Nyi-Shu-Gu: The Twenty-Ninth Day
Within Tibetan Tradition everything done on nyi-shu-gu (29th day of Tibetan Calendar) is about purifying our homes and bodies of existing negativities, obstacles, uncleanliness and sickness. This is the day of the year when you clean like crazy. In western cultures, this would be spring cleaning, but Tibetans do it just before New Year.
After all the cleaning is done comes the fun of eating guthuk and the ritual banishment of evil spirits and ill health from the home.
We are delighted to have Geshe Tenzin Zopa to guide us in this celebration and preform the chaksom cleansing ritual.
We will prepare the special Guthuk Soup which is similar to thenduk or thukpa but with a special twist. Into each bowl of soup will be added one extra-large dough ball that contains inside it either a small piece of various objects — like coal or wool — or a paper with the name of the objects written or drawn on it. The dough ball is round and extra large to distinguish it from the normal noodles in the soup, so you won’t eat them by mistake! These dough balls are then used as predictions for the coming year.
The Special Guthuk Dough Ball “Predictions”
Each household will use different objects to represent different predictions. Below is an example of what they could be:
The happy objects are:
- wool — bay —kind hearted
- a thread rolled inwards — kuba nandrim — a person who draws luck and money
- sun — nyima — the goodness related to light
- moon — dawa — also, the goodness related to light
The unhappy objects are:
- chili — sepen — sharp tongue
- salt — tsa — lazy
- glass — karyul — someone who is happy when there’s fun, but disappears when there is work to do, like a good time charlie
- coal — sola — black hearted
- a thread rolled outward — kuba chidrim — someone who spends or dissipates luck or money
- small prickly ball — semarango — prickly person
The objects used will be finalised with Geshe Zopa and we will have our list of objects and their predictions ready on the day.
The Dharma is offered freely, however, the suggested donations are used to keep the overall operations of LMB running and cover small staff salaries, insurance, utilities, maintenance of buildings and land, vehicle maintenance, teacher, attendant and interpreter salaries, to name a few.
| Date(s): | Sunday, February 19th at 6:00pm |
| Times: | 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm |
| Instructor/Leader: | Geshe Tenzin Zopa, resident sangha |
| Type of event: | Pujas (Rituals) |
| Number of sessions: | 1 |
| Level: | Open to all |
| Participation: | All are welcome! |
| Location: | Main Gompa |
| iCal Link: | iCal |
| Add to Google Calendar: |  |
Registration and Donations for Special Event: Tibetan New Year Guthuk Dinner
Online registration is now closed for this event.