Why do people set off firecrackers when visiting graves? What does it mean? What are the taboos when returning home from a graveyard?

Normally, people set off firecrackers when visiting the graves to pay homage to their ancestors. Some friends may not understand. It is not a big happy event, so why do we set off firecrackers when visiting the graves? What is the meaning?

Why do we set off firecrackers when visiting graves? What does it mean?

In traditional customs, setting off firecrackers at graves is to drive away ghosts and bad things;

When we visit the graves to worship our ancestors, they hope that we burn paper money and offerings only for our ancestors and not other ghosts. Therefore, the purpose of setting off firecrackers after visiting the graves is to drive away other ghosts that may come to snatch things from our ancestors. In addition, people always feel that cemeteries are unclean, so setting off firecrackers after visiting the graves is used to ward off evil spirits.

Buddhism does not advocate setting off firecrackers after visiting graves, because setting off firecrackers will have an impact on the ghosts and will harm them. Both other ghosts and your own ancestors will be harmed, so this is actually not a moral practice. Buddhism emphasizes equality of all beings, so it does not advocate hurting others in this way.

Taboos of returning home from the cemetery

1. Avoid taking items from the cemetery home

Often the items in the cemetery are used to commemorate the dead, or are some special items in funerals, such as paper flowers, spirit streamers, white cloth, offerings, fruits, etc. These items can be reused, but must never be taken home privately. Firstly, bringing things home is extremely disrespectful to the deceased and their relatives and friends, and will destroy the relationship between each other; secondly, these things have unlucky meanings and will make family members feel uncomfortable.

2. Avoid going home directly

Some old people in the folk believe that there are a lot of negative energy and disease in the cemetery, so when we come back from the cemetery, we cannot go back home directly to avoid bringing back these negative energy or disease. The best way is to go to the downtown and other popular places to take a walk, remove the negative energy from your body, and then go back home and wash your hands with pomelo leaves or directly jump over the fire basin.

3. Avoid contact with young children

When we come back from the cemetery, we will inevitably bring disease and germs with us. At this time, we have to avoid direct contact with young children. After all, young children have poor immunity and are easily infected by disease and germs, which may lead to illness. So we need to change our clothes, wash ourselves, and then wait for a while before contacting young children. Of course, if there are no young children at home, there is no need to worry.

4. Avoid depression

After returning home from the cemetery, your mood will definitely be low for a while, and you may even be very depressed, but we must be careful not to bring the depressed mood back home. On the one hand, it is to avoid emotions affecting the mood of family members, which is very detrimental to family harmony; on the other hand, it is also to avoid negative emotions affecting the feng shui fortune of the home, resulting in the inability to improve the family's wealth.