Special Topics / Spring Festival Series / Chinese New Year Greetings
Making New Year’s visits is a traditional custom of the Chinese New Year. It is a way for people to exchange greetings and offer well-wishing to one another during the holiday. In fact, the original meaning of Chinese New Year is that it is a blessed time in which people should pay respects and offer their best wishes to one another.
During Chinese New Year, when making traditional visits -- between children and elderly, between relatives, and between friends -- celebrants typically exchange some traditional blessings and wishes such as “good fortune!” “may everything go your way,” “Happy New Year!” and “I wish your family happiness and good health.” These words represent the perennial wish for others to begin the year well and to have good fortune in things to come.
During the Chinese New Year, Dharma Drum Mountain World Center for Buddhist Education welcomes the public to a visit with the abbot president of DDM, inviting them to make New Year’s greetings and to hear the abbot speak. Through the New Year convocation and blessings of the abbot president, the DDM sangha hopes to inspire the practice of compassion and wisdom in the coming New Year, and encourage the use of Dharma in calming our minds.
Translator: Frances Liu (劉珮如)
Editor: Matthew Stoia