How to read a temple’s annual calendar
Date labels
A temple calendar can contain several kinds of time at once: a deity’s annual anniversary, a monthly service, a retreat running over several days, and deadlines for participants. Reading it begins with identifying what each date describes. The anniversary and the date chosen for a particular gathering may be separate entries.
For a Chinese lunar entry, retain the year, month, day and any leap-month designation. Month four, day eight is not April 8. Nor does “month six” necessarily identify a unique month in a year containing a leap sixth month. In 2025, the regular sixth month began on June 25, the leap sixth month on July 25, and the seventh month on August 23. On a Chinese-language notice, the additional month is marked run (闰), meaning “leap.”
A calendar conversion establishes which civil date corresponds to a stated lunar date. It does not decide whether a temple repeats an anniversary in a leap month. Follow the temple’s published observance for a repeated month.
Lunar months have twenty-nine or thirty days. A reference to “the last day” therefore cannot always be replaced with “day thirty.” This matters for end-of-month services and for New Year’s Eve.
When a notice supplies Gregorian and lunar dates together, keep both. Use unambiguous Gregorian notation, such as “January 28, 2025” or “2025-01-28,” and write the lunar date in words or in separately labelled fields. For a twelfth-month observance, the Gregorian date may fall in the year after the lunar year began.
Services and attendance
The main date range on a poster may encompass more than one programme. A retreat can give different attendance periods for different groups, or include arrival and departure days outside the main teaching sessions. Registration deadlines and interviews belong to the application process. They are separate from the time participants spend at the temple.
A useful transcription separates the following information:
| Field | What to record | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Religious occasion | Anniversary or festival name, with its lunar date where supplied | Preserves the recurring observance |
| Actual event | Ceremony, teaching session, procession or retreat | Identifies what is taking place |
| Attendance period | Relevant participant group, arrival, start and finish | Gives the schedule that applies to the participant |
| Registration | Application deadline, interview and confirmation requirements | Distinguishes booking from participation |
| Venue and access | Named branch, physical location or online format | Separates similarly named programmes in different places |
| Clock time | Date, time and stated time zone | Makes a livestream or cross-border event usable |
For a recurring entry such as “first and fifteenth,” establish whether the notice means lunar days. A service on the fifteenth of every lunar month follows a different recurrence from a Sunday service. Both can appear in one annual programme, and they only occasionally coincide.
New Year’s Eve and evening services
New Year’s Eve is the final day of the twelfth lunar month, whether that month has twenty-nine or thirty days. In 2025, it fell on January 28, lunar month twelve, day twenty-nine, followed by Chinese New Year on January 29. There was no lunar day thirty between them.
An evening service may continue across midnight into the anniversary itself. Record the Gregorian date on which it begins, together with its start time. A notice describing the coming festival does not necessarily place every preparatory or eve service on the festival’s daytime date.
For a livestream, convert the organiser’s full dated start time into the viewer’s time zone. The result may fall on a different civil date. Keep the distinction between converting a scheduled instant and assigning lunar calendar dates: the first changes the clock display for the viewer, while the second follows the calendar convention used by the organiser.