KTC Welcomes the Year of the Dragon
After celebrating the Gregorian calendar New Year on Jan. 1, Columbus KTC is preparing to welcome the Tibetan New Year (known as “Losar”) on Saturday, Feb. 10.
This is the second Losar Celebration in our new KTC building, so it will be especially meaningful and enjoyable for our community. We’re so excited to share the new building with everyone, and look forward to seeing you at KTC at Losar
Here’s what is being planned:
As the “old year” comes to a close, it is a Tibetan cultural tradition to clean one’s shrine and home in preparation for the “new year.” At KTC, our Shrine Team will be dusting and polishing our shrine and preparing a very special “Losar Shrine” full of traditional Tibetan offerings that we will unveil on Losar Day and leave on display until after our community celebration of “Losar Sunday” on Feb. 11.
Just as cleaning and sprucing up one’s shrine and home is a Losar tradition, it is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition to purify one’s thoughts and mindstream in the days before Losar (New Year). This is done to bless and release the old year and prepare for the new year ahead.
At Columbus KTC, we will gather as a community two times in the days before Losar to bless and purify the old year and make offerings toward goodness and auspiciousness in the new year.
Then, on Losar morning, we will offer lamps and recite prayers to bless ourselves and the community and start the new year with auspicious energy and blessings.
The first two weeks of Losar coincide each year with the Great Occasion of the Buddha’s Performance of Miracles (Chötrul Duchen, in Tibetan) on, one of four Sacred Days on the Karma Kagyu tradition’s yearly calendar. This means that the benefit and blessing of any practice we do during this “Waxing Moon of Miracles” (sometimes called “The Month of Miracles”) is multiplied millions of times.
We hope you can join us for these programs, some of which will be webcast on Zoom:
Pre-Losar Mahakala Protector Puja – Sunday, Feb.4, 2024 – Time: 1:15 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern Time (in-person ONLY; no Zoom stream)
Pre-Losar Smoke/Incense Offering and Chenrezig Puja– Friday, February 9, 2024 – Time: 6:30 pm to 8:20 pm Eastern Time (In-person and on Zoom)
Losar Morning Chants – Saturday February 10, 2023 Time: 9:30 am to 10:30 am Eastern Time (In-Person and on Zoom)
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- Tashi Prayer
- Green Tara Puja
- Sang Puja
- Dedications
Registration is not needed for the pre-Losar and Losar Day events.
Contact for attendee questions: lamakathy@columbusktc.org
Link/Contact for volunteers: lamakathy@columbusktc.org
Here’s the link to register: