First I would like to welcome all of you to this Chinese New Year gathering of buddhists in northern states. It is very auspicious that we can gather here to celebrate Chinese New Year together.

During Chinese New Year, we always wish each other ‘happy new year' while community and political leaders made wishes for peace, harmony and prosperity.

Last year we wished for peace and prosperity but we had the Iraq war and SARS epidemic. So what went wrong?!

We wished for happiness for ourselves on the other hand some ignorant people consider eating exotic animal meat to be an enjoyment. The Iraq war was fought due to the greed, anger and ignorance of the leaders on both sides. Not only the innocent on both sides lost their lives and underwent miseries but the economy of the whole world was affected.

So we cannot just wish for peace but plant the cause(s) for conflicts.

I was in new york up-country on september 11, 2001. The subsequent wars in afghanistan and Iraq were fought with hatred and the motive being revenge. The world did not get closer to a peaceful solution. We cannot blame all muslims for the craziness of a small group of muslim extremists; similarly, we cannot blame americans for the decisions of a few top american politicians. In this globalized world, we need mutual understanding, tolerance and respect. Closer home, we cannot pretend that the different races and people of different religious faiths are more tolerant of each other than when we first gained independence.

Now that buddhists are here together celebrating Chinese New Year, I wish to appeal to all of you to try to understand the various religions other than buddhism. If you do that, your appreciation for the Buddha's teachings will even be greater. Let all the participating organizations here also get together to organize an inter-religious dialogue sometime this year as our action towards understanding other great religions of the world.

Let us continue to plant cause(s) for peace and happiness in the country and the world. This is the purpose of our next short prayer session.