Losar celebrates the Tibetan New Year. This annual Buddhist festival is marked with activities that symbolise purification, and welcoming in the new. Losar rituals are concerned with inspiring a creative attitude, to establish a basis for a good new year. On these first days of the year Tibetans engage in specific virtuous actions, and acts that are considered auspicious.
Moreover, in the days that precede Losar, the last days of the old year, everyone in the community is concerned with pacifying and removing left-over negativity. During this time, Tibetan monasteries and temples undertake specific rites to expel negative habits from the old year, so these will not be carried into the New Year. The lamas and monks will do a week of rituals, some of which culminate in the well-known lama dances.