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| Lunar New Year 2010 – Message from Bhante
As you celebrate this festive season of the Lunar New Year, please find some time to sit back, relax and reflect on the significance of longevity, happiness and prosperity – for that is what you will be wishing one another.
Longevity provides us with the opportunity to fulfil our worldly duties and responsibilities. It allows us to develop our full potential to liberate ourselves from all the suffering and entanglements of life and to be of service to humanity.
Longevity enables us to watch the unfolding of the true nature of life - of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self - as we watch our young ones shine and our elders age and fade away.
Contemplating thus, ask yourselves what you have done over the past year(s)? Have you used this precious human life fruitfully? Are you growing older with maturity and wisdom, with patience and tolerance?
Is the tendency of attachment and aversion, expressed in your daily life as likes and dislikes, becoming less and less?
Has the process of ageing made you more generous, compassionate and understanding, and more and more able to let go of things? If so, well done! Keep it up! Otherwise, please resolve to work harder – to practise the Dhamma with greater effort, mindfulness and sincerity.
A sincere effort must be made to cultivate spiritual values such as loving- kindness and compassion, reverence, humility, contentment, gratitude and so on, so as to equip yourself to face the challenges of life as we live through these times of great change and uncertainty.
As we grow in wisdom and compassion, happiness and prosperity will follow.
I wish you all a long, healthy and happy life.
May this Year of the Tiger continue to support you all in your Dhamma practice.
Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year.
PS. According to Chinese astrology, Tigers are associated with good fortune, power and royalty. They are also looked to for protection and wisdom. Though fierce by nature, they can be tamed with a calm and truthful mind and a soft and gentle heart. Once tamed, they will learn to bow and usher you into a year of protection and good fortune.
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