By popular demand, our volunteers decided to produce a gorgeous practice calendar with important practice dates — as a downloadable and printable PDF — with each month featuring a different Buddhist deity illustrated by Jampay Dorje: Shakyamuni Buddha, Manushri, White Tara, Green Tara, Avalokiteshvara (Chenrezig), Vajrasattva, Vajradhara, Samantabhadra-Samantabhadri, Lama Tsongkahapa and others.
By necessity, many dates were left out as it gets confusing to list Holy dates from all traditions. For instance, there are different Vesak days and New Years days, depending on tradition.
Please freely download
The files are in spreads of two pages horizontally, but may be printed as singles. The higher resolution version is ideal for printing or to see the rich detail of the illustrations; the lower resolution file is perfect for tablets and screen use.
- Download the printable high-resolution version (31 megabytes)>>
- Download the lower-resolution screen version (10 megabytes)>>
Please note: Although this is freely available for download — Buddha Weekly and the artist believe in making Buddhist resources and images as accessible as possible for practice — please respect the artists copyright. Please do not manipulate, distort, reuse or commercialize these images in any way. Copyright for images Jampay Dorje. Copyright for design and content Buddha Weekly. Thank you!
Holy days and Buddhist lunar events
This calendar is oriented to Vajrayana practice (because the requests came mostly from people looking for Tsog dates), but we left enough space for people to note their own special occasions: Holy days according to their tradition, birthdays of their precious teachers, this year’s retreats, and so on.
You will find both Julian (western) calendar dates (at the top of each day) and Lunar month-day as numbers at the bottom of each day.
Dates we included in this beautiful calendar:
- Buddha Days: Vesak, 15 Days of Miracles, Buddha’s Descent
- Mother Tsog dates (25th day of each lunar month)
- Father Tsog dates (10th day of each lunar month)
- Green Tara Puja
- Medicine Buddha Puja
- Puja Protector
- Special holy days: Sakya Pandita day, Milarepa day, Lama Tsognkhapa day, Guru Rinpoche day, and so on.
- Losar (New Years in Tibetan calendar)
- Birthdays of notable teachers, including His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
- Full and new moons (some people celebrate pujas on these dates).
- Space for you to add your own celebrations!
Stunning Thangkas of Jampay Dorje
To our delight, well-known Thangka artist Jampay Dorje (Ben Christian) agreed to allow the use of some of his magnificent paintings in this calendar. There are brief descriptions of the deities in each illustration.
As we wanted to maximize their beauty, we used high resolution images — the download ends up being 30 megabytes (This is the one you’ll want for printing out on your color printer). For those who prefer a smaller file, we have a link to download a lower resolution image (fine for screen use on your tablet or computer).
Volunteers at Buddha Weekly
As with everything at Buddha Weekly, this was put together by unpaid volunteers, including
- Graphic designer Kam Wai Yu
- Tangkha artist Jampay Dorje.
The calendar was inspired by, and is dedicated to H.E. Venerable Zasep Tulku Rinpoche.
- Download the printable high-resolution version (31 megabytes)>>
- Download the lower-resolution screen version (10 megabytes)>>
Back cover, credits and dedication on the Buddha Weekly 2018 Buddhist Practice Calendar (free to download.)
Lee Kane
Author | Buddha Weekly
Lee Kane is the editor of Buddha Weekly, since 2007. His main focuses as a writer are mindfulness techniques, meditation, Dharma and Sutra commentaries, Buddhist practices, international perspectives and traditions, Vajrayana, Mahayana, Zen. He also covers various events.
Lee also contributes as a writer to various other online magazines and blogs.
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Happy Wesak Day! On this most sacred day, celebrating the birth, Enlightenment and Paranirvana of Gautama Buddha, we wish all sentient beings health, happiness, and ultimate Enlightenment.
