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Losar 2020, Lunar New Year – Year of the Rat

Dear Friends of WBC, 

Monday February 24, 2020 is the first day of the new lunar year in the cosmological system followed by Tibetan Buddhists, and is called Losar. The coming year will be the Year of the Iron Rat*. Westchester Buddhist Center will celebrate Losar as a community on Sunday, February 23, 2020 at Eileen Fisher headquarters. Losar each year is also when we celebrate the founding of WBC – this Losar completes our eleventh year! 

We warmly invite you to join us for this joyful celebration! 

In the morning we will have our usual program, starting at 10:00 am with meditation and then a dharma talk. This Sunday’s talk will be by Senior Teacher and Co-Founder Jane Kolleeny on “Loving Kindness: Our Intrinsic Capacity to Care,” which we hope will become a common theme for people all around the world throughout the year, and beyond! 

Then our New Year’s festivities start at 12:00 noon with a delicious buffet lunch from Irvington’s Chutney Masala restaurant, followed by offerings of poetry, music and toasts! We will conclude with the practice of the Sadhana of Mahamudra**. 

Short offerings of music or poetry are welcome! Please contact Rose Rothe at rose.rothe@gmail.com to sign up for that. 

Please come for any part of the day-but at least come for the lunch! Bring your family and friends – the lunch is a wonderful opportunity to introduce them to our community. 

We look forward to seeing you there! 
The Westchester Buddhist Center Family 

*The rat is the first animal of the zodiac and is associated with wealth and surplus. People born in a Year of the Rat are said to be industrious and thrifty (although a few may push that so far as to be hoarders), as well as likeable, intuitive and positive. 

**The Sadhana of Mahamudra is a practice shared by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche shortly after he began teaching in the West. It is a complex practice that includes a chanted liturgy, visualization, mantra, and periods of formless meditation. It underscores the profound simplicity of the dharma, and helps practitioners steer a middle path between the extremes of empty intellectualism and blind devotion to protocol. The Sadhana offers an opportunity for everyone to experience the feeling and texture of Vajrayana, or tantric, practice. Copies of the Sadhana text will be provided; but if you have your own copy, please bring it.

Donations welcomed, but not required.