This last Sunday was Valentine's Day, and it was also Chinese New Year.
I found myself at a New Year's celebration in Flushing, Queens, the town I always joke is named after me (The English called it Flushing, but it was founded by the Dutch as Vlissingen), the birthplace of American ideals of religious freedom (see Remonstrance of Flushing). The event was held at a temple, the Happy Buddha Precious Temple, devoted to the cultivation of the Dao, our true nature, our true Self. This is an outpost of a global movement which was founded some sixty years ago, but claims roots in the oldest Chinese wisdom traditions of Daoism and Confucianism, while also integrating Buddhism and the understanding that Jesus was an enlightened teacher like Buddha. It is an interesting movement, which takes an a-religious posture, although it does incorporate some ritual, but in essence it sees the Dao as the most abstract vision of the Source of all Being, and hence their movement as the root of all religious traditions, so that their view is that their system of belief does not need to conflict with any particular religion you think you belong to. In other words, there is an interesting sort of tolerance here, and an expression of the one behind the many.
I was fortunate to participate in their rite of the transmission of the Dao, which they equate to the opening of the wisdom eye. It was very simple and beautiful, and the old gentleman who performed the ritual was excited to learn that I had been a student of Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching ever since I was about ten or eleven years old. As it was my acquaintance with Chinese culture started with the discovery of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee series, and then after that I got interested in playing Go, (Chinese Checkers, as van Gulik calls it in the books), and gradually also in Lao Tzu, and to a lesser degree in Confucius. Over the years it always seemed to me that Kung Fu Tze was to Lao Tzu as Aristotle was to Plato in the West. In any case the old gentleman immediately speculated that maybe this rite would be a reunion with my old teacher Lao Tzu for me, and that was surely what it felt like, and in a funny way it was yet another circle closing in my life, for Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Quan Yin, and Jesus are really all one. Much like the Thomas Gospel the Tao Teh Ching has this quality of being more an invitation to the contemplation and the pursuit of truth, much more than being prescriptive or concerned with form. Of course Lao Tzu, just like Jesus or the Buddha did not found a religion, that's just what the followers made of it.
Along with the ceremony, which was optional, there was also a lovely New Year's meal, where all the members of the community prepared a dish.
All in all, this was a beautiful way of celebrating the Chinese New Year, and a new year in general, reminding me to recommit myself daily to the Course's notion of: Make this year different by making it all the same.
This is the time in which a new year will soon be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy. Say, then, to your brother:
I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself.
In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because I recognize that we will be released together.
So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen. (ACIM:T15-XI.10)
See here for a video commentary to the above passage by Kenneth Wapnick:
http://youtu.be/KFNCHw_Hb5Q
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