Feeding hungry ghosts

Photo by Chris Myers

The University’s East Asia Center, one of the sponsors of the “hungry ghosts” event, will hold another program today at 4 p.m. in Cabell Hall, room 345. Robin LeBlanc, assistant professor of politics at Washington & Lee University, will speak on “How Japanese Men and Women Talk about Politics.”

Monks and nuns of the Taiwan-based Fo Guang Shan Buddhist Order performed “The Rite of Universal Liberation,” a 1000-year-old ceremony, at Newcomb Hall Ballroom March 30. The ritual, rarely seen in the West and never before performed at an American University, is held to ease the suffering of “hungry ghosts” (and the living, as well) who are believed to be tortured by emotional and spiritual hunger, said Hun Lye, a U.Va. doctoral candidate in religious studies who organized the event.

An estimated 500 people saw parts of the six-hour event, during which the monks and nuns were accompanied by a chorus of 100 Chinese Buddhist laypersons.

“The ritual was brought to U.Va. so that students and members of the University community can be further exposed to the richness and complexities of different religious and cultural expressions that have developed in human history,” said Lye, who teaches religious studies.

“The timing of the ritual also coincides with the University Library’s celebration of its future Stanley and Lucie Weinstein Buddhist and Asian Studies Library,” Lye noted. The Weinsteins recently bequeathed their collection of more than 10,600 volumes on Buddhism in China and Japan to U.Va.