In preparations for the Tibetan New Year, Losar, in the sign of the female fire bird, the KIBI monks have been cleaning the lhakang (meditation hall) and putting up thangkas of former lineage masters and keeping the central place for one depicting Mahakala. Thursday morning at 7 AM monks, staff and students gathered to begin the annual three days of Mahakala pujas. This is done in order to clear out obstacles from the previous year and make way for the new. On the third day His Holiness graced the participants with his presence for the last part of the puja. And as Tibetan tradition calls for in the evening guthuk (a warm sweet rice pudding with different nuts and raisins) was served along with a little ball of tsampa which had a tiny rolled up piece of paper inside with a possible indication of fortune. Everybody had a lot of fun as many of these ‘fortune tellings’ were read out aloud, some were lucky and their notes read ‘good planner’, ‘spiritual person’ and ‘rich person’.
