Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The question of why monks at Sera never ate momos on Losar morning — sealing the dumpling top was considered a bad omen — opens this ninety-two-minute conversation with Khensur Rinpoche on Tibetan New Year customs. He describes the pre-dawn assembly hall ceremony, the shared auspicious prayer, the flour-throwing ritual, the decorated altar box split between flour and grain, and the sequence of Losar foods. He then explains the contrasting roles of abbot and gegu (disciplinarian) — the gegu ran assembly sessions, enforced rules, and could beat monks with his rosary — before mapping out Sera’s three-college structure and why the Tantric College stood apart from Mae and Je. The session ends with the shift from Losar’s three festive days into the Monlam Chenmo, when monks walked together to Lhasa for the great prayer festival.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 RS 1988 12 01.mp3
UUID: 976bd73c-8192-4a9b-8f2c-a91911b1d29a
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Rinpoche's Story (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1988-12-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 92.4 minutes
Words: ~5,222
This is Thursday, the first of December nineteen eighty eight, and I’m at Whyalla, South Australia, and I’m going to talk with Khensur Rinpoche. Yeah. I stay at. They’re doing the — and the Losar khapse khapse. Can you also explain to Mkhanchen that next year, I will be spending a lot of time in Canberra partly for Nick, my daughter’s education, but also because they don’t have a representative of this council in Canberra, which is where the government sits.
And so I will try to do what I can — Mhmm. That way. The yeah. The Shukma — when — how long does it take to get to Canberra from Adelaide? It probably takes if you’re driving, it probably takes a day and a half to drive there.
A day and a half? Well — how many hours? It takes seven to — it takes seven to — nobody doesn’t it? It’s been fifteen. Sixteen minutes.
And I’ll be coming back sometimes to Adelaide, but so I’d really like Rinpoche to come and stay in Canberra sometimes with things and crochet silk and get a house — I think Lama Lundrup went to Canberra, didn’t he? He talked to the Australian government. But we have to be careful because they’re on the proxy passports, and we mustn’t passport, visa passport. Oh, no. Oh, goodness.
So we were in Whyalla — we were in Lhasa, and it was Lhasa. Was it — ninety — I haven’t got my dates here. It was anyway, Rinpoche’s first year in Lhasa, and he was talking about the festival and the songs that were singing from that. So the morning of Losar at Sera, they would blow these great horns, and all the monks would gather in the hall. And then they would be served tea and khapse — you know, these big khapses.
Oh, the big ones, you ate six. Big big khapse. And then they would do this little ceremony where you take a pinch of flour and you throw this flour here, for auspicious purposes. So when the monks first arrived in the meeting hall, they would wish each other — they would all say to one another — just wishing and all the — there’s a short prayer that they often recite. And that it’s, you know, wishing them all the prosperity and happiness and all the good doctrine of the Buddha and things like this.
How does it go? Could we translate it easily or is it difficult? Is it for just a few lines? This maybe I can’t. The signal now.
Is it easy for you to have quite a. I have to — it’s like a chant sort of a rhyme — must rhyme, does it? You’d have to explain it to me. Do you wanna take the time to do that now? So they would wish each other this auspicious prayer.
They would, you know, may in this realm, may there be only happiness, may there be no sickness. May the teachings be stable and flourish, and may you have good luck and prosperity and much happiness, and may you finally attain liberation. So that’s the prayer that they’d wish each other. Translation for all this. Mhmm.
After wishing each other this prayer, then they would have — they’d make an offering ceremony, offer a puja. And then when that finished, then they each go to their rooms. And here, they’d also — you know, they’d visit each other in their rooms, and they’d do this ceremony of throwing the flour. Each one would have that on their altar, a little container of this flour. And then they would have tea, and then they would eat a special — I don’t — it’s a little — I don’t remember what it is.
They call it torma. And they’ve — it’s this color. Yeah. Red in color. It’s a little something on the.
Oh, that one that you had. Yeah. Oh, good. You had it before in — yeah. Yeah.
