在中国，盂兰盆节、中元节、农历七月十五这三个日子一并被称为三大鬼节。可是这样的节日似乎也只有在中国才有受众，假如你去外国，一个外国人问起你关于盂兰盆节的相关资料，你又可以怎么回答他呢？就让小编来教教你吧。
To Buddhists, the seventh lunar month is a month of joy. This is because the fifteenth day of the seventh month is often known as the Buddha's joyful day and the day of rejoice for monks. The origins of the Buddha's joyful day can be found in various scriptures. When the Buddha was alive, his disciples meditated in the forests of India during the rainy season of summer. Three months later, on the fifteen day of the seventh month, they would emerge from the forests to celebrate the completion of their meditation and report their progress to the Buddha. In the Ullambana Sutra, the Buddha instructs his disciple Maudgalyayana on how to obtain liberation for his mother, who had been reborn into a lower realm, by making food offerings to the sangha on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Because the number of monks who attained enlightenment during that period was high, the Buddha was very pleased.
对于佛教徒来说，阴历七月是欢喜月。这是因为阴历七月十五被称为佛教的欢喜日。佛教欢喜日的起源于各种宗教盛典中。当佛陀还活着的时候，他的弟子们在夏天雨季，坐在印度的一片森林里冥思。经过三个月的冥思，就在七月十五这一天，他们从森林里出来庆祝冥思的完成，并且向佛陀汇报他们的成果。经《盂兰盆经》记载，佛陀向他的弟子们介绍目犍连怎样为他的母亲获得自由，他在七月十五这天给桑加上供从而使他的母亲在地狱中获得轮回。很多弟子从这个冥思的过程中受到启蒙，佛陀很欣慰。
The Buddhist origins of the festival can be traced back to a story that originally came from India, but later took on culturally Chinese overtones. In the Ullambana Sutra, there is a descriptive account of a Buddhist monk named Maudgalyayana, originally a brahmin youth who later ordained, and later becoming one of the Buddha's chief disciples. Maudgalyayana was also known for having clairvoyant powers, an uncommon trait among monks.
盂兰盆节的佛教起源可以追溯到源于印度的一个故事，随后传播到了中国。据《盂兰盆经》记载，一个名叫目犍连的佛教徒，本来是婆罗门的一个门徒后来皈依了佛教，后来成为佛陀的十大弟子之一，以神通第一着称。
After he attained arhatship, he began to miss deeply of his parents, and wondered what happened to them. He used his clairvoyance to see where they were reborn and found his father in the heavenly realms, the realm of the gods. However, his mother had been reborn in a lower realm, known as the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. His mother took on the form of a hungry ghost, a so-called preta, because it could not eat due to its highly thin and fragile throat in which no food could pass through, yet it was always hungry because it had a fat belly. His mother had been greedy with the money he left her. He had instructed her to kindly host any Buddhist monks that ever came her way, but instead she withheld her kindness and her money. It was for this reason she was reborn in the realm of hungry ghosts.
在他获得神通之后，他想念他的父母想知道他母亲的情况。他通过他的神通看见他的父亲轮回到天堂般的地方，而他的母亲经过轮回进入了一个低的领域，正是饿鬼出没的地方。他的母亲变成了一个饿鬼，因为她的喉咙又细又脆弱，食物根本不能通过。但是她还一直饿，因为她有个圆圆的肚子。他的母亲对于目犍连留给她的钱很贪婪。他介绍给她一些出现在她路上善良的和尚灵魂，但是她拒绝给他们她的钱。这正是她变成饿鬼的原因。
Maudgalyayana eased his mother's suffering by receiving the instructions of feeding pretas from the Buddha. The Buddha instructed Maudgalyayana to place pieces of food on a clean plate, reciting a mantra seven times to bless the food, snap his fingers to call out to the deceased and finally tip the food onto clean ground. By doing so, the preta's hunger would be relieved. Through these merits, his mother was able to be reborn as a dog under the care of a noble family. Maudgalyayana then sought the Buddha's advice to help his mother gain a human birth. The Buddha established a day after the traditional summer retreat (the 14th day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, usually mid-to-late August) on which Maudgalyayana was to offer food and robes to five hundred bhikkhus. From then on, the Buddhist festival Ullambana became a time that people show their filial piety to parents as well as their ancestors.
目犍连通过佛陀的明示给饿鬼食物从而减轻了他母亲的痛苦。佛陀告诉目犍连在一个干净的盘中摆上食物，同时诵经保佑食物，设百味珍肴饭食，供养十方大德僧众。只有这样做才能脱离饿鬼之苦。通过这些德行，他的母亲作为一个贵族家的狗轮回再生。目犍连知道母亲脱离了饿鬼道。而后形成了一个节日，在传统的冥思结束后（阴历七月十四，通常在八月后旬），从恣日供养圣僧大众。而后，盂兰盆节成为一个子女奉献孝心，感恩父母及祖先的日子。
看完了上面的内容，相信很多小伙伴都已经对盂兰盆节怎么用英语说有了一个大致的了解。那么，以后在遇到这样类似的问题的时候，你还会吞吞吐吐，不知道怎么回答吗？