Laba porridge, also known as Qibao Wuwei porridge, Buddha porridge and everyone's rice, is a kind of porridge made of various ingredients. "Drinking Laba porridge" is the custom of Laba Festival. The traditional ingredients of Laba porridge are rice, millet, corn, coix seed, red dates, lotus seeds, peanuts, longan and various beans.
Tsui Hark said in Qing Notes: "Laba porridge began in the Song Dynasty. On the eighth day of December, temples in Tokyo cooked porridge with seven treasures and five flavors of glutinous rice, and others followed suit." Wu's Dream in the Southern Song Dynasty says: "On the eighth day of this month, the temple name is Laba. Dasha and other temples have five-flavored porridge called Laba porridge. " The custom of Laba was also influenced by Buddhism. According to legend, Buddha Sakyamuni spent six years in penance before becoming a Buddha, eating little food every day and becoming very weak. When two shepherdesses saw it, they gave the Buddha chyle made of milk to eat, which restored his energy. Thus, the Buddha realized that penance could not become a Buddha. He went to Nilian River to bathe and wash clothes, and came to a bodhi tree in Bodhgaya. After sitting for forty-eight days, he became a Buddha on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Therefore, the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month has become an important festival of Buddhism. Believers use bathing Buddha and eating Laba porridge to express their commemoration of Buddha.