The monastic year is a busy round of study, congregations, retreats, festivals, and discourses which vary in the different monastic institutes. It begins with the new year festivities followed by the Great Monlam Prayer Festival. The Monlam Prayer Festival is the commemoration of the Buddha's displaying paranormal feats and thus defeating the six "herectics" who had challenged him. The festival which was established by Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the founder of the Gelugpa Sect, was once immensely popular in Tibet. It drew about 20,000 monks to Lhasa from the three great monasteries of Drepung, Sera, and Ganden and attracted throngs of people from as far as Amdo and Kham who came to make offerings and receive blessings from the huge congregation of monks.

On the sixteenth day of the new year, the Ritual of Cake Burning (tor kya) is performed to get rid of bad omens and obstacles in one's path. Before the Chinese occupation on the seventeenth of the first month of the Lunar Calendar, the sacred statute of Maitreya Buddha would be carried in procession through the streets of Lhasa amidst great festivity, but in exile this procession merely goes round the monastery, circling thrice. People seek the statute’s blessing, throwing traditional Tibetan white scarves, while looking forward to the age of Maitreya when everyone will be mindful of religion, sincere, honest, and free from sickness and distress.

On the fourth of the sixth month  a celebration takes place commemorating the Buddha's Turning the First Wheel of Dharma (Drupa tse She). During this period, people visit the monasteries, light hundreds of thousands of butter lamps, and prostrate themselves before the statutes of dieties, while reciting prayers for the fulfillment of their wishes.

During the sixth month the Summer Retreat begins. This six-week period of study and debate was established at the time of the Buddha. In India, it occurred during the rainy season when there were insects everywhere. Monks going to beg for alms during this period attracted the criticism of members of other religions, and so in order that they might avoid stepping on the insects, the Buddha instructed his monks to remain in one place during the summer months.

Monks make their participation in the retreat known by accepting sticks distributed at the assembly and handing them back to a monk at the door. The monks promise not to go beyond the appointed bounds and state who are their patron and their cook. This custom dates back to the days in India when monks--restricted from begging for alms--had to state who was supporting them during their summer confinement. On the eighth day of the six-month, the area in and around the monastery is cleaned. In the evening, a boundary is declared defining where monks should not go. This summer session is a time of intense study, memorization and debate. The session comes to an end in the middle of the seventh month when the boundary is removed.

Gaden Ngacho, which takes place in the ninth month, is held to commemorate the death of Tsongkhapa. All the Gelugpa monasteries hold assemblies to pray and commemorate the great reformer's deed. Everywhere monks and lay people offer myriads of butter lamps, which they have lit outside their homes.

On the fourth or fifth of the eleventh month Jang Gunchoe occurs.  Jang Gunchoe is an organized congregation. Monks from every Gelugpa monastery participate in this congregation. The debate session is held outside, sometime lasting the whole night. Two monks from one college  go to a thamcha in another, where they are challenged by members of another college.  It is an exciting event, overflowing with spectators (monks) from various colleges.

The monastic year closes with the preparation for the New Year (Losar). In some colleges, examinations are held and top students are presented with scarves. The New Year celebrations begin very early in the morning with monks making their private celebrations before participating in the large congregations in the monasteries.
 

It is very good to recite the mantra Om mani padme hum, but while you are doing it, you should be thinking on its meaning, for the meaning of the six syllables is great and vast. The first, Om is composed of three letters, A, U, and M. These symbolize the practitioner's impure body, speech, and mind; they also symbolize the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.

Can impure body, speech, and mind be transformed into pure body, speech, and mind, or are they entirely separate? All Buddhas are cases of beings who were like ourselves and then in dependence on the path became enlightened; Buddhism does not assert that there is anyone who from the beginning is free from faults and possesses all good qualities. The development of pure body, speech, and mind comes from gradually leaving the impure states arid their being transformed into the pure.

How is this done? The path is indicated by the next four syllables. Mani, meaning "jewel," symbolizes the factors of method-the altruistic intention to become enlightened, compassion, and love. Just as a jewel is capable of removing poverty, so the altruistic mind of enlightenment is capable of removing the poverty, or difficulties, of cyclic existence and of solitary peace. Similarly, just as a jewel fulfills the wishes of sentient beings, so the altruistic intention to become enlightened fulfills the wishes of sentient beings.

The two syllables, padme, meaning "lotus," symbolize wisdom. Just as a lotus grows forth from mud but is not sullied by the faults of mud, so wisdom is capable of putting you in a situation of non-contradiction whereas there would be contradiction if you did not have wisdom. There is wisdom realizing impermanence, wisdom realizing that persons are empty, of being self-sufficient or substantially existent, wisdom that realizes the emptiness of duality-that is to say, of difference of entity between subject an object-and wisdom that realizes the emptiness of inherent existence. Though there are many different types of wisdom, the main of all these is the wisdom realizing emptiness.

