1st day of Fire Horse year

Today is the first day of the lunar New Year, popularly referred to as Chinese New Year, although it is as well the Vietnamese New Year Tet and the Korean New Year Seollal.

Across Asia and Asian communities worldwide, this is a time of celebration.

It’s also called Chun Jie or Spring Festival in China, although it’s really not quite spring yet, as the winter cold still prevails and could last until the third month, until the spring equinox.

Last night’s feasting, fireworks and festivities carry over into today. The crashing cymbals and throbbing drumbeats echo throughout Binondo, the world’s oldest Chinatown, and beyond, as lions and dragons prance along streets and inside buildings, spreading good cheer and, many believe, good fortune, bringing prosperity for the new year.

You’ve probably by now consulted your trusted geomancer – or at least read up on predictions – about what’s in store for you in this Year of the Fire Horse, had your fill of tikoy and hopefully received your angpao.

Let me add then my good wishes – gong xi fa chai, xin nian kwai leh, wan shr ru yi! Happy New Year, and may all things be as you intend.

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Over the past week I’ve been trying to keep my head above the toxic waters around us, what with word wars, impeachments, never-ending corruption, etc etc. The decibels in the word war between spoxes keep rising, the animosity spilling over into other areas, such that the local officials (16 of them) of Kalayaan municipality on Pag-asa island (population: over 300) have achieved diplomatic notoriety, having been declared persona non grata by China, in retaliation for their having declared the Chinese ambassador as such. The mayor of Kalayaan said he has no intentions of visiting China anyway, as I presume the Chinese ambassador has no plans of visiting Kalayaan either.

With the detritus of the past year unfortunately carrying over into the new year, I find hope in and inspiration from the group of Buddhist monks who undertook a 108-day, 3,700-kilometer Walk for Peace from Texas to Washington. The walk was especially difficult due to the unusually harsh winter that hit the southern US states.

Bundled up in saffron and maroon robes, with scarves and beanies to protect against the biting cold, the group of over a dozen monks and a dog named Aloka (meaning light in Sanskrit) set out from Fort Worth, Texas in October, making stops along the way at places of worship, government buildings and hotels, at each stop delivering a simple message of peace amidst the turmoil in the US and in the world and an invitation to slow down and “let go of everything.” (The return trip to their monastery in Fort Worth was easier; they chartered a bus.)

Their message certainly resonated, judging from the large crowds that braved the harsh weather to come out to see, meet and hear the monks along their circuitous route through eight states. “Do you see the mess the world is in?” The New York Times quoted a woman who traveled by train to meet the group in Virginia. “It’s God trying to get his people in order,” said another, acknowledging that though she is Christian and they are Buddhist, “it adds up to the same thing.”

At the culmination of the Walk for Peace in DC last Tuesday, an interfaith celebration was held at the National Cathedral, attended by leaders of different faiths gathered for the same mission – peace.

Speaking before thousands, the group’s leader Bhikkhu Pannakara spoke of mindfulness as the key to unlocking peace. He led the crowd in an exercise on mindfulness – in silence, with hand over heart, focusing, feeling and being mindful of each heartbeat. He said we must put effort into practising mindfulness; it may take “seven days or seven months or seven years or even the rest of your life, but every step is a mindful step.”

His call to mindfulness reminds me of Henry David Thoreau’s credo expressed in “Walden Pond,” a favorite part of my American literature class at UP many years ago: “…to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach.”

Peace, Bhikkhu said, is something we’ve been looking for for so long and we still can’t find it. We put it in a box, lock it and put it away somewhere. “Peace is inside,” he said, “not something coming from outside.” And it is “your duty to find it, unlock it – only you can do it.” And the key to unlock this box? Mindfulness.

He had some sound advice, two of which stuck with me. “Every day when you wake up, don’t touch your phone; make your bed nice and neat,” he said, as his listeners both laughed and groaned. Then, take paper and pen and write down, “Today is going to be my peaceful day” – write it, read it, say it aloud.

His other admonition is very apropos for what is happening here and now: “We always react when somebody says something, we react right away and that is when we suffer… One word, one minor thing, makes us burn up…” With one unwholesome thought or unmindful word, we can unleash “all kinds of wild animals” inside us, consequently hurting not just others, but ourselves. His advice: only react with kindness – “smile, and walk away.”

In his Lenten message, Pope Leo likewise urged “disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgment… refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor…”

Wise words for these unmindful times.