Ho Chi Minh City hosts Vesak 2025

The Vesak 2019 celebration was held at Tam Chuc Pagoda in Ha Nam Province. (Photo: VnExpress)

The information was shared by Venerable Thich Duc Thien, Vice President and General Secretary of the Executive Council of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, at a recently held press conference.

The event will kick off at the Vietnam Buddhist Academy's second campus in Le Minh Xuan commune, Binh Chanh district, covering 23.8 hectares. Artistic activities and exhibitions will also be held simultaneously at the Reunification Palace in District 1 and the Military Zone 7 Stadium in Tan Binh district.

The United Nations Day of Vesak commemorates the birth, enlightenment and passing of Buddha. It serves as an opportunity for Buddhist leaders to meet, exchange ideas and spread Buddha’s message of peace, harmony, progress and development to humanity.

This year’s event will be held under the theme "Solidarity, Unity and Cooperation: Buddhism for World Peace and Sustainable Development." It will mark the fourth time Vietnam has hosted the Vesak celebration, following previous events in 2008 (at the My Dinh National Convention Center, Hanoi), 2014 (at Bai Dinh Cultural and Spiritual Tourism Complex, Ninh Binh), and 2019 (at Tam Chuc Pagoda, Ha Nam).

According to Venerable Thich Duc Thien, the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha will leverage the experience from the previous three events to improve the quality of this year's Vesak celebration. The event will also serve as an opportunity to promote Vietnam's image and culture to the international community.

Vesak 2019 in Vietnam set several records, including having the largest number of participants for a lantern lighting ceremony praying for world peace and the largest number of participants in a Buddha bathing ceremony, with about 50,000 attendees over three days./.