Notes when cleaning the altar, pruning incense sticks
According to feng shui expert Nguyen Song Ha, cleaning the altar and pruning incense sticks are rituals to purify the worship space, helping homeowners refresh the energy of the house, especially before the new year or major holidays.
The person performing bao sai needs to maintain a clean body and mind state, dress neatly and politely. Before the day of implementation, it is advisable to limit marital activities and abstain from eating some foods such as dog meat, cat meat, snake meat, dishes from turtles, soft-shell turtles, carp, blood pudding, shrimp paste, shrimp paste as well as snake wine or tiger bone wine.
The homeowner only performs bao sai after completing the Ong Cong Ong Tao worship ceremony or necessary rituals, in order to ask permission from the gods and ancestors.
During cleaning, it is necessary to operate gently, avoiding dropping and breaking worship items. The incense bowl of the gods should be cleaned first, then the ancestral incense bowl. When cleaning, warm water and clean water should be used, absolutely do not move the incense bowl or change the position of the altar.
Expert Nguyen Song Ha also recommends using five-spice water combined with ginger wine for bao sai.
Five-spice water usually consists of anise and dried cinnamon as two main ingredients, combined with types of fragrant leaves depending on conditions such as lemongrass, perilla, grapefruit leaves, betel leaves, fragrant sticky rice leaves, wine wood or old cilantro leaves.
Before pruning the incense stick base, the homeowner needs to read the prayer for permission before performing.
Offering trays and how to trim incense sticks
According to expert Nguyen Song Ha, before cleaning the altar, the homeowner should prepare a simple offering tray to report to the gods and ancestors. The offering tray may include: 1 plate of sticky rice, 1 piece of boiled meat, a plate of seasonal fruits, a teapot with five small cups, 3 cups of wine, 1 bottle of water or a cup of boiled and cooled water, votive money and two jars of fresh flowers.
After offering incense and asking permission, the homeowner proceeds to slowly remove each incense stick.
The number of incense sticks kept is usually odd numbers such as 15, 17 or 19. For families with large businesses, they can keep 25, 27 or 29 incense sticks with the desire to extend the blessings for the new year.
If there are many incense bowls in the house, keeping the incense sticks can also be distinguished by each bowl.
Incense bowls for worshiping gods usually hold 15 or 25 incense sticks; incense bowls for worshiping ancestors hold 17 or 27 incense sticks; incense bowls for worshiping grandmothers and grandfathers hold 19 or 29 incense sticks.
When drawing, one hand should hold the incense bowl, the other hand draw the incense stick, or have two people coordinate to avoid moving.
After removing the incense sticks, they should be burned as ashes, then dropped into rivers, lakes or buried under tree roots in the garden, absolutely not thrown in the trash. At the end of the ritual, the homeowner burns incense and reports back to ancestors and gods to complete the procedures according to traditional spiritual beliefs.