Purity must be achieved by an indivisible unity of method and wisdom, symbolized by the final syllable hum, which indicates indivisibility. According to the sutra system, this indivisibility of method and wisdom refers to wisdom affected by method and method affected by wisdom. In the mantra, or tantric, vehicle, it refers to one consciousness in which there is the full form of both wisdom and method as one undifferentiable entity. In terms of the seed syllables of the five Conqueror Buddhas, hum is the seed syllable of Akshobhya - the immovable, the unfluctuating, that which cannot be disturbed by anything.

Thus the six syllables, om mani padme hum, mean that in dependence on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha. It is said that you should not seek for Buddha hood outside of yourself; the substances for the achievement of Buddha hood are within. As Maitreya says in his Sublime Continuum of the Great Vehicle (Uttaratantra), all beings naturally have the Buddha nature in their own continuum. We have within us the seed of purity, the essence of a One Gone Thus (Tathagatagarbha), that is to be transformed and fully developed into Buddha hood.

According to the Buddhist scriptures, all the faults in the universe are the result of sentient beings' disturbing emotions. Instead of dwelling on the faults to be seen in our offerings, but imagining them as pure and faultless, we create an imprint for purifying our minds of obstruction and defilement. Therefore they are imagined as pure and beautiful as possible, incorporating the best of everything existing in the past, present and future and the ten directions of the universe. The exalted beings to whom we make offerings do not apparently consume the physical substances before us. Nevertheless, as a basis for acquiring merit, such physical offerings should be clean, made of the best substances, attractive to ourselves and acquired through honest means. Consequently, they will form a better basis for imagining perfect offerings.

When preparing to make offerings, we should begin by meditating on the wisdom of great bliss and emptiness, imagining it has taken the form of the offering. When making the offering, we should think of it as empty of intrinsic existence. 1n this way, we purify the offering of its ordinary aspects and also purify our minds. We should abandon any thought of immediate benefit, especially in relation to ourselves in this life. It is also important not to entertain doubts about the quality of our offering and whether or not it pleased the exalted being to whom we presented it. Instead think that the deity rejoiced at the offering and generated great bliss from partaking of it.

Water-bowl Offerings

The traditional set of offerings, commonly represented by bowls of water, derives from the customary offerings presented to an honoured guest in ancient India. The first bowl contains clear water for the newly arrived guests to drink. The water should be imagined as pure as nectar and offered in vessels made of precious substances. In the second bowl is water for the guest to wash his or her feet; a reminder that in India people walked barefoot. In the third bowl are flowers, reminiscent of the crowns of flowers offered to women and the garlands offered to men. Masses of fragrant, beautiful flowers can be called up in the imagination. In the fourth bowl is incense, an offering to please the sense of smell. In the imagination billowing clouds of fragrant incense are offered. The fifth offering, pleasing to sight, is bright light commonly in the form of a lamp, which like the sun and the moon illumina tes darkness. This light is imagined to be so clear that you can see even the smallest atoms without obstruction. Sometimes coloured lights are offered and imagined to be emanating from nectar. In Tibetan tradition different colours are believed to have various healing properties. Coloured or not, the light offered should be very clear. Light is imagined as dispelling the darkness of ignorance. Shariputra, the Buddha's main disciple renowned for his intelligence, had, in a previous life, offered a bright light before a stupa. As a result he was reborn with great intelligence. The sixth offering consists of a bowl of scented water. Intended to soothe the mind, it is applied at the heart. Seventh is an offering of food, commonly in the form of a torma or ritual cake. In India, this offering traditionally contained three sweet substances: molasses, honey and sugar and three white substances: curd, butter and milk. In Tibet, these would be mixed with tsampa or parc hed barley flour to make an offering cake. The result is like ambrosia, pleasing in colour, form, smell, and taste. Eighth is an offering of sound. It is not represented on the altar, but can simply be imagined as beautiful music.

They decided to enter the path of virtue by observing the five basic moral deeds, avoiding: killing, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, lying and taking intoxicants. Having made these the basis of their own conduct, they set out to teach them to the other animals in the forest. The resulting harmony brought great peace and prosperity to the kingdom.

One day, the king and queen and their ministers asked a clairvoyant hermit to tell them the cause of their good fortune. He explained that it was because of the animals' good conduct. When they expressed a wish to see the animals, the hermit told them it was unnecessary for they could achieve the same by following the same precepts. This they did and the kingdom enjoyed great wealth and prosperity.