Customs
Can you pray at a temple, visit a grave or burn joss paper on your period? Where the rule comes from, and how to talk to your mum
Your mum says you should sit out the temple visit this week, or skip the trip to the grave. You may not buy it, you may not be sure, and you definitely do not want a fight about it. A lot of people end up in exactly this spot.
It depends on whom you ask. An Earth God temple in Taiwan says on its own website that women on their period can still hold incense and pray, with “no taboo”, and the Buddhist teacher Sheng Yen wrote that there is no such rule for practice in a Buddhist temple or before the Buddha. Some places and groups do still keep the rule, though: if you feel unwell, do not push yourself, and otherwise follow the rules of the place and talk it over with your family.
Two things up front. This article is not here to rule on who is right. We have laid out what we found and where it comes from, and you and your family can take it from there.
And a period is a normal thing a body does. Some of the older explanations use harsh words for it. Where a source does, we say whose words they are. They are not ours.
First, what are the three things?
If you grew up outside Hong Kong, the Cantonese words your family uses may be doing a lot of work. The question usually covers three different things:
- 拜神 (baai san), praying at a temple. Going to a temple to offer incense to a deity such as Guanyin or the local Earth God.
- 拜山 (baai saan), the grave visit. Literally “paying respects to the hill”: cleaning the ancestors’ grave and making offerings there, usually around Qingming in spring or Chung Yeung in autumn.
- 燒衣 (siu ji), burning joss paper. Burning paper offerings, including clothing and money made of paper, for people who have died.
These are not the same, and as you will see, the sources we found mostly talk about the first one.
Where does the rule come from?
For a lot of people, the rule arrived with no reason attached. It turns out scholars have traced part of it.
Megan Bryson, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee, wrote about it in The Conversation in 2026.
In her words, “an extreme attitude” toward menstruation and childbirth appears in a Chinese Buddhist text called the Blood Bowl Scripture (血盆經). It was “written in China by the 13th century” and reached Japan soon after.
As she describes it, the story in the text is actually about childbirth: a woman washes her bloodied clothes in a river, and people downstream unknowingly use the water to make tea offered to the gods.
She writes that Buddhists in Japan later stretched the idea to cover menstrual blood on its own. She also notes that beliefs and practices around the text still exist today, but are less common than they used to be.
That is one thread a scholar has followed. It does not mean every version of the rule comes from this text. But it does answer one thing: the rule has a history. Your mum did not make it up.
What do temples and Buddhist teachers say?
The most direct answer we found comes from a temple itself. In 2023 an Earth God (土地公) temple in Taiwan, 鎮轅境頂土地公廟, published a piece on its official website asking whether women can visit temples during their period. It opens with the answer:
「是可以的,無須禁忌。」
“Yes, you can. There is no need for a taboo.”
「女性月事來,一樣可以到大廟持香、佛寺禮佛,沒有禁忌。」
“When a woman has her period, she can still hold incense at a major temple and pay respects to the Buddha at a Buddhist temple. There is no taboo.”
— Official website of 鎮轅境頂土地公廟, 7 December 2023, our translation
The piece goes through the folk reasons one by one and answers each. It ends with a gentle option for anyone still uneasy: ask someone else to place the incense, or simply bow with palms together instead.
On the Buddhist side, Sheng Yen, the Taiwan-based Chan master who founded Dharma Drum Mountain, wrote this in 學佛群疑, his book of answers to common questions about Buddhist practice:
「在家的女信徒,在生理期間,不敢進入寺院禮拜,甚至不敢到佛前上香、誦經、打坐、念佛,其實這是低級鬼神的禁忌。」
“Laywomen during their period do not dare to enter a temple to bow, or even to offer incense, chant, meditate or recite the Buddha’s name before the Buddha. In fact, this is a taboo belonging to lower ghosts and spirits.”
He adds that nuns, and laywomen who live in the monastery, surrounded every day by scriptures and images, have never come to harm because of their periods.
— Sheng Yen, excerpt “Are there taboos for Buddhists at home?” from 學佛群疑, hosted by Dharma Drum Mountain Malaysia; our translation
Note what he is talking about: Buddhist temples and practice before the Buddha. When he explains the folk belief, he actually says that ancestral halls and temples devoted to gods and spirits may be a different matter. So we are not stretching his words to cover every temple, and his view is not quite the same as the Earth God temple’s above.