Mixed with — no. I haven’t had it. Said it was — is that the one mixed with butter that they — yeah. Yeah. That yeah.
Yeah. So they mix it with butter and rock sugar. Yeah. Then they eat that. Chura.
Chura. Chura. Or Chura. Small. Yeah.
This dried cheese. Dried cheese. Dried dried cheese. Dried dried cheese. Dried dried.
And then they would wash and put on their best clothes and have a good time. Did that mean everyone got covered with flour, or was it just thrown in the air? And they visit each of their individual teachers, offering a scarf and money to all their teachers. Take tea and khapse to all their teachers, and they’d also in each place, they’d do this ceremony of throwing the flour. And then they would again meet together as they did in the morning at the district house.
They would have the same — in the afternoon or — so first, they would go — they had their, you know, the meeting with their college, and then they would go to the individual teachers, and then they’d have this gathering at the district house. And this would take place all in the morning. They would go visit all the three colleges. Go visit each of their respective deities. You know, their protectors and things of that, wherever they were kept, they would go and present scarves.
And then they would go to each of the three colleges, monks of each of all the three colleges offering scarves. And then they’d visit all the district houses and more or — go to every, you know, all the monks’ houses and visit them and present them with scarves. So it’s a very happy day. So they say because it’s the first day of the year, if you’re not happy on that day, then the rest of the year won’t go well. So it’s a very happy day.
So everyone must have finished up with flour all over their robes and their heads? Yeah. So wherever they went, they would — what was the — heads would be covered with flour. Oh, sorry.
They had — with they’d have white heads. They were — this is a ball. Two two five zero. The guys are — they would throw it at each other. And they would all — you know, wherever they went, each place, they would have this container full of flour.
What I thought was happening. Yeah. And they would take the — take a pinch and throw it and wish each other. So this was a very special occasion, so you could do just about anything.
So they didn’t — I get in Tibet, they used to have they used to be very afraid of the disciplinarians, so they were very careful what they said to them. But Tenzin was saying that at this stage, you know, normally, the disciplinarian, they would be kind of afraid of him. But now, like on Losar, they would be very bold. You know, they just they’d wish him — they wish they wish him. And could Rinpoche explain a little bit more the role of a disciplinarian?
Because we don’t understand so much in the West. So, essentially, the gegu would run the disciplinary. The gegu? Yeah. Gegu.
Yeah. The disciplinary would, like a proctor, would run the assembly hall — that everything that occurred in there, he was in charge of. That when the monks gathered, if the — he would instruct the, you know, the tea carriers to where they should go and who they should serve. If there were patrons — and he would — who were who wanted — who had just made an offering or who — then he would read out the names of the people who had made the offering and that he would take them around. And if they wanted to make offerings, he would take them around.
So he was kind of the master, like, the what do we say? The master of ceremony. The host. He acted like a host. And then he would read any type of letters that would be addressed to all the monks.
Any type of announcements, he would read those at the assemblies. And then he would make sure all the tea workers or the tea servers did their job, that everyone was served properly, and that if someone wanted to be excused from work, they would have to receive his permission. If someone couldn’t come, had other work to do and they couldn’t come to the actual gathering to receive their breakfast, for example, then they would inform the disciplinarian and he’d tell one of the tea workers. He would have a list of people who couldn’t come. He would tell — or if they were sick, he would tell them to go visit their house and take them tea and breakfast.
And so he was the host. He ran all — he enforced all the various rules of the monastery and sort of looked out after everything. Everything was done correctly. So all the monks were a little bit in awe of him. Right?
And if one of the monks got out of line, the disciplinarian would beat them. Beat them with sticks. So when he — I wish I was new at the monastery, he was — he got beaten. So if you didn’t — if you weren’t reciting at the gathering and you were talking, then the gegu would beat you. With his.
Oh, too. Yeah. With his rosary. How did the disciplinarian relate to the abbot sort of in the scheme of things? What what was the abbot’s role?
