she would give me these!" I told her: It is because she has learned more and more words and writes very clearly, so Santa Claus knows that this is the benefit of learning.
The day before Christmas Eve, when we were walking after school, we went to a cake shop and bought an apple-shaped cake to prepare for Christmas Eve and share it with everyone.
Although she wanted to eat it very much, she still waited until the evening to eat it. She also left a portion for Santa Claus and wrote a note next to the cake to thank Santa Claus for his hard work in delivering gifts to her in the cold. This process exercised her tolerance and helped cultivate her sharing and gratitude.
On Christmas Day, her eyes sparkled when she saw Santa Claus’s gifts. At the same time, she saw Santa Claus’s message and reply. She seemed to feel extremely magical and satisfied, and felt spiritual satisfaction from within. Because Santa’s letters are written with great care and are quite interesting. When I read the letter to her, the whole space seemed to be filled with the magic of love. The male Santa Claus and the female Santa Claus secretly enjoyed their conspiracy, and the whole family was filled with satisfaction and strength all day long.
Indeed, in order to fulfill her incredible wishes, Santa Claus spent some thought.
Santa Claus added my WeChat account, and she saw it in advance and was very pleasantly surprised. I told her she could only ask one question a year on Christmas Eve and she would see Santa reply on Christmas morning.
The child asked a question that was beyond my expectation. What does Santa Claus usually do? From this, it appears that she is gradually waking up and asking questions about Santa's real life.
This question is answered by "Male Santa Claus". At this point, the baby's father has also been deeply involved in this festival.
The "female Santa Claus" is responsible for replying to the letter.
The female Santa Claus praised her wish in the letter, calling it a great dream of mankind, and told her about the history of human flying, how China's 50,000-household flying and the American Wright Brothers acted; this dream does not happen overnight, it requires a firm dream, patience, continuous hard work, and perseverance. In the letter, he also explained the four pairs of wings and their usage: wings of dreams, wings of persistence, wings of patience, and wings of flexibility and relaxation.
Santa Claus also gave her a magic suit and told her that the most important thing in learning magic is to share it, bring happiness to people, and let her perform for the elderly and children.When you bring happiness to others, your own magic will increase. Learning magic requires constant practice.
In the next few days, she began to play with those magic toys frequently and thought about performing them for others.
Therefore, during this holiday season, there are many things we can do to help children grow their inner qualities.
The profound meaning of the Laba Festival
The Laba Festival is also the Buddha's Birthday . According to Buddhist records, before Sakyamuni became a Taoist, he practiced asceticism for many years, and his body was broken and his bones became erect. When he decided to give up, he met a shepherd girl who presented him with chylo. After drinking it, he regained his strength, sat under the bodhi tree and meditated, and on December 8th, he achieved enlightenment. To commemorate this event, Buddhists held a Dharma meeting on this day and cooked porridge with rice and some fruits to offer to the Buddha. In later generations, many temples would cook Laba porridge on this day to help the poor.
This story brings a lot of profound meaning to the Laba Festival, the beautiful qualities of loving those who go out and loving them back, sympathy and gratitude.
It is also said that during the Laba Festival, farmers use various harvested crops to offer sacrifices to ancestors and gods, to thank their ancestors for blessing their lives, and to pray for good weather, prosperity and a good harvest in the coming year. This gives this festival the connotation of fearing the gods of heaven and earth.
If we bring these profound connotations into our holiday rituals year after year, then these beautiful qualities of compassion, gratitude, and reverence will nourish our inner lives and bring different power to the world.
During this year’s Laba Festival, we cooked Laba porridge as usual. While preparing Laba porridge, I told my children the story of Buddha scattering porridge. After the child prepared the ingredients, she took a photo, took the initiative to post it on WeChat, and wrote some words. It can be seen that these rituals and stories have had an effect on her, and I believe these beautiful qualities have also planted seeds in her heart.
Therefore, when we celebrate the holidays, we might as well understand the connotations of the holidays in depth, and practice these connotations in a way suitable for ourselves and our children, so that the celebration of the festival becomes an important moment to nourish our inner life and soul.
#Laba Festival# #What are the ways to open the Laba Festival# #My family’s Laba customs# #Headline Creation Challenge#
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