Monks dressed as Tibetan Buddhist Characters in the village ༄༅།།ལོ་གསར་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ། (Happy New Year)!
I am writing you all today with an abundant amount of Sukha; bliss, ease and pleasure. Ahhhhhh (that is me taking my breath full of life, spiritual energy and bliss). As many of us know, the Buddha catalogued diverse types of mental happiness that can be achieved throughout each lifetime. For example, there is the happiness of sense pleasures and that of renunciation, happiness without attachments and taints, spiritual and worldly happiness, the happiness of concentration, among many others. Due to the most principal celebration in Tibet, Losar, I can wholeheartedly pronounce that I feel niramisaukha (spiritual happiness). Every single moment of the rituals that has surpassed thus far has changed a part of my spiritual experience and ultimately, my spiritual identity. It is for this reason that I would love to share the Losar this year through my lens. I hope that the rest of you were able to reap such benefits from this joyous experience.
Obviously, the Losar festival is said to last fifteen days but the first three days are the most important. On the first day, celebrations are typically restricted only to individual families and lama-student relationships, and the second and third days are open for visits and exchanging of gifts to those people outside of the individual families. These can include friends, neighbours and more distant relatives. During the last two days of the festival, it is also time for Tibetans to visit the monasteries in their village, and make offerings to deities and the monastic community, known as dana. Most notably, all activities that take place for the Losar symbolize the importance of purification and welcoming the new, whether it be a new path, a new life, a new spiritual relationship etc. In our village, all of the buildings are usually cleaned inside and out and whitewashed. All the people wear entirely new clothes that they have specially prepared for the Losar and special food is made in advance. All of our rituals are performed with the purpose of driving away any evil spirits. The ceremonies represent an internal and external struggle for each Tibetan Buddhist between the good and evil surrounding them and within themselves. Buddhist monks in our village conduct ceremonies constantly throughout the Losar that are open to the public and all of the monasteries are embellished with the finest decorations known to Tibetans. I am not sure if any of you were able to make it out to the Pemakochung Monastery, where I currently reside, but it was absolutely breathtaking. Below are images of the Pemakochung Monastery, both inside and out, in case you were unable to make it to a ceremony.
Pemakochung Monastery during Losar Lay community and Monks celebrating Losar outside the Pemakochung Monastery Now, I want to take you all through each specific day; a day in the eyes of Dainin Daeshim is what I’d like to call it. For me, the first day of Gutor (lama losar) was spent completing my entire house cleaning in the monastery. Since the kitchen is used to prepare all of the food for the monks, it is the most important component of the monastery. For that reason, it was the first to be cleaned. After the kitchen was cleaned, special dishes were made for the monks and myself. I found myself around the kitchen a lot through this process since the odor of the freshly made food was inescapable. I witnessed a soup being made with small dumplings, meat, wheat, rice, sweet potatoes, cheese, peas, green peppers, vermicelli and radishes. The dumplings for the soup were filled with bits of wood, paper or pebbles. In addition to this, they cooked a special noddle called guthuk. This noddle is made of nine different ingredients, those of which included dried cheese and various grains. One of the most interesting dishes that was made on the first day, and given out to the monks and myself in the monastery were the dough balls. These dough balls included the ingredients chilies, salt, wool, rice and coal. They may seem like typical dough balls to anyone who is reading but what makes them special is that the ingredients hidden in the dough ball are supposed to provide insight into one’s individual character. For example, a monk at the monastery was given a dough ball and he discovered very white-coloured ingredients such as salt and rice hidden in the dough. According to the tradition of this losar food, the white colored ingredients are believed to be a good sign. Personally, I was worried of receiving coal in my dough. This finding is similar to finding coal in a Christmas stocking and would insinuate that I have a black heart. Fortunately for me, I only received chilies in my dough, which means, as you all can imagine, that I am extremely talkative. Additionally, many of the monks around me began the new year honoring their dharma teacher.
On the second day of Gutor (Gyalpo Losa), religious ceremonies are held at all monasteries in the community. People came to visit the Pemakochung monastery to worship and give gifts to the monks that reside here. Also, we set off beautifully colored firecrackers to get rid of any evil spirits that are believed to be lurking around our village. Hopefully, after the flood, the haunting of the medicine factory, and our run-ins with wrathful deities, this ritual will help us start off the new year fresh and without any negative attachments and karma. Moreover, I touched on this a bit earlier, but people got dressed in clean and new clothes and many of us in the village came together to have a reunion feast. To me, this feast seemed similar in spirit and execution to the Han chinese New Year feast. If you were unable to make the reunion feast held at the Pemakochung monastery, here is a photo! Needless to say, through the deliciously prepared food, we were all brought together and the outside world stopped for a bit. It was really peaceful.
Reunion feast held at Pemakochung Monastery On the third day, the Tibetan New Year’s Day (Choe-Kyong Losar), I got up severely early, took a bath to completely clean myself of any possible dirt and put on new clothes yet again. Then, in my room, I worshiped the gods by placing offerings in front of a shrine located near my bed. These offerings consisted of animals and demons made from dough known as torma. I also stepped outside with the monks of the Pemakochung monastery and we joined with the lay community to raise prayer flags from the rooftop and burn juniper leaves and incense as offerings. During this burning, the Dharmapalas are praised in verbal chants. After this, my parents from Nepal came to the monastery so that we can exchange gifts. Normally, this exchange involves bigger families but since I chose not to have children or get married and dedicate myself solely to being an amchi, this part of Losar was only spend with the two of them. We also had a reunion dinner just the three of us. As tradition of Losar stipulates, we had the cake known as kapse and we shared an alcoholic drink called chang, which we drank to keep warm. Moreover, traditionally, on this first day of the New Year, the housewife gets up really early to cook a pot of barley wine for the family. As she sees the first rays of sunshine from the New Year, she takes a bucket of water and heads to the nearby river to retrieve the first bucket of water in the year, which is classified as the most scared and clearest water from the year to come. Also, it has been said that the family that retrieves the first bucket of water from the local river in the village is believed to be blessed with all of the good luck for the coming year. Since I reside in a monastery and do not have a wife of my own, my mother took on this responsibility before she left to go back to Nepal with my father. We did not get the first bucket of water from the river but if we bring that same energy from that ritual to everything throughout the year, I think we will be okay.
Even though the most significant days of Losar are the first three, festivities often continue until Chunga Choepa. I would be delighted to see many of you again in 15 days for this Butter Lamp Festival.
Once again,
༄༅།།ལོ་གསར་ལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་བདེ་ལེགས་ཞུ།!
Dainin Daeshim