So, yeah, I mean, it was the disciplinarian who ran all the various activities. You know, for example, the various debate sessions, he was in charge of making sure that things went well. And they also had group debates inside when they gathered together, and he would tell which class should go and who should sit and debate and assign them the order that they should debate in. And when during the debate, he’d say, okay. That’s enough.
Now you sit down. Now you go debate. So he was in charge of running all the various activities of the monastery. Khenpo and Gegu Drawakar. Ah.
Khenpo and Gegu? Khenpo and Gegu. So I’m asking about the abbot and the disciplinarian. In general, the abbot was mainly responsible for giving teachings, but they were both office holders, so they both had to take care of the administration of the college. What administrative roles would the abbot hold then?
It sounds like the disciplinarian had a lot of — so the special work of the abbot was to instruct the teachers in what they should be teaching and who — and the various levels of who is to — it. There’s different levels of Geshes. There’s like a — and there’s the highest Geshe and then there’s one — there’s a level below that. There’s four levels of — so that the — and also the abbot would oversee all their work in the monastery. So he’d have the overall responsibility above the disciplinarian.
Temple, they only. Yeah. So they were the highest official in the monastery. Would — is there a hierarchy? Would you — after you’ve been a disciplinarian, would you likely become an abbot, or were they more or less two different strands of abilities and skills?
Do you remember the — like a — and, usually, one would become disciplinarian after that. So usually, there would be two disciplinarians. They would each hold office for six months each. One in the summer months, one in the winter months. The one in the summer months was a — he was more concerned with the education program.
Whereas in the winter, the disciplinarian was more concerned with the actual physical running of the monastery such as, you know, in charge of the various working works. For example, they had to do farming work. There were herders. So he was in charge of actually getting the physical part of the monastery together. He would be that disciplinarian during the winter period, but then there would be the summer Geshe.
It was usually a summer disciplinarian who was normally a Geshe. He would take — he would be more concerned with the teaching program. And normally so this would be six months each. And normally, this was like a stepping stone to becoming abbot of the monastery. Interesting.
Was there only one disciplinarian and one abbot at any one time for the whole of Sera and one abbot? Sera Gompa. So in Tibet, there were three colleges. There was — a Sera. There yeah.
It is a Sera — yes. In Tibet. Yes. In Tibet, in Sera, there were three colleges. There was Sera Mae, Sera Je, and then the Tantric College.
Oh, yeah. So each of them had their own disciplinarian. And there are others? So so Khenpo — yeah.
Yeah. Each of them three. Mhmm. Three abbots. So these days in India, there’s no tantric college at Sera?
No. So there’s only two. No. Okay. There is a tantric college, but it’s not Sera’s tantric college.
Oh. There used to be a Sera tantric college, but that no longer exists. So there’s no — these days in India, there’s no proper tantric college of Sera, but there are some Sera monks who practice tantra. So there weren’t enough monks to continue? Most of them — when the Chinese invaded, most of the monks who were members of the Tantric College went back to their homes.
And so there wasn’t enough to reestablish the Tantric College, the Sera Tantric College in India. But in general, there are still — there are in general, there are two tantric colleges in India, which were reestablished. They’re the upper tantric college and lower tantric college. But they, you know, they don’t have a necessary connection with Sera. They would involve monks from all three monasteries going to either of these two tantric colleges.
Does Rinpoche know whether back in Lhasa, whether Drepung, for instance, would have a different abbot and disciplinarian for each of its colleges? I think it had six colleges, didn’t it? Is it the same principle as Sera? So they’re probably — Drepung had probably in Tibet had four colleges, Loseling, Gomang, Deyang, and the Tantric College. And because it’s so so — so each of them had their own abbot and disciplinarian.
Well, if you have so Sera has three colleges, three abbots, three disciplinarians. Where do they come together as a whole entity? Previously, there were probably four colleges at Sera, but which I don’t remember. But two of them united, like, joined together — Mhmm — making three.
