New Year’s Eve Dharma Function

There is a saying from ancient China: “Thoughts of the loved ones, from festival to the next”, there are many people who work and study abroad and not have the chance to be with family this Chinese New Year. In order to let these people have a homely Chinese New Year, Fo Guang Shan South Island organised a Chinese New Year Cultural Festival, starting from the Eve of Chinese New Year with the “First Incense Service”, Homage to the thousand Buddha Dharma function, and a Light Offering Dharma function on the second day of New Year. On the evening of 2nd February, Venerable Juexi and Venerable Miaoyu led 100 devotees in the Buddha Hall for the evening service.

Venerable Juexi mentioned that in the New Year, she hopes that everyone can aim to live out the “Three Goodness” in their daily lives, at the same time allowing one to gain more wisdom, good fortune and affinities.
As the final hours of 2010 passed, there was a great line in the Buddha Hall to offer their first incense of the year, filling the hall with light and incense aroma which everyone experienced as the atmosphere of Chinese New Year. The devotees also had the opportunity to strike the prayer gong and to get a small Dharma Scroll containing a phrase of wisdom as well as writing down their New Year’s wish before hanging it on the wishing tree. The venerables also helped decipher the Dharma scrolls and used Buddhist principles to help devotees solve problems and answer questions that evening. The whole end of 2010 celebration lasted until 2am that evening, the devotees all returned home with a content heart and full anticipation of a whole new year.