Happy 2021! Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!
New Year is celebrated all over the world with much pomp and splendor. The countdown at Time Square in New York is a big deal and I heard that people gather there from the morning to wait to witness the lighted ball to drop from the top of a building. Fireworks is a favored extravagance in the name of new year celebrations and in some cases, serve as a kind of competition between communities and countries. Today I would like to give you a look into how new year is celebrated in monastery I am from.
Back in monastery, we celebrate the Tibetan new year called Losar (Lo-year Sar-new). There is no reunion dinner on new year’s eve nor are there fireworks at midnight. New Year’s Eve means a lot of preparatory work. Offerings need to be set up beautifully on the altar and this includes the “CheMar”, a mixture of tsampa (roasted barley flour), sugar and butter, nicely piled in a shape of a pyramid in a traditional wooden rectangular box container. “DherKha”, a pile of huge Tibetan snack (which looks like a donkey’s ear called BongBui Amchok) is another special offering at Losar. Arranging these offerings is not an easy task. It requires creativity, concerted effort and perseverance.
New Year’s day at the monastery means an early start. A bell is rung at 3.30am to call the monks for prayer session at the respective khangtsens (monastic residences) and the session lasts until 5:30am. Monks begin by making prostrations and khata (traditional white scarf) to the holy images at the altar. The main prayer is that of Palden Lhamo protector puja, followed by another short prayer session at the monastery’s main prayer hall. It is tradition to greet everyone at new year’s with “Tashi Delek”. However, the funny thing is that it has become a kind of a shouting game. People simply shout “Tashi Delek” into the air, without addressing it to anyone in particular. One would then hear a response from another direction. The yelling starts around 3am and this continues throughout the morning!
The first day of the Losar is known as Lama Losar and it’s the day to pay respect to one’s teachers (Lamas). At Loselling Monastery, there is the tradition of monks visiting all the Rinpoches in the monastery, some out of respect and others for some fun. For hours, an endless stream of monks with khata in their hands will swarm into the residences of Rinpoches. Some young monks would have visited over 30 houses over the course of the morning and would have collected over 30 toffees, as a tray of toffees is usually offered at each residence. All that time, the shouting Tashi Delek continues unceasingly and if there were physical forms to these yelling, it would have filled up the sky. As the time approaches 10am, the number of monks visiting lamas will dwindle. Soon the lunch gong will be struck, signaling the conclusion of the formal Losar celebration.
You can see from this that new year’s day at the monastery begins with prayers that include requesting Dharma protectors to help remove obstacles to Dharma endeavours and help create conducive conditions for meaningful practices. Of course, such requests should arise from the understanding of the importance of dharma practice and one’s determination to engage in it diligently in the coming year. In that sense, it is akin to a new year’s resolution. I personally believe that the new year period is a time for reflection on the past year, recognize personal actions that have not been helpful and resolve to do better. Hence, I feel a new year’s resolution can be helpful. Research in psychology suggests goals are beneficial to one’s personal development and that goal should be something specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and a time bound (SMART). Applied to Dharma practice, a SMART goal could be for instance, resolving to prostrate 3 times daily for a certain number of months or for the whole year or spending 5 minutes each day on meditation for 6 months. These are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-specific. I encourage you all to adopt such a resolution, a SMART goal for the coming new year and together we will examine its impact on your life at the end of 2021!
Wishing you all a great year ahead that is filled with happiness and success in all your conventional and spiritual endeavors.
