Auspicious Days
Merits (Tibetan: sonam; Sanskrit: punya) are most important for our spiritual progress. When we generate merits and purify our negative karma, we can reduce the suffering in both our current and future lives. We gain merits by engaging in virtuous actions that are beneficial to others while relying on and having devotion towards our teacher and the Three Jewels – the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
On certain special days of the year, the accumulation of these merits is multiplied a hundred thousand times. This is not the result of chance or an ‘alignment of the planets’ but the fruit of the collective vows and aspirations of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Yet, we must also be aware that when we commit negative deeds on an auspicious day, the demerits are multiplied a hundred thousand times, too. As one would expect, such days draw large crowds to Dharma centres.
In Tibetan Buddhism, the Guru or teacher is highly revered. He or she knows us and the obstacles we face and, therefore, can guide us best on our way to Enlightenment. Fortunate indeed are those who find a kind and compassionate Guru to show them the path as by following our Guru’s advice, we collect tremendous amounts of merits.
Below is a list of some of the most powerful auspicious days according to Tibetan Buddhism. Mark them on your calendar and use them to do good deeds and collect multiplied merits. Please remember that you too collect equally-multiplied demerits when you do bad things on these days.
The dates are determined by the Tibetan lunar calendar and, therefore, they change in the Western (Gregorian) calendar from year to year.
Losar
Upcoming Date: Starts February 24, 2020
Losar marks the Tibetan New Year and is the beginning of the 15 Days of Miracles. Merits are multiplied by 100,000 every day during Losar but it is said that the two most powerful days are the first and the last day. Before Losar celebrations begin, Tibetans celebrate Gutor, the last two days of the year. They clean their homes, decorate them with auspicious signs and get ready for the new year.
The Tibetan New Year Festival is traditionally celebrated for three days. During this time, Tibetans visit friends and relatives, they also go to monasteries to pray and make offerings to the Three Jewels.
Monlam Chenmo or Great Prayer Festival
Upcoming Date: Starts February 27, 2020
This important Tibetan Buddhist celebration takes place every year from the 4th to the 11th day of the first Tibetan lunar month. It was established in 1409 by Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.
The word Monlam means “wish-path” and refers to the Buddhist path of helping others through prayer. Monlam Chenmo also celebrates Buddha’s victory over teachers and other beings who were jealous of his abilities. Through debate and performing miracles, the Buddha was successful and was able to plant the seeds of Enlightenment and the eradication of ignorance, hatred and desire in the minds of countless sentient beings.
Chotrul Duchen or Great Day of Miraculous Manifestations
Upcoming Date: March 9, 2020
Chotrul Duchen is celebrated on the last day of the 15 Days of Miracles, the first full moon of the New Year. This celebration of Lord Buddha’s 15 Days of Miracles was started in 1409 by Lama Tsongkhapa. In Lhasa, thousands of monks from the Gelug monasteries of Drepung, Sera and Gaden come together for prayers and rituals at the Jokhang Temple. There are processions and offerings of food (tormas) while prayers are performed for the long life of all the holy Gurus of all traditions, as well as for world peace and the spread of the Dharma among all sentient beings.
Another ancient tradition associated with Chotrul Duchen is the offering of butter sculptures. Butter sculptures are fragile, ornate shapes created using dry Tibetan butter made from yak’s milk. They are often crafted into elaborate patterns and flowers to represent the Eight Auspicious Signs or symbols of longevity. These sculptures are usually very colourful and their size can vary from a few centimetres to many metres. Butterlamps are lit in the evening to mark the end of the Tibetan New Year celebrations. The light is a celebration of Buddha Shakyamuni’s wisdom and victory through the miracles he performed.
Saga Dawa Duchen
Upcoming Date: June 5, 2020
This celebration falls during the month of Saga Dawa and is also known as the Month of Merits. The day of the full moon, the 15th day of the month, is known as Saga Dawa Duchen. It is an extremely important day for every single Buddhist because it celebrates the birth, Enlightenment and parinirvana of Buddha Shakyamuni.
Buddha Shakyamuni attained Enlightenment through great effort and it was through that feat that he was able to teach the world the Dharma, the way we should conduct our daily lives. This day gives us the precious opportunity to gain tremendous merits when we pay homage to the Buddha, and learn and apply his teachings.
Tashi Lhunpo Thangka Display Festival
Upcoming Date: June 4-6, 2020
The Tashi Lhunpo Thangka Display Festival occurs on the 14th to the 16th day of the fifth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar. It is said that it was the first Dalai Lama, His Holiness Gendun Drup who started this three-day festival 500 years ago. During the sacred event, a different Buddha image as depicted in a thangka is displayed every day.
