Orange County: Tet Festival 2013 (video)

Nguyen, Seven, Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Orange County's Tet celebration welcomes the Year of the Snake (magnumasi.com)

 

Big belly Budai (Tanignak.com)

Tet, or Tet Nguyen Dan, is the Buddhist Vietnamese lunar New Year. It is celebrated from Saigon to Westminster.
   
English translation: "Feast of the First Morning." Celebrated this year in February according to the solar calendar, the upcoming Tet Festival will feature Old World traditions with additions to welcome the arrival of a new era. It is a manifestation of respect for family and ancestors.

Because it falls on Day One of Month One on the Chinese calendar, it is often celebrated in conjunction with Chinese New Year. Tet 2013 is a five-day celebration that begins on Feb. 9 and culminates with a massive festival on Feb. 14th (Valentine's Day). But the actual New Year begins on the 10th.

 

Tet is an enormous Vietnamese celebration compared to other cultures. It is preceded by weeks of preparation that commonly includes house cleaning and painting.

Cultural crossroads: Snapshots of Tet 2012 in the O.C.

There is a Vietnamese belief that loud noise wards off bad luck, so fireworks and gongs are rung and set off all night.

There are parades, featuring traditional lion and dragon dances and family feasts. Inviting ancestors who have passed on to join in the celebration is common; special ceremonies and rituals are involved.

 

Traditional food served on Tet consists of Vietnamese delicacies like sticky rice dumplings called banh chung, roasted watermelon seeds, pickled onions, and a wide variety of dried and sweetened fruit. At the end of Tet Nguyen Dan, elders hand out envelopes full of money to children both to reward good behavior and as a symbol of good luck.

 

Tet 2013 will celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Snake [like the Mesoamerican naga Quetzalcoatl], following the close of the Year of the Dragon and preceding the Year of the Horse. It is a traditional celebration full of joy remembering and showing respect to loved ones who have gone before.

• VIDEO: US War on Vietnam, "Tet Offensive"
• How to make a Tet Dragon (eHow.com)
• Thich Nhat Hanh Dharma talks: recent talks given by Thay from around the world with music and poetry for Tet.

Read More

Meditating-in the New Year (video)

Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

Buddha under a fiery Bodhi tree as Mara and yakkhas attack (manicksorcar.com)

Buddhist New Year's celebration with shamans in Far East Russian Buryatia (Sky News)
   

Bye-bye 2012 mudra

To meditate or ring in the New Year? Dating a person from Asia, I learned a momentous thing: I was assured that it is a well known and ancient belief that what one does on New Year's Day that is what one will be doing for the year. It makes sense.

 

We're always trying to be happy. So we try to be happiest on New Year's eve. But what we think is happy is sometimes nothing more than excess and avoiding. What if there were a way to meditate-in the New Year?

Bangkok (torchrelay.beijing2008.cn)

There is. Los Angeles has three specific opportunities and an uncounted number of US temples that will be visited tonight and tomorrow morning.

SHAMBHALA will hold an open sit from 4:00 pm to midnight. It's not eight hours of straight sitting. There's a celebratory dinner, a video by the "Sakyan" (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's son and heir), walking, and lots of socializing.

AGAINST THE STREAM is following tradition with its New Year's eve "Intention Setting" ceremony. It begins in Santa Monica, ends early, and is repeated in Hollywood on Melrose, which goes into the New Year. There are helicopters, gunfire, fireworks, and a humorous stream of intentions said aloud as candles are lit and Noah Levine gives an encouraging talk.

SELF REALIZATION FELLOWSHIP also holds its annual welcoming the New Year meditation in Glendale in honor of founder Pramahansa Yogananda, Babajii, and the saints of all religions.

• Transformational Speakers (Season 8, The Aware Show)

Read More

Judaism: Happy New Year!

S. Mendelson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly
Family Guy's Seth Macfarlane wows national "SNL" audience

It's not easy being Jewish, feeling a lot of animosity because of everything the New Israel does and the residual racism outside of cosmopolitan areas in the country. It's just a cultural identity, not so much a religion for most younger Jews. When we want spirituality, Buddhism looks the most attractive Why would that be?

One supposes that there's something in the genetic memory or implicit cultural awareness of there being Jews in Himalayan India where Jesus and other Jewish travelers went due to there being a large trading settlement there (see Holger Kersten). The similarities between Mahayana Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity are stunning -- a messiah (Maitreya), one GOD (impersonal Brahman) that encompasses all the gods (personal heavenly/space visitors) who get worshipped separately as if they were One but with different names and attributes. 

What is there to say about Rosh Hashanah? Nothing other than to point out how far the Gentiles have taken Jewish lore and practice and made it completely other in the name of one mushroom figure. Happy New Year.

• THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSS

Pro-Israel and pro-peace, is it possible? J Street thinks so.

Read More