And then sometimes — so the two — Sera Je and Mae, every every day, every morning, they have, like, prayer sessions together. And that’s a regular routine. But they each had their own administrations. Mhmm. They each had their own workers.
But then the officials from each of the three — the three abbots, two disciplinarians from Mae and Je would gather together, and two officials from Mae and Je would gather together to discuss any administration — the common administration of the monastery. And they were always meeting together every day, but they did have separate labor force and work that they had to do. And the tantric was a little bit more separate again? It doesn’t seem like the disciplinarian from the Tantric College — maybe he didn’t come to these meetings that they had. Yeah.
So they were a little bit more — separate. So the tantric college was slightly — didn’t have as close a relation as Mae and Je because they were concerned with Tantra and all their various rituals and ceremonies were concerned with Tantra. Whereas Mae and Je were studying Sūtra and all their rituals and ceremonies would have a sūtra class. So they had a — they did — it was like this. Mae and Je did many activities together, whereas the Tantric College set off by itself to a large — so when the tantric colleges would gather together and have a ceremony, for example, they might do the sadhanas of Yamāntaka or Sangwa Dupa or Heruka, and with all the various rituals and the various tantric voices.
But when Je and Mae met together, their ceremonies were always surrounding Sūtra, and so it would be quite different than what the tantric monks would do. So back to Losar. And how did the day end? So in the morning, as was talked about, they had this torma, this red — Mhmm. With red — I’d like to taste that.
What they had — with butter and cheese. And cheese. Sugar. Mhmm. And then and bread.
Bread? Roti. Yeah. Some kind of — yeah. Some kind of some kind of bread.
It’s like a roti — chapati, don’t you? Chapati? Yeah. They had had many different kinds of bread — uh-huh. With baking powder.
And then at lunchtime — so this so we got up to lunchtime. At lunchtime, they’d have rice, like rice and — so on the first day of Losar, they wouldn’t eat momos. They wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. Because they had this said, you know, momo’s, you have to close up.
You have to close it, like, closing them. The top of it? Yeah. And this is considered inauspicious on the first day to close. And so they wouldn’t eat momos on the first day.
This is like — so you’d be like a dumb animal. Pardon? You’d be like becoming a dumb — it would cause you to become a dumb animal. Oh. You wouldn’t be able to speak if you were to — let’s say they didn’t make momos on that day.
Because it’s squeezed in at the top. You had to close the top. This is superstition. Yeah. And then the second, third day, they’d eat a lot — second or third?
Second and third. Something like many things that you do for luck and that you don’t do for bad luck. Mhmm. What what can he tell? Because that’s very interesting.
That’s what — so they wouldn’t sweep the room on the first day of this. It gives them. This is really unlucky because the. Oh, this would — this would be unlucky because it would — you’re — it would be like emptying all your possessions out of your house. Your house would become empty.
And so they didn’t — so you’re inviting loss. He did that. So the first day, they went through the room. What did they do for auspicious ones? So this throwing of the flour is like offering to the Buddha?
Oh, yes. That’s — yeah. That’s something they’ll do often, not just on Losar. Yeah. They do it on many special occasions.
What other times? What other times of the year — they wouldn’t only be on Losar day. No. So they would only do this on Losar day. Oh, this day.
But then, like, when they make an incense offering, other times a year, then, you know, they don’t have — they only have this box where people go in other people’s home and make this offering. Of incense. Of incense. Yeah. Make this offering in this box full of flour.
Mhmm. They would only have this just at the New Year. But other times, they have a different ceremony where they also throw flour, but they’re offering to a deity. They’re not offering to the Buddhas. So it’s not this — you know, they both use flour, throwing flour, but it’s slightly different.
But at Losar, they had a box of flour in each house, isn’t it? Yeah. On their altar? On their altar. Mhmm.
And as a person visited, they’d take a pinch out of the altar box in the house. The person would — the person when you came in — the host would bring you this box? Oh, he’d bring it to you and you — you’d take attention. You’d wish Rinpoche himself, you’d wish him prosperity. You know?