On the first day, Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light is displayed to teach us to remember the past. On the second day, Buddha Shakyamuni, representing the present is displayed, and on the third day, the future Buddha, Maitreya is shown for everyone to be blessed and to create a connection with him. Many use this opportunity to circumambulate the monastery to generate as much merit as possible.
Chokhor Duchen
Upcoming Date: July 24, 2020
Chokhor Duchen is celebrated on the 4th day of the sixth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar. It celebrates Buddha Shakyamuni’s first sermon or First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma, which he gave on this day in Sarnath, Varanasi. The first teaching that Buddha Shakyamuni gave was on the Four Noble Truths.
Chokor means ‘prayer wheel’ while Duchen means ‘great occasion’. Prayer wheels are a common feature among Tibetan Buddhist practitioners all over the world and on this day, as practitioners engage in their virtuous activities, many can be seen turning their prayer wheels. As they do so, they spread spiritual blessings of the mantras within the wheel, such as OM MANI PEME HUNG, into the ten directions.
This day is also a day of pilgrimage for Buddhists. They visit holy places, make offerings to the Buddhas, hang prayer flags or engage in processions with a Buddha image through their village.
Dorje Shugden Day
Upcoming Date: August 24, 2020
Dorje Shugden is an emanation of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom and the Protector of the Gelug lineage. Starting from 2018, this day will be celebrated every year on August 24, as chosen by His Holiness the 101st Gaden Trisur Jetsun Lungrik Namgyal Rinpoche.
The 24th day of the eighth month was chosen because 24 + 8 = 32. This number refers to the number of deities in the mandala of Dorje Shugden. This mandala is made up of the Five Families or forms of Dorje Shugden, the Eight Guiding Monks, the Nine Mothers, and the Ten Youthful and Wrathful Attendants, totalling 32. Apart from these, the protectors Kache Marpo and Namkar Barzin are also included within Dorje Shugden’s entourage, and are known as his great ministers.
Gaden Thangka Festival
Upcoming Date: July 5, 2020
The Gaden Thangka Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the sixth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar in commemoration of the Enlightenment of Lama Tsongkhapa. A huge thangka of the Buddha is displayed on this day. Thousands of people travel to Gaden Monastery in the early morning to pray in eager anticipation of the unveiling of the sacred image. They offer incense and yak butter tormas, and perform prayers and prostrations.
Lhabab Duchen
Upcoming Date: November 7, 2020
Lhabab Duchen is celebrated on the 22nd day of the ninth month of the Tibetan lunar calendar. This special day commemorates Buddha Shakyamuni’s descent from the Heaven of Thirty-Three to return to earth. Buddha’s mother had been reborn in this heaven and Buddha wanted to repay her kindness and also benefit all the beings in that realm. Therefore, he ascended there when he was 41 years old and stayed to give teachings in the heavens for three months.
Out of great compassion for humanity, the Buddha returned to help us. His return from the heavenly realm is one of the Eight Great Deeds of the Buddha. In Tibet, it is a custom to paint the walls of houses and temples to greet the Buddha upon his return.
Gaden Ngamchoe or Tsongkhapa Day
Upcoming Dates: December 21, 2019 ; December 10, 2020
On Gaden Ngamchoe, we celebrate the Enlightenment and parinirvana of Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Tsongkhapa is regarded as the second Buddha and the reviver of Tibetan Buddhism at a time of rampant immorality and wickedness during the 14th Century. He is famous for his Dharma teachings and his writings are still used today by monasteries, monks and laypeople alike.
On this auspicious day, people visit temples, make offerings, perform prayers and pujas. This day is also famous for the butterlamp festival in Tibet. In Lhasa, thousands of people visit the Jokhang Temple and Barkhor Street where thousands of butterlamps are lit to honour Lama Tsongkhapa.
Merit Making
The festivals above originated in Tibet but as Tibetan Buddhism has spread all over the world, we can find Tibetan Buddhist centres in many countries that offer merit-making activities.
These temples and Dharma centres allow practitioners to participate in many merit-making activities on such auspicious days. These include:
- Making offerings to the Guru
- Offering robes to the Sangha
- Pujas, especially Lama Chopa puja
- Bathing the Buddha
- Making offerings of pearls or flowers to the Buddha
- Making offerings of light, incense and food to the Buddha
- Circumambulation of holy objects such as a Buddha statue or a stupa
- Sutra recitation
- Mantra recitation
- Reading Dharma books
- Listening to Dharma talks
- Supporting the printing of Dharma books
- Taking the Eight Precepts for one day or more
- Taking a vow of vegetarianism for a day, a week, a month, a year or for life
- Animal liberation
Bathing the Buddha is one of the meritorious activities that practitioners can do during auspicious days.
