Rev. Danny Fisher

If you read the New York Times today, you may have noticed this story about the cleansing rituals that precede celebrations of the Lunar New Year at the American Society of Buddhist Studies in Chinatown. While I was in Taiwan last month, I got to see something like this at Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung. With the photographs and video I shot, I put together the shortest of short films about the touch-up that happens at the Great Compassion Shrine there. You can watch it here (below), at iTunes, at Switchpod, or at YouTube.

Xin Nian Hao!

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!

Today is both the Tibetan and the Chinese Lunar New Year. This year, 2008, is the Year of the Earth Rat (or Mouse, if you prefer). I celebrated the occasion by attending Shambhala Day festivities at the New Haven Shambhala Center. (The main shrine is pictured to the left.)

The flyer for the center’s celebration explains:

Shambhala Day marks the beginning of the New Year, and represents one of the most important traditions of Shambhala Buddhism. Based on the traditional Tibetan New Year’s celebration of Losar, the day is calculated astrologically according to the Tibetan lunar calendar, and changes every year to coincide with the annual lunar cycles. Shambhala Day is a time for us to express the wealth and richness of our spiritual and cultural heritage through feasting, conviviality, elegance and pomp.

Those expressions included recitation of the Sādhanā of Mahāmudrā, sitting practice, and listening to a live broadcast of the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche‘s international address.

It was a wonderful celebration and I’m so glad to have gone. If you’re ever in the New Haven area, you should stop by the center. It’s a lovely place to practice.

Cheerful Shambhala Day!