Losar Tashi Delek!

Auspicious Dates Calendar 2025

February 28, 2025

By maryann

To celebrate the Year of the Wood Snake, Khyentse Foundation is pleased to present our seventh annual calendar to encourage you in your practice throughout the year. In addition to the evocative illustration, the calendar features the anniversaries of the Khyentse lineage masters and dates related to the Buddha Shakyamuni.

Titled Look/See, the illustration for this year’s calendar was created specially by Taiwan artist Ya-Chi Tseng. Born in Taipei in 1977, in 1996 Ya-Chi traveled to Japan to study at the Crafts Department of Osaka University of Arts, going on to study graphic design at New York’s Parsons School of Design. She moved to Hong Kong in 2012 but returned to Taiwan in 2019, where she has lived ever since. Ya-Chi’s artwork is deeply influenced by Buddhism. We took this opportunity to chat with her about Buddhist art, practice, and a few other things.

What is the source of inspiration for the illustration?

This year’s quote from Rinpoche emphasizes the importance of seeking the truth. At the moment I’m studying the sutra called “The Rice Seedling” (Śālistamba), which discusses a statement made by the Buddha while gazing at a rice seedling: “Whoever sees dependent arising sees the dharma. Whoever sees the dharma sees the Buddha.” Having made this statement, the Buddha fell silent. Puzzled, Venerable Shariputra approached the bodhisattva Maitreya and asked him what the Buddha meant.

In this way, through the example of how a grain of rice produces a rice sprout, we are led to understand the dependent arising of the phenomenal world and gradually, to see the truth of emptiness.

In the same vein, in my illustration I’ve used a flower to represent the myriad dharmas of the phenomenal world. Taking the sense objects as a starting point, you get to the laws of nature and then penetrate to the essence of the material world—emptiness, progressing layer by layer to finally reach ultimate reality, primordial luminosity. The petals of the flower, held by the Buddha, symbolize the different levels of reality, and the flower being in full bloom also represents perfection. This is the idea behind the illustration.

In your view, how do Buddhism, art, and even daily life relate to each other?

In my childhood environment I felt the influence of Buddhism in our thinking, aesthetic sense, language, and basically every aspect of our lives. Even though my parents weren’t Buddhist, there would be statues of the bodhisattva Guanyin or Bodhidharma in our home. I think that comes from the culture. In Taiwan, stickers with the words “Namo Amitabha,” meaning “Homage to Amitabha,” are often seen on lampposts. On a superficial level, I feel that Buddhism is part of everyday life in Taiwan. On a deeper level, in other words, from a practitioner’s perspective, I think that as long as we have the right motivation, almost any daily activity can be transformed into Buddhist practice. Being able to turn metal into gold is a very skillful way of practicing.

The origins of art lie in the myriad ways in which people express their thoughts and feelings. This is art’s emotional and intuitive aspect. A large part of Buddhist practice is also related to human emotion; for example, the training in compassion and bodhichitta, which regards all sentient beings as having been our mother in a previous life. So I think it’s easy to connect the two in this regard.

The purpose of publishing the calendar is to inspire people’s practice. As an artist and a Buddhist practitioner, do art making and your practice complement each other?

I believe the two complement each other very well. As a beginner practitioner, it’s my Buddhist practice that most benefits my creativity. I feel that Buddhist training has given me a deeper empathy for humanity and our collective experience.

In addition, I now have the opportunity to create artworks for Buddhist groups, which I think is a good way to accumulate merit. This type of work is a bit like craftsmanship, where the self steps back in subordination to the task. When I’m unable to draw something or have to keep making revisions, I see it as a blessing from my guru to purify my defilements. I think they complement each other in this respect.