Some other beneficial practices on auspicious days are:
- Mandala offerings
- Water offerings
- Prostrations
- Recitation of the 35 Confessional Buddhas or the Mahayana Sutra of the Three Superior Heaps
- Vajrasattva’s purification practice with the Four Opponent Powers
- Going on pilgrimage to holy sites
- Hanging prayer flags
- Short meditational retreats
- Meditation on a mantra
These activities can, of course, be accompanied by other good deeds such as giving food or donations to the poor or disabled. What is important is to be mindful of our motivation when we give these offerings or perform these prayers. Purity of thought and dedicational prayers after the action is performed is crucial because, without them, the merits we gain are not stored and can be lost through negative emotions such as anger and jealousy.
Dedicate the merits of your actions to the highest good, for example, your teacher’s health and long life, the teaching of the Dharma, and the Enlightenment of all sentient beings (in this way, we are included as well). Then, the merits cannot be lost and are safe with us until our motivation is fulfilled.
One can also visualise all the beings of the Six Realms – the hell realm, ghost realm, animal realm, god realm, demi-god realm and human realm – in human form, receiving the same merits as oneself. There are also prayers called multiplying mantras which we can recite on a daily basis to multiply our merits, these include:
Multiplying Mantra
OM SAMBHARA SAMBHARA VIMANA SARA MAHA JAVA HUNG
OM MARA MARA VIMANA SARA MAHA JAVA HUNG (7x)
Blessing the Rosary
OM RUTSIRA MANI PRAWA TAYA HUNG (7x)
Special Mantras to Increase the Merit 100,000 times
CHOM DEN DAY DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PEY SANG GYE NAM PAR NANG DZEY Ö KYI GYEL PO LA CHAG TSEL LO (3x)
JANG CHUB SEM PA SEM PA CHEN PO KUN TU ZANG PO LA CHAG TSEL LO (3x)
TAYATHA OM PENCHA GRIYA AVA BODHANI SOHA OM DHURU DHURU JAYA MUKHE SOHA (7x)
Special Mantra so that Prayers Made Come to Pass
CHOM DEN DEY DE ZHIN SHEG PA DRA CHOM PA YANG DAG PAR DZOG PEY SANG GYE NGO WA DANG MON LAM THAM CHEY [RAB TU DU PEY] GYEL PO LA CHAG TSEL LO (1x or 3x)
There is also a wealth of information available online if there is no Buddhist centre close to you. Ultimately, it is one’s individual commitment to the Three Jewels which is important, and you can even perform merit-making acts at home at your own shrine on these auspicious days.
Sources:
- http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Buddha_Miracle_Days
- http://www.kurukulla.org/resources/Prayers_and_Texts/Day_of_Miracles.pdf
- http://teachingsofthebuddha.com/the-miracles-in-the-life-of-buddha/
- http://shantidevameditation.org/upcoming-events/monlam-15-days-of-miracles-feb-19-mar-5/
- http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php?title=Monlam_Prayer_Festival
- https://www.lonelyplanet.com/china/xiahe/events/monlam-festival/a/poi-fes/1239050/355974
- https://www.chinahighlights.com/festivals/monlam-prayer-festival.htm
- http://www.kechara.com/news/archived-by-department/kechara-house/domore-and-multiply-your-merits-this-wesak-day/
- http://factsanddetails.com/china/cat6/sub35/entry-4432.html
- https://www.thoughtco.com/buddhist-holidays-449918
- http://www.buddhanet.net/bp_sut17.htm
- https://www.tibettravel.org/blog/tibetan-butter-sculpture/
- https://www.rootinstitute.ngo/spiritual-programme/eventdetail/16/15-days-of-miracles
For more interesting information:
- Lord Tsongkapa, King of the Dharma
- Mantras – Holy Words of Power
- What is a Blessing?
- A Note on Offerings by Panchen Ötrul Rinpoche
- Mandala Offering – A Powerful Method to Accumulate Merits
- I pray to what I want to
- Mount Wutai – The Earthly Abode of Lord Manjushri
- Pilgrimage Through India & Nepal
- Beginner’s Introduction to Dorje Shugden
- Dorje Shugden – The Protector of Our Time
Please support us so that we can continue to bring you more Dharma:
If you are in the United States, please note that your offerings and contributions are tax deductible. ~ the tsemrinpoche.com blog team
Wonderful for us to know the important dates in Tibetan calendar. As with these dates , we know its very auspicious for us to make use of the auspicious days to do good as such doing offerings, prostrations, to statues of Buddhas or bodhisattvas, attending public teachings, taking the eight Mahayana precepts and others ceremonies beneficial practices. Karmic results are multiplied by one hundred million on these auspicious days. As these dates display of extraordinary powerful deeds for sentient beings’ sake. Each year I have marked days that are very auspicious. Reading this article again to remind me and to take notes .
