It’s the Year of the Dragon, and people can expect a lot of good fortune — but only if they’re harnessing the animal’s most important quality: compassion.
Lunar New Year — which includes Chinese New Year, Seollal in Korea, Tet in Vietnam and more — will begin Feb. 10, kicking off more than two weeks of festivities, customs and plenty of feasts. It celebrates the arrival of spring and the start of a fresh year based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar.
The upcoming year’s dragon sign is perhaps the most popular zodiac creature, associated with a host of positive qualities such as nobility, wealth and wisdom.
The year’s dragon sign is, more specifically, a wood dragon. The element of wood is seen in Daoist tradition as a return to the natural state of being, which in the dragon’s case, points to a return to kindness. And Confucian thought interprets wood as a symbol of unlimited potential.
“I’m seeing this wood Dragon year as a year of unlimited potential in terms of prosperity. Long-term, it could also be the year in which major conflict can be resolved, if people can focus on empathy,” said Jonathan H. X. Lee, a professor of Chinese folklore and religion at San Francisco State University. “If we continue our tribal thinking and selfish thinking, we’re not going to achieve it.”
With ongoing wars across the globe and with the United States in an election year, he said, it’s important to approach contentious discussions in good faith.
“This comes from the teachings of Taoism, as well as Buddhism and Confucianism. Violence and conflict erupt and grow and fester and get even worse because of the ego,” Lee said. “If there is any kind of conflict, one is to suspend the ego and be reflective and introspective.”
According to Chinese folklore, the dragon was one of 12 animals that raced to the Jade Emperor in a competition that would determine the order of the zodiac signs. While flying overhead, it had noticed that the rabbit, a…
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