What’s The Main Ingredient In The Laba Porridge?
The What Porridge? The Laba Porridge is a congee dish that Buddhists prepare every year during the celebration of The Laba Festival. The Laba Festival occurs on the eight day of the twelfth month in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. The term “Laba” is derived from the date of the festival, and is actually a chinese term – “La” is the pronunciation for the chinese character 腊 which represents Lunar Month and “Ba” is the pronunciation for the chinese character 八 which means Eight. The eighth day of the twelfth month is also the day of the enlightenment of the Buddha.
Why Porridge? During the Buddha’s endeavor in search of the right path in attaining enlightenment, he started with extreme ascetic practices that did not reveal the path and left him starving and weak. A village girl named Sujata was on her way to visit a tree-god with a bowl of milk porridge in her hands, and seeing the Buddha in his emaciated state, she mistook him for the tree-god and offered him the milk porridge which the Buddha accepted. The Buddha then regained his energy and sat under the Bodhi tree in meditation, vowing that he would never arise until he attained the answer to the truth to awakening. After 49 days of meditation, the Buddha attained enlightenment at the age of 35. Thus, the Laba porridge is prepared to represent the milk porridge that was offered to the Budhha and to commemorate the Buddha’s path to enlightenment.
What’s The Main Ingredient In The Laba Porridge? It’s a beautifully rich mixture of red dates, lotus seeds, red beans and grains cooked in deliciously hot sweet broth, but the main ingredient in the porridge is actually the ASPIRATION – the aspiration to attain perfect enlightenment after consuming the porridge, just like what happened to the Buddha.
So, how about giving the Laba porridge a go today?
