Vesak Day

On 15th of May 2022, the Lapis Lazuli Cultural Association celebrated Vesak Day 2022 at the Singapore Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre. The grand ceremony was conducted with the intention of healing the world and benefiting more people. The day marked the establishment of the Lapis Lazuli Cultural Association as well as the global premiere of "The Great Prayers of the Seven Medicine Buddhas"

In attendance were over 3,000 people from all over the world who had a date with destiny on this occasion. Collectively, their sincere prayers for the healing of the world, at the event over 10 hours long, was broadcast "LIVE" to the world through state of the art technology.

The Lapis Lazuli Cultural Association was established with the intention to excavate the ancient Eastern classics, to innovate and disseminate wisdom mined from those classics, in order to purify the hearts of people and to promote the healthy and harmonious development of the world.

The Lapis Lazuli Cultural Association will focus on the ancient classics’ perseveration, translation, cultural creativity, innovative dissemination, education, cultural exchanges, exhibitions, ceremonies and practical guidance, in order to better serve the current generation, enabling people in the Internet era to grow fond of these ancient classics, integrating the classics into their lives and helping everyone achieve success.

The celebration was hosted by Dr. Wu, the International Honorary Chairman of the Lapis Lazuli Cultural Association. The activities included a grand ceremony of Buddha bathing as well as the premiere and teachings from the content of "The Great Prayers of the Seven Medicine Buddhas".

According to the Dr Wu, the Honorary Chairman of the association, Vesak, which refers to the full moon, is to celebrate the Buddha’s enlightenment while gazing into the stars on the night of the full moon, at the age of 35.

When the Buddha attained enlightenment, all living beings reaped the benefits. More importantly, the Buddha had left behind the Dharma for us know about the seven great Medicine Masters, who are of great help to us all in this era. All of these are the wishes of the Buddha and also the embodiment of Buddha's enlightenment. We are enjoying the benefits brought to us by Buddha for lifetimes and hence we should pay tribute to Buddha.

"Bathing the Buddha symbolizes washing away the dirt in our hearts, purifying our soul and revealing the Buddha nature that everyone of us possesses. The ceremony is the collective achievement of everyone, and the manifestation of the pure Tathagatagarbha. Through the rituals, we bring forth our respect to the Buddha, the enthusiasm for practice, and this is the wish of the Buddha to transform the world."

"The release of this classic on Vesak Day is of great significance. It is a blessing to all mankind in the post-epidemic era. The "The Great Prayers of the Seven Medicine Buddhas" has been circulated for thousands of years with various versions. So we have launched a large scale proofreading project; we have translated the Tibetan translations of the "The Great Prayers of the Seven Medicine Buddhas" and "The Ancient Prayers of the Medicine Buddha, Lapis Light", and referred to the four Chinese Tripitaka sutra versions from the Song, Yuan, Ming and Gong dynasties. We also proofread and cross referenced against the "The Great Prayers of the Seven Medicine Buddhas" translated by Master Yijing of the Tang Dynasty."

 "As for the part of the Dharani, we’ve invited Sanskrit experts and scholars to work out the Sanskrit texts of all the mantras in the Great Prayers of the Seven Medicine Buddhas based on the Chinese-Sanskrit in Tang Dynasy, as well as Tibetan-Sanskrit version, which are being categorized into the Sanskrit professional text and pronunciation text, together with the modern Chinese pronunciation text. The transliteration is to facilitate the reading and studying for the general public."

 "Today, after 1,800 days, more than 40,000 hours, involving over 100 participants, and experts from the Chinese-Tibetan-Sanskrit-English multilingual team, we have finally successfully completed the proofreading and publication. It will be a greater help to the world in the post-epidemic era.”

Nearly 3,000 people attended the celebration. In this touching moment, everyone has their hearts lit up as they rediscover the long-lost happiness within their hearts.