Yeah. Was like — and they had all kinds of — I think it’s decorations and, you know, they’d a — oh, in the box of flour they have decorations? They’d have a butter sculpture. Oh, it was very elaborate then. Oh, yeah.
The box was painted and very highly decorated. They’d have a pile of — we must be able to get a photo of that. Oh, yeah. I should have that. So you had to wear all new clothes on those.
Oh. Otherwise, you would be stuck with your old clothes the entire year. So this box that they have — half of it contained this flour, half of it was wheat grain. And then this was — they would also offer this — throw this, and this was auspicious to gain everything that would go well in the future and that you would eventually gain liberation. So they’d also offer that.
Partition or something. Two piles. So then they also had — they would plant — no. They plant wheat seeds in a little container, and they had this on their altar. And this would be just little sprouts by then, and this would be auspicious for good that they’d have good crops — yeah.
So the, you know, the lay people, they would wash their hair and let it down. Mhmm. And but then the monks, they definitely had to shave their head. Uh-huh. That — if they had it — it was considered if you had hair, you know, was like you had a black head.
And on that day, if you would be a black person that year. If you had a white head, then you’d be a white person that year. So you had to shave shave your head for New clothes, a clean head. So they used this on the twenty ninth. On the twenty ninth of the old year.
Of the old year. They were the last day or the second last day? On the twenty ninth, they would spend all day cleaning. You know, they would clean the roof. They would clean everything as clean as possible. Mhmm. It was like this was getting rid of the dirt — was getting rid of all your suffering. Mhmm. And so they would, you know, he kept going over how clean everything had to be.
It had to be — all over everything — the roof and everything — that they would clean, and they would make special tormas, ritual cakes. The Sungju, but they wouldn’t clean on the thirtieth. And then on the thirtieth, because on the thirtieth day, they start making preparations for Losar itself. And they wouldn’t clean on New Year’s Day because that wasn’t auspicious. It should be clean already.
Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? So it was really there’s no need to. So one would think of on the twenty ninth using the broom, sweeping with the broom — that you were getting rid of all your problems and all your troubles that had piled up over the last year. It’s a good idea. Yeah.
You might try that in December. Were these boxes — how big were they — very big like that, as big as this board, or were they bigger? They — different sizes. This is — colleges had had this size.
He was just showing that — three by three feet. Inches. Three by three feet. A meter by a meter by half meter — what does it say? Uh-huh.
A meter by half meter, but they were different sizes. And this — so families would have smaller, I suppose. A foot by six inches or something. Mhmm. One — it was just — oh, yeah.
Okay. One foot by six inches. That’s what they have at the Lhasa homes. Mhmm. And were they bought — do they bring them out every year, or did they make a new one for each Losar?
The wooden one. Was good or Shing. Shing. Yeah. It was wooden boxes.
So they would keep it from year to year, same way, from here to you. Be a very, very special design — quite beautiful. So they have all these drawings of special symbols on them and things like this. And writing too? Do you get here?
No writing. Just drawings. Just the drawings and the auspicious symbols. So that was a very nice time for Rinpoche to come to Sera. You agreed.
So in the afternoon, they play games. And they sing their just sing their native songs and dance. Was that the games, or do they play different games too? Six parts, is it? Six parts.
I I I mean, I think maybe it’s Chinese checkers. You play — you put stones — they use stones. Yeah. And they move stones. Yeah.
So it’s some kind of checkers or — sounds like I’ll bring my little checkerboard. Is this the same board? I’ll ask her. There’s no — so the neighbor takes — they put stones in there. It would just be a matter of moving stones along these lines.
Yeah. So it’s very — nice. So and so they also — this would have this design with stones and then move stones along different lines. So different designs. So they’d have to move across this — you know, try to move all their stones across.
Mhmm. So it’s yeah. They had at least three different designs. There’s this — it’s showing where the stones were. The.
