Happy New Year

It is the new year’s day of 2007. Everyone has more or less forms of celebration on this day. Travelling, climbing mountains, walking in the bush, reading books, eating or even sleeping are just a few examples of the New Year holiday activities. To me, I use of this time to write a blog posting as my form of celebrating the start of the New Year.

I have wished my families, relatives and friends a Happy New Year annually for at least 50 times since I had memory about everyday life. Chinese celebrates Lunar New Year which is about one month following the New Year of the solar calendar. To a child of my generation, New Year is an exciting day for many reasons. New clothing, big feast, toys, money given in a read envelope and a lot of social activities such as dragon dance, lion dance, fire works, parade of various performing groups. Children could be looking forward to the New Year’s arrival a few weeks earlier. I remembered that each time before the New Year arrived; I vowed to hold on it and would never loose it. But, after a few years of life experience, I finally realised that New Year is never in our control, it slips away and it sneaks in quietly and stubbornly.

While New Year is an eagerly desired holiday to children, it is rather an unwelcome event to adults of different mind sets because its arrival reminds them that they are one year older. Examples of people having this kind of feeling are such as entertainers, stage performers, good looking women, the elderly and etc. To them, the arrival of New Year means their enjoyable life has been deducted by one year.

Why do people have such different feeling about New Year, the feeling about time? Buddha points out that it is because of our minds craving for the pleasant objects, and this results in the feeling of loss. The feeling about time is actually an unreal phenomenon. In the Mind Sutra: “When in a meditation of deep wisdom, Boddhisatva witnessed that the cores of the five sensory mechanisms were of emptiness.” So if one can harness his mind effectively, one can maintain a genuine peace of mind. This mind state can be achieved by doing the appropriate meditation practice according to the self nature of each individual. Many highly experienced meditation practitioners in the world can witness this true fact about mind.
In reflection of feelings about New Year, I now feel that the meaning of my New Year’s wishes toward my dear family, relatives, friends is not just the worldly blessing but also the understanding of the nature of mind.