Recently, the sun did a glorious job of illuminating my dining room table. It's a rare occurrence, first of all, because the only windows in this room face north and secondly, the sun rarely shines here! This accidental, very Stonehenge-ish , multi-colored moment was all thanks to a bunch of grocery store flowers and a decorative cloth I picked up a long time ago from Buddhist monks.
This little table cloth (for lack of a better term) reminded me of some photos I took almost a year ago of Tibetan monks creating a sand mandala and meant to do a post on. I bought this one many years ago from another group of monks from the same monastery. For being people who don't go in for worldly possessions, they offered an excellent selection of merchandise and even took credit cards.
Other cultures have always fascinated me and I'm not sure if it's simply curiosity or just plain nosiness. Anyway, last March, The Mystical Arts of Tibet tour stopped by our town and His Madness and I visited the monks who had set themselves up in the conservatory of our local art museum. They were there for a week to create a sand mandala, peddle their merchandise, play music, dance and bring spiritual healing, inner peace and kindness to east central Wisconsin.
The monks were from the Drepung Loseling Monastery first established in Tibet but exiled to India when the Chinese Communists took over in 1959. The photo on the table is of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Yellow Hat School of Tibetan Buddhism. That's one of the actual hats they wear for ceremonies on the far right and I'm so sorry we missed seeing that performance! This day I was there mainly to gawk at all the fabrics and marvel at their patience. They were about half-way through the sand painting when I took this photo.
Looking out at the courtyard from the conservatory there was definitely a contrast between the rich brocade fabrics and jewel-toned sand with the winter landscape. Being more familiar with other forms of Buddhism than Tibetan, I have to admit the courtyard seemed pretty zen to me.
Creating the mandala and then deconstructing it is meant to represent the impermanence of all that exists. (Personally, that is something I try not to think about.) It's these rituals that set Tibetan Buddhism apart from the other forms, such as Zen. Looking at their schedule, they performed quite a few rituals each day. I must confess that I was most intrigued by the actual materials and tools as well as the whole process of creating a sand painting and would've loved to give it a try!
I couldn't get a good photo of those little bowls of sand, this is a cropped section of the first photo with the two monks. Apparently, it's not regular sand but white stones that they specially grind into sand and dye with opaque inks. The sand is applied using metal funnels called chad-pur. It's supposed to be dense enough to stay in place. Can you imagine taking out hours of work with one sneeze! That may also explain why they wear sleeveless robes in winter.
After a week of careful work, there was a consecration ceremony and then the whole thing was carefully swept up into an urn. Half of the sand was given to the people who came to watch for blessings of personal health and well-being. (HM still has some in a film can from many years ago when they were at the university.) The other half was taken to the river and released back to nature to spread healing throughout the earth. Luckily, there's no shortage of lakes and rivers here however they did need to cut a hole in the ice to get all the good vibes to wash around the globe.
There was an accompanying exhibit, Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion by Phil Borges. It's a series of beautiful photographs that also include stories about each person. You can see his photos here. Both of these are definitely worth checking out if they come to your area.
Burt and Ivy are still recovering from Mardi Gras but they will be back soon with more adventures
Thanks for stopping by!
