Spreading the humanistic values ​​of activities during Vu Lan season of filial piety

From a Buddhist ritual, Vu Lan has gone beyond the religious space, becoming a cultural activity imbued with humanistic spirit, deeply educational for people, so that the whole society can live in love and tolerance.

For many years, Vu Lan has always been an important holiday in the spiritual life of Vietnamese people. Going beyond the mystical mist of a story about the Bodhisattva Maudgalyayana saving his mother in Buddhism, Vu Lan activities are no longer limited to temples or ancestor worship spaces in each family but have expanded to society with many professional cultural and artistic activities with the participation of many artists, social activists and art lovers.

The art program "Parents' Grace" took place on the night of August 24 at the Vietnam - Soviet Union Friendship Cultural Palace (Hanoi), broadcast live on many TV stations across the country. It is a meaningful activity for everyone, especially young people, in the journey of preserving and promoting the nation's fine traditional cultural values. That is filial piety, respect for family ethics, respect for elders, and boundless gratitude to parents - the ones who gave us our bodies, taught us to be good people, and watched over, loved, and protected us throughout our lives.

With a large scale of organization and elaborate staging, and the participation of famous artists such as: Tung Duong, Quang Dung, Hien Thuc, Minh Quan, Sao Mai Ngoc Ky, Sao Mai Thu Thuy, Le Anh, Le Trang, Ngoc Khanh Chi (Runner-up of Familiar Faces 2022)... "Gon nghia sinh thanh 2023" is a profound and emotional art program, praising the merits of parents, contributing to preserving humanistic values ​​in the tradition of Vietnamese people such as "When drinking water, remember the source", "When eating fruit, remember the person who planted the tree".

The program brought the audience to the space of "Filial piety season", remembering the merits of ancestors and parents, so that each child always remembers his or her duty, and does many filial deeds to show affection and gratitude to parents.

Each song, each story, and each skit in the program brings the audience a heartfelt voice that touches everyone's heart. This is a moment for loved ones to sit together, listen to the lyrics and music to feel the family atmosphere, or for children from all over the world to send their longing for their parents in their beloved homeland.

Family affection, parental gratitude, and the meaning of giving birth are eternal themes in poetry and music. Because no matter who you are, where you were born, where you live, you cannot help but remember your roots. Parents give us life, teach us the first steps in life and are also the ones who are ready to welcome us when we fall. After all, no matter how stormy things are out there, when we return home, there are still people who are ready to embrace, protect, and forgive us unconditionally. That is family, the place where we cannot leave each other, always find each other in all adversities.

Therefore, although life has changed, modern people have to face many problems of the industrial pace of life. Even if they follow different religions, or do not follow any religion, filial piety is always an extremely valuable quality in every Vietnamese person. It is respect, appreciation and gratitude for the kindness of birth and upbringing. Vu Lan season is an opportunity for each of us to think about the feelings and responsibilities of children towards parents, grandparents and ancestors.

If in the West, people praise the merit and love of parents with holidays such as "Mother's Day & Father's Day", then Vu Lan festival is the cultural crystallization of filial piety for people following East Asian culture, influenced by Buddhism. Filial piety is always present in the consciousness of every person, coming first in human conduct. It is not by chance that in language, the word filial piety is combined to form compound words such as: Hieu dao (filial piety), filial care (care, nurturing), filial piety (respecting parents and respecting siblings), filial piety (being filial to parents and getting along with siblings)...

The gratitude of parents has permeated the national cultural tradition, expressed through folk songs, proverbs, poems, stories... The best folk songs in the treasure trove of Vietnamese folk literature are the ones about a mother's heart. "For her children to live, mother works hard all her life. For her children to be happy, mother bears all the sorrows."

Parents always take joy in the success of their children. That merit is as high as Mount Tai, pure and deep as an endless spring. The way of being a child is to be filial to one's parents; to know how to maintain family traditions, to respect elders and juniors, and not to lose oneself to the temptations of evil, is also a way to show filial piety to parents. That is why repaying parents' kindness by daily support, taking care of them when they are sick, ill... is always considered the first criterion of filial piety. Anyone who cannot do this, or even worse, mistreats or neglects their parents, will be condemned by society.

It is truly admirable that more and more people, especially the youth, participate in the Rose Pinning Festival on Vu Lan Day with all the sacred respect, so that when pinning a rose on their chest, each person has the opportunity to look back at themselves and what they have done for their parents. There are more and more examples of filial piety towards grandparents and parents, cultural families, families of three or four generations living together, solemn and respectful longevity celebrations, helping the elderly to be happier and live healthily in the love and filial piety of their children and grandchildren.

However, there is another dark side that cannot be ignored. That is, there are still some cases of children abusing their parents. There have been many unfilial children who chased their parents out of the house, even abusing the person who gave birth to them because they considered them a burden. The elderly who have no place to rely on have to go to social protection centers, nursing homes, or wander around to make a living, creating great pressure on society. This is a wake-up call about the moral degradation of people in modern society.

Each person has a different way of expressing filial piety to their parents. But it is not certain that a rich man organizes a grand birthday party for his parents with hundreds of guests, cars inside and outside the city with a simple feast of a poor, illiterate farmer on the "Ancestor's Death Anniversary" according to the customs of the Chuc ethnic group in the mountainous districts of Quang Binh and Ha Tinh, who will be more filial to their parents! Because the elderly are often sick, their material needs are not much. What is important is the love and care of their children and grandchildren.

“If one does not fulfill one's filial duty to one's parents, one is not worthy of being a human being” - repeating this saying of Mencius about children's filial piety towards their parents shows that no society considers mistreating or being cruel to parents as normal!

Society has no right to treat the elderly badly and unfairly. As children and grandchildren, we are not allowed to be indifferent or insensitive to our grandparents and parents. Being unfilial means abandoning the traditional cultural and moral values ​​of the nation. It also means abandoning ourselves./.