Zanshin Calendar

Zanshin Calendar opens on today and shows it as a Tibetan almanac or the old Japanese calendar (旧暦) would: the lunar date, what the day is good for, what to put off, and when the sun rises, stands at noon and sets where you are. Tap a line and it tells you what it means. There is also a meditation timer, a mindfulness bell and a prayer wheel.

Tibetan calendar, Phugpa (ཕུག་པ, phug pa)


• The date: lunar day, month and year, including the days the calendar skips or doubles and the leap months.

• Festivals: Losar (ལོ་གསར, lo gsar), Chötrul Düchen (ཆོ་འཕྲུལ་དུས་ཆེན, cho 'phrul dus chen), Saga Dawa Düchen (ས་ག་ཟླ་བའི་དུས་ཆེན, sa ga zla ba'i dus chen), Chökhor Düchen (ཆོས་འཁོར་དུས་ཆེན, chos 'khor dus chen), Lhabab Düchen (ལྷ་བབས་དུས་ཆེན, lha babs dus chen) and others, plus the monthly observances on the 8th, 10th, 15th, 25th and 30th.

• A day in brief: the day's factors are weighed in the order the texts rank them, with the hours above the day. You get the tone of the day, the one factor that settles it, and what the lists call good or say to avoid. On today's page the answer follows the present hour.

• Choose a day: pick a wedding, a journey, a haircut or any other work, then a span of one to twelve months. The best days come ranked, with the good hours of each month.

• Your works: the ones you pin come first on the page, each with what the day makes of it. The haircut sits next to them with its good and bad days and hours, and your birth year adds your personal days.

• The hours: a round dial of the day. It marks each hour's combination period, Jupiter's nectar periods, the earth lords of the hour and the black hours. It also says what each hour suits, where the sun's four rough times fall and which works an hour turns against the day.

• The day's signs: lunar mansion, yoga, karaṇa, the element pair of weekday and mansion, and the animal, trigram (སྤར་ཁ, spar kha) and number of the lunar day. All of them have readings, and so do the special days, Rāhu's course, the earth lords and the direction of the astrologer spirit (བླ་མཁྱེན, bla mkhyen).

• Changes within the day: a second mansion, a skipped yoga or the span of Viṣṭi, each with its time, as the almanac of the White Beryl (བཻཌཱུར་དཀར་པོ, bai DUr dkar po) writes them.

• Mewa and links: the date's mewa (སྨེ་བ, sme ba) and what the activity lists hold it good or bad for. The twelve links (རྟེན་འབྲེལ, rten 'brel) are counted from the month's middle term, and each day's link comes with its works, directions and remedy.

• The hundred feet (རྐང་བརྒྱ, rkang brgya): the fangs of the moon, the sun, the five planets and Rāhu when they land on your birth mansion, and the spear and great spear on the moon's mansion.

• Month headings: the almanac opens each month by saying if it is long or short and which planet rises. It goes on to the black months, the seven days of the sage (དྲང་སྲོང, drang srong) and of the pig, and any comet its count marks.

• Eclipses: lunar and solar, found by the karaṇa reckoning (བྱེད་རྩིས, byed rtsis) of the Kālacakra (དུས་འཁོར, dus 'khor) as the almanac does it. They appear on their day with the merit they multiply.

• The bride's going: seventeen checks for you and your spouse, on any day and when you choose a wedding day.

• Earth lords: a compass for the year and another for the month. They show where each lord stands, the works it bars there and the remedy.

• The four aspects: vitality, body, destiny and luck for the year. With your birth year you also get the personal mansions, and the white and black pebbles of the year, month, day and every hour.

• Health: what it means to fall ill today, going by the date, the weekday, the link and the goddess of the day. You can see where the la, the life-spirit (བླ, bla), sits now and how it moves through the day, the day's mansion for your element and the day's medical works. The humours and seasons of th