ON THE FIRST and fifteenth day of each lunar month in Hanoi, Vietnam, temples teem with devout Buddhists. Devotees arrive at the temple with bags full of fruit flowers, incense, and spirit money. Off to the side of the shrine, people arrange their offerings, piling the fruit and spirit money (as well as real money) on the provided plastic trays. Reverently, they enter the temple, place their offerings on the altar, the flowers in the vases, and then step back; clasping hands together, they identify themselves, reporting their names and addresses to the buddhas, and then make wishes for themselves and their families to be healthy, successful, and prosperous. They then visit the other various altars for bodhisattvas and spirits, making similar but smaller offerings. When the incense from the main altar has burned down and the offerings have been infused with the blessings of the buddhas, the fruit and money are retrieved from the altars, and the buddhas are thanked for their blessings. The supplicant burns the spirit money in the furnace outside, conveying the essence of the money up to the buddhas, and then brings the offerings and real money home to be shared with the family so that they can also benefit from the buddhas’ blessings through the consumptive talismans.
Later in the day, a group of more devout Buddhists gathers in the main shrine to chant from the Buddhist liturgy called the , to atone for their transgressions and lighten their karmic burden. The liturgy consists of chanting pieces from various sutras as well as the names of important buddhas and bodhisattvas, then doing the nembutsu, called in Vietnamese. While some see this as a chance to reflect and recite the dharma, for many of the practitioners it is seen as an enhanced way to bring the buddhas’ benevolence to their families so they can
