>>97179115But Obon comes from Buddhism practice of honoring the spirits of the dead along with traditional Japanese reverence for ancestors that existed before that. Looking at the wikipedia article, my confusion doesn't seem to be from Japanese Buddhism, but Buddhism itself.
Apparently, there is this story about a Buddhist monk named Maha Maudgalyayana who could see the dead and saw that his mom was suffering in something called the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. And so he asked Buddha what he could do and was told to do something for other Buddhist monks. After it worked and his mom was freed, he did a dance out of happiness and that's where the Japanese Obon festival's dances come from. And so that story isn't even from Japanese Buddhism, but regular Buddhism. But I thought Buddhists believed in reincarnation and so how can there be ghosts and spirits in the religion? I guess I just don't know very much about Buddhism.