Thank you Rinpoche and Pastor Antoinette for this wonderful sharing with explanation to understand better.
Every now and then I used to see my calendar again reminding myself of those important days and most powerful auspicious days according to Tibetan Buddhism. Reading this post gave me a lots of information and very useful indeed. Any one of us should mark them our calendar so as to collect more merits on such auspicious days. A very good explanation when to engage in those meritorious activities .
Thank you Rinpoche and Pastor Antoinette for this wonderful sharing.
Thank you for the interesting sharing, this is a great introduction of Tibetan festivals that we should be aware of and save in our calendar. Tibetan festivals concerned worship of the celestial deities, earth deities, spirits of mountains, god of harvest, divinity of hunting, and so on are still able to be seen universally.
Tibetans believe that any good deeds and prayers are multiplied a thousand-fold in the respective month, and people are generally kinder and more giving than usual. This is considered to be very auspicious and good luck for the family and home.
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Giving is the fundamental way of making merit for many of us. Well there many merit-making activities as such animal liberation, taking a vow of vegetarianism, making offerings of light, incense , peals, flowers and food to the Buddha and so forth.
On certain special days of the year, the accumulation of these merits is multiplied a hundred thousand times.Thank you for compiling this. Very useful as we now have a list of important Buddhist celebrations to help us .
This is a very good sharing and explaination on what and when we could engage in meritorious activities. And knowledge of all the auspicious day from a different culture and tradition. Especially Tibetan Buddhism Auspicious days. Thank you very much Rinpoche and Pastor Antoinette for this very important sharing.????
Thank you, Pastor Antoinette, for this sharing explaining what and when we could engage in meritorious activities. Well there many merit-making activities as such animal liberation, taking a vow of vegetarianism, making offerings of light, incense , peals, flowers and food to the Buddha and so forth. Giving is the fundamental way of making merit for many of us. Whatever sources of virtue we have accumulated ,however great or small they might be we must dedicate towards all sentient beings. Interesting read to know those important Tibetan calendar dates which we might not know for some of us.
Thanks again Pastor .
Thank you Pastor Antoinette for sharing. Will mark calendar in advance
Thank you Pastor Antoinette for this very informative post. We need merits to be successful in our Dharma works and tapping on these merit-multiplying days is very helpful. This is a great compilation of Tibetan festivals that we should be aware of and save in our calendar.
Rinpoche always asked us to make more offerings and collect merit while we still can. Thank you, Pastor Antoinette, for this article which clearly shows us which day we can engage in meritorious activities to generate a large number of merits for ourselves. I have been wondering why special days on the Buddhist calendar where the merit we generate will be much more than normal days. Now I know that it is because of the vows and aspirations that the Buddha did.
That’s great with the knowledge of all the auspicious day , I could bookmarked of it. Wow on all these special days of the year, all the accumulated merits will be multiplied a hundred thousand times. Making merit means doing good things as mentioned in religious doctrine. Today, Tibetan Buddhism is spreading fast all over the world, many meritorious activities were arranged for everyone to collect merits on special days such as Dorje Shugden Day, Chokhor Duchen, Saga Dawa Duchen and so forth. Informative post for all of us to know
and practitioners can do during such auspicious days.
Thank you Pastor Antoinette Kass for this sharing.
Thank you for compiling this. Very useful as we now have a list of important Buddhist celebrations to help us maximise our merit generation potential in addition to the Wesak Day which is another important merit multiplying day for Buddhists all over the world. It’s really great that there is a list of ideas of what we can do to generate more merits on those auspicious days.
We are fortunate that over here in Kechara Forest Retreat, we have easy access to make offerings such as incense and light offerings. The many holy sites also make it convenient for us to generate merits during these merit multiplying days.
Thank you for sharing with us special days where we can accumulate a tremendous amount of merits by doing good virtues such as making offerings to the Three Jewels, doing retreats, chanting, meditation, etc. One thing we have to take note is, on these special days, we can accumulate a lot of merits but if we do something bad, the demerits will multiply too. Therefore, we must be mindful of the things we think, say and do. In fact, we should always be aware of our mind and our action and learn how to tame our own mind.
Dear Pastor Antoinette,
Thank you for compiling the Auspicious Days list, Pastor. It’s handy!
I’ve saw some people posted about the Tibetan Buddhism Auspicious days sometimes, not knowing the true meaning behind it. Looks like I have to watch out for these days so that the merits will be multiplied a hundred thousand times, effortlessly.
I find that this info ?is very helpful as I thought generation merits has something related with astrology too.
? ‘On certain special days of the year, the accumulation of these merits is multiplied a hundred thousand times. This is not the result of chance or an ‘alignment of the planets’ but the fruit of the collective vows and aspirations of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.’