The Buddha's birthday on the 8th of the Fourth Month of each Lunar Year is the greatest Buddhist festival amongst all others. Each year this day, Po Lin Monastery will hold a major ceremonial service of Buddha bathing to commemorate the birth of the Buddha. In the Main Shrine Hall will be placed a basin of water with the baby Buddha statue. Worshippers and devotees will gather at the monastery to participate in the ceremony, to wash the statue with scented water, with a view to cleansing all delusions and karma defilements, attaining the clean, original, innate Buddha nature.

Just as bathing freshens the body, cleaning clears dust and rubbish in a room, and washing removes sweat stains on the clothes, celebrating the birth of the Buddha and the ritual of bathing the Buddha statue reminds people of the great wisdom of the Buddha, cleans the inner dirt and purifies their mind.  Reminding people to "clean the mind of oneself" is the specific meaning of the festival of Buddha's Birthday