Happy New Year

Chinese New Year is not, strictly speaking, a Buddhist holiday. However, Chinese Buddhists do begin the New Year with religious observation.

In today's New York Times,  Ann Farmer describes New Year activities at a Chinatown temple.  Nuns and volunteers at the American Society for Buddhist Studies in Manhattan cleaned every inch of their temple. They also prepared vegetarian food for the huge numbers of people who will come to the temple today to offer incense and prayers for the coming year.

Farmer writes that "people stand in line for hours in the cold," to enter the temple, "bowing first to the plump Buddha that sits at the entrance surrounded by glowing candles and offerings of oranges."

This is also the beginning of the New Year for Vietnamese, Koreans, and Tibetans.

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