Buddhist memorial service

June 13th, 2006

Let me introduce Buddhist memorial services(法事 ほうじ houji) to you.
Most of Japanese people are Buddhists as you know. After someone who is one of our family passed away, we hold some Buddhist memorial services at regular intervals. In Buddhism the late person still exists in this world for 49 days after his or her death. He or she goes to the other world after 49 days, so we hold a memorial service on the day in order to pray that he or she can move to the other world without incident. After that, we hold some memorial services at the prescribed years such as 1, 3, 7, 13 years later. The final service is held 50 years later.
Actually, I went to my wife's parent's home a couple of weeks ago in order to join the memorial service which is held for the late her great-grandmother, who passed away 50 years ago. In Buddhism the last service is sort of a celebration even though it's held for the late person. Because his or her offspring still exist in this world to the point of holding the memorial service, though 50 years have passed by.

I wanted to talk about what I described above in the English school I often take free conversation lessons, but I couldn't do that correctly. So, I've just written down this article to describe Buddhist memorial services next time.

| Japanese custom |