Respecting a Thousand Buddhas Service and Vegetarian Food Fair

Happy Lunar New Year!
2010 is the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese calendar. Fo Guang Shan Temple (North Island) celebrated the first day of the Lunar New Year by holding a Service, ’Respecting a Thousand Buddhas’. Venerable Abbess Manshin presided over the ceremony and led the devotees to recite ‘A prayer for the New Year’ written by Venerable Master Hsing Yun
Hon Pansy Wong (Minister for Ethnic Affairs, Minister of Women's Affairs, Associate Minister for ACC, Associate Minister of Energy and Resources and Associate Minister for Disability Issues); WTV Chairman Mr Gary Chang and his wife; Head of Department of New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (Division of People’s Republic of China) Chu Kefeng; BLIA advisers and many others attended the service.
The Abbess encouraged everyone to cultivate compassion, kindness, joy, giving and endurance and hoped that everyone would learn the Buddha’s virtues and deal with life’s challenges with wisdom. Everyone who attended the service felt refreshed and recharged hoping that there will be a wonderful year ahead during which they can continue to contribute to the society.
Vegetarian and cultural stalls were set up in the courtyard and corridor in front of Field of Merit. The vegetarian stalls offered a wide range of delicious Malaysian and Taiwanese vegetarian delicacies and the cultural stalls offered Chinese calligraphy, inscription of Dharma words and New Year souvenirs. The volunteers on the stalls were very busy as the first day of Lunar New Year and attracted over 5000 visitors and devotees to the Temple.