The. The. The. The. The.
Kings here. So you try — one would try to block and the other would try to go forward. Can — and did you take the pieces off the board if you jumped them — did you take the stones off the board or your opponent’s stone? So in this game, they tried to capture the king.
Oh, right. He — you thought you would like a simple chess. Yeah. Simple chess. So they would there’d be this battle where they’d try to — one would try to defend its king, the other would try to capture the king.
Must bring him out games and bring him chess. I can’t play chess, but I’ll bring him a chess board. Do you play chess? Yeah. I used to.
Yeah. I’ll bring him a chess board. They like to play chess. My mind wasn’t clearing up for chess. So they were allowed to play up to six o’clock.
Mhmm. And then at six o’clock, they had an incense offering ceremony. They would offer — all the members of each of the district houses would come together and make an incense offering. And after that, then they would all return to their own rooms and whatever individual studies or their practices, they would engage in those. They weren’t allowed to play anymore for the rest of the night.
So this would — if they were to keep up with their games, it would interfere with the meditators and those who were practicing and studying — so that now everything went back to normal after this incense offering. Then the next morning, they would have a ceremonial gathering again at five o’clock. And after that, again, they were allowed to — they were allowed to play again. This is on the second day? On the second day.
After the morning gathering. And then, they play up to six o’clock. Play up to six o’clock. And this would go on for three days. So the second day and third day.
First, second, third day. And when did they eat their momos? Yeah. The yeah. Momos.
The momos. It’s a necessity to eat momos. The cooks must have been very busy that time. So there wasn’t any special cook. It was individuals who prepared the food in individual rooms.
Yeah. So there are — if there are five people, then these five people would prepare the food. There are three people. So his room of three, they’ll make their own? Yeah.
He had four people in his room, and they — the four of them would — so each of them would do some kind of individual work preparing the meal together. It’s when Tenzin makes delicious momos. Tenzin. Garlic. Did you know all these words in Tibetan?
Garlic, ginger, coriander. You don’t know. Kopa. Kopa. Kopa.
Kopa. Kopa. Kopa. Uh-huh. Yeah.
Because — you made momos the last time. Rinpoche had six momos. You made one of them. With a funny top. It’s pink skin funny.
When did the monks — this is only just for my general knowledge, which might be faulty. When did the monks go down into Lhasa from the monasteries? To the prayer festival? Well, I thought that the actual — the abbots took over the running of Lhasa for that — so this period is not at the New Year. It’s during the prayer festival.
So after these three days, the Losar days, are finished. And then there was a period in the — that — so the — for the monks, the Losar lasted three days, but for other people, it lasted seven days, ten days, etcetera. But for them, it only lasted three days. And then — so this time when they took over the operation of the city was during the Monlam festival. Yeah.
The great prayer festival. When did that come? The Monlam Chenmo. On the fourth. The fourth day.
In Tibet, it was on the fourth day of the new year. So usually, you know, almost always it was on the fourth. Sometimes in the Tibetan calendar, a day would repeat itself, and so it’d be on the fifth day. Sometimes the same day is repeated twice, so then it would be on the fifth day of the new year. So it varies depending on the year.
Yeah. Oh, it’s — isn’t it? So after the third day, what did Rinpoche do that year? The kind of the day. Then all the monks from his college, they would all go together to Lhasa, and they — you know, they weren’t allowed just to go anywhere they wanted.
They had to always stay together. Oh. And they would go to the ceremonies. For example, in the Jokhang, or they would walk — or they’d go around the Barkhor — Mhmm — which you’ve been — or they would go onto the roof of the Jokhang.
And they would, you know, they’d — for example, they’d all be in a line, during the various prayer ceremonies. They’d form one line together, doing everything together. And this so this would all last until the twenty first of the month of the year. Do they walk from Sera? To Sera.
This one from Sera Monastery too. Do they walk? Not very far. They carry their clothes on their back. A checker.
It’s nearly half high. Fast walk.