(For the record, Sheng Yen was also not in favour of burning joss paper. We cover that openly in Do Buddhists burn joss paper?)
The Buddhist website The Daily Enlightenment put it plainly in 2014, in a post signed Sisyphus: “Menstruation is simply a natural and vital biological process,” and “True Buddhist temples thus welcome all who are sincere.”
Do some places still keep the rule?
Yes, and it is worth saying plainly. Bryson opens her article by noting that in many religions and cultures, women who are menstruating are not allowed to enter sacred sites such as temples, or to take part in rituals.
She also describes a ritual that women perform in religious associations in Fujian, in southeast China, called “Returning to the Buddha”. Most participants have been through menopause; younger women can take part only when they are not on their period.
So the rule is not just an old story. Some places and groups really do keep it today. Every temple and group is different, and the Taiwanese temple above speaks only for itself.
If there is a sign, or the temple keeper tells you, just follow their rule. It is like taking your shoes off in someone’s home: it is respect for the host, not a sign you have done anything wrong.
What about grave visits, and burning at home?
To be honest: the temple and Buddhist sources we found are about temples, incense and prayer. On grave visits we found only one newspaper column, and on burning joss paper at home we found nothing at all.
The column is from 2018, in the Hong Kong newspaper site on.cc, by the columnist 方向宇, and its title asks, roughly, “On your period, no grave visit? Is that true?”
「其實,本來問題不大,但是,在兩種情況下應該避免」
“Actually, it was never really a problem. But there are two situations in which it is better avoided.”
— on.cc, 三界五行 column, 8 April 2018, our translation
The two situations: you believe in the rule strongly enough that going would leave you anxious, or you feel unwell (dizziness, stomach pain, back pain) and the trip could make it worse.
It is a newspaper column, not a religious authority, so we treat it as reference only. But we think both points are sensible: your body first, and your peace of mind first.
As for burning joss paper or making offerings at home, we found no source saying it should be avoided. Families do this differently, so go with your family’s habit, or just ask.
Talking to your mum, without trying to win
One thing first: this article is not ammunition. Win the argument, lose the family dinner. Not worth it.
When an older relative tells you to stay away, it is often not about control. She may have learned it the same way you did, as a rule with no reason attached, from her own mother.
- Ask what she is worried about. That you will feel unwell, or that it would be disrespectful to the gods? Those are different conversations.
- There is a middle way. The Taiwanese temple suggests it itself: someone else places the incense, or you bow with palms together. You can still go; she offers the incense and you stand beside her.
- If you cannot agree, going along with her this time is not losing. Visiting the grave a few days later, or next time, still counts.
- If she is curious herself, read what the temple and Sheng Yen say together. Together, not as proof that she was wrong.
If you are not sure how to start, something like this might help. In Cantonese, if you have it; in English, if you do not:
「阿媽,我知你係驚我有咩事。我哋一齊去,你上香,我喺隔籬合掌,好唔好?」
“Mum, I know you just don’t want anything to happen to me. How about we go together, you do the incense, and I stand next to you with my hands together?”
To be honest: this article is not from our own experience in the shop. Everything above was looked up, and the sources are named in the text. Where they disagree, we have not picked a winner.
Our order form does not ask your gender or anything about your health. If you want to go yourself, go. The point of this article is not “if it is awkward, get someone else to do it”.
What we do is the carrying out. The packet is put together at our own shop in Hong Kong and taken to the 化寶爐, the burner where offerings are burned. On ordinary days it is usually burned within three days once your payment is confirmed (festivals excepted). Each day, sometime between 3 and 6 pm Hong Kong time (UTC+8), the shop makes one trip to the burner with that day’s packets: one batch a day. All of this is how the work is arranged. None of it is a promise of any effect.
Going anyway, going another day, standing beside her with your hands together, letting a relative offer the incense: people choose all of these. The fact that you are thinking this hard about it already says a lot about how much you care.
If this would help
If this year you are overseas and cannot get to the grave, and you would still like to do something for your ancestors: we can burn an offering packet for you in Hong Kong. It is not necessary, just one more option.
See the offering packets