Chinese / Vietnamese New Year Sun 22 February at Dhammagiri | Light Offering Ceremony, Blessings & Dhamma Quotes

The year of the horse arrives on 17/02 in the Chinese, Vietnamese and other Asian traditions following the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival. We will celebrate here at Dhammagiri on Sunday 22/02/2026 with auspicious meal offering, light offering ceremony, blessings and distribution of short Dhamma quotes.

🐎 🔥 🐴 🏮 🐎 🔥 🐴 🏮 🐎 🔥 🐴

Lunar New Year / Spring Festival

at Dhammagiri Sunday 22 February

Auspicious meal offering, light offering ceremony, blessings and distribution of short Dhamma quotes.

09.30 am

Morning Chanting, Triple Refuge

& Determining 5 Precepts for Good Fortune & Safety in the Year of the Horse

(This part of the program is meant for those who aspire to observe the 5 precepts throughout the new year,

and wish to make a genuine commitment.)

10.00 am

Preparation of food for Almsoffering

10.30 am

New Year Auspicious Almsoffering,

Almsround, Anumodanā & Shared Meal

11.50 am

• Short Dhamma Advice for the New Year

• Light Offering Ceremony: Monks pass lights to Laity, who hold them during Blessing

• Requesting the Sangha to Share Blessings with Paritta Chanting

• Invitation to Devatā

• Auspicious Blessings for Protection & Good Fortune (Paritta)

• Laity Offer Lights on Shrine to Triple Gem

• Sangha Distributes Auspicious Dhamma Quotes

01.00 pm

End of New Year Program

Break

03:00 pm

Evening Chanting

Guided / Silent Meditation

& Short Dhamma Reflection

05.00 pm

End of program

🐎 🔥 🐴 🏮 🐎 🔥 🐴 🏮 🐎 🔥 🐴

This is actually the year of the Fire Horse, and having been born in the last year of the🔥🐎 60 years ago, I'm looking forward to welcome exiting times

(fire-horse-years do not have a reputation of being boring 😉).

Please don't be afraid of the year  fire🔥horse 🐴, horses can be very sweet if treated correctly.

Similarly, if we avoid making bad karma and keep our 5 precepts very pure;

and accumulate lots of good karma through generosity, kindness and compassion;

and have confidence in the Triple Gem, rebirth and the efficacy of karma;

then we don't have to fear anything, we can live confidently without any need to rely on 'auspicious objects', horoscopes, fortune telling and so on, instead we rely on karma and the Triple Gem.

What's called 'bad luck' or 'good fortune' is not happening to us by chance. It is simply the result of karma, the result of our own intentional actions.

We ourselves create our future by the actions we're doing, we don't have to rely on anything externally, we simply rely on our own actions.

By the way, Ajahn Chah was also born in the year of the horse in 1918.

And Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo was born in the year of the fire🔥horse 🐴 1906.

Ajahn Lee's Autobiography actually reads like one would imagine the life of someone born in the 🔥🐎 year.

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Luang Por Sumedho feeding our agisted horses at Dhammagiri 2016