By the same token, monasteries do not sell recordings of the special music used to help hungry ghosts cross the threshold from hell during Ghost Month, the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Playing such music at random could well result in hungry ghosts emerging from hell only to find that no food and alms await them-thus defeating the charitable object of the exercise and pointlessly bothering the ghosts.
對於一般在家居士，經常在鬼月用來普渡售鬼的「焰口音樂」，師父也不會製成錄音帶販賣，因為如果隨意播放請來了餓鬼，卻不懂得施食，不僅失去焰口儀式慈悲施食的精神，反而是無故地捉弄了餓鬼一番，失去了原本慈悲救渡的意義。