A Side Note About Some Traditions📌 – Feb 12: Updated With A Comment

It’s closer to the Lunar New Year, some people who are in a broader sense kind of like Buddhists or Taoists may have questions about traditions, I think it’s totally up to you.  If you insist on my answer, I think some small incense sticks(“香”) or candles/lights are good enough.

If you really like to do something more on a special occasion or a holiday and convenience at home, small amounts of bread(either eastern style or western style is good), or fruits, or tiny cups of rice wine/white grape wine(to refer to GOD Michael/God of harvest; Rice harvesting is important in the east historically; It doesn’t mean to encourage drinking.), usually odd number of cups, e.g 1, 3 , or a cup of water, or vegetarian food, e.g. vegetarian dian sum, etc are all good to be put in front of an altar if you have one, or put on a separate table. Usually these foods are thought to be blessed by the gods, the tradition is to consume these foods after praying, along with your other food e.g meat if you are meat eater in the feast. (GOD Michael confirmed that standing or sitting to pray is good; If you really like to kneel, it’s ok too. )

After your prayer, you can pour the tiny cups of rice wine/white grape wine to the ground or a floor like container to indicate paying homage to GOD Micheal/Amitabh/Yuanshi Tian Zun or others, depending on who you are praying to. Chinese have the tradition of using wine to honor their gods. (“以酒敬神“; Also, the Chinese character “blessing” (“福”)， on the left side of the word “礻” contains a column altar/a torch with a flame above and the “八“ portion means two hands are holding up the torch; on the right side The “一“  means “Taiyi”, “The Infinite One” and “The Law of One”; “口“ was round shape in ancient time, indicates a sun. “田“ was a wine vase in ancient time form of writing. The word is to indicate honoring/worshiping GOD Michael/Taiyi and the blessing coming from GOD Michael. Putting the word “福” upright is good. ）

Many people mix praying to the Buddha/gods with praying to their ancestors, which I think there’s some historical distortion because people didn’t know who Amitabha/Tian Zun/Taiyi was for a long time. 

To pray to your ancestors, it would be proper to separate them in your procedures. For example, many Chinese people may like to pray to the gods and their ancestors (most ancestors don’t have gods’ abilities) on the Lunar New Year’s Eve before a meal, you can pray to Amitabha/GOD Michael, or other gods first. After everyone in your family finishes their prayer, you can wait till the one round of incense sticks and candles finish burning, then light up another round to start to pray to your ancestors. In general, it’s good to choose another time/date to pray to your ancestors.

Feb 3, 2026

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Below is a picture of two older forms of the Chinese word “福“（Blessing)