Witnessing a Buddhist Sand Mandala at My School

[Cyrus]

At my school there is a small art gallery located above the food courts. Today they had some Buddhist monks making sand mandalas. I had heard about them but never actually saw one until today. There were 4 monks making a mandala on a big square 4-legged table. It was quite exquisite and beautiful. The monks use these long metal tubes, called a chak-pur, basically a funnel, which has grooves or notches going up its length. They also have a metal tool like a chop stick that they run up and down the groves on the tube to cause the sand to flow out. It’s quite a clever design, as no sand will flow out unless you run up and down with the tool. It makes a zzzzzzzt zzzzzzzzzt zzzzzzzzzzt sound as they make the mandala.

This one is very similar to it. Its amazing, they can actually make the sand shade from one color to another.

Once they finish they have a ceremony, followed by sweeping up all the sand into an urn and pouring it into a river . It has to do with the 'nothing is permanent' philosophy of life. They say that by pouring it into the river it washes away the pains and sufferings of mankind and causes planetary healing.

http://www.si.edu/festival/1998Fest/images/sand.jpg

http://www.namgyal.org/TibetanArt/Photos/Mar20-2.jpg

http://www.namgyal.org/TibetanArt/Photos/Mar11-4.jpg

It's really something you have to see for yourself.

Too bad most of the kids were too stupid talking on their cell phones or to each other go realize what was going on in the Art Gallery RIGHT NEXT TO THEM! What a bunch of morons what can I say.

 

[jimmy p]

Wow... those are some amazing photos. There isn't much else I can say really, they are too awe-inspiring.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Somehow, I've never heard of this. On the other hand you often hear of Southwest Native American sand paintings. It strikes me as strange that the same very unusual medium came into use in two such separate cultures.

 

[Moonbear]

Those are beautiful! When I was at Michigan, they had them doing that at the art museum there too. The colors are brilliant, and it's hard to believe it's just colored sand. The patterns are so intricate. And the way they work, it really does look like they're almost placing every individual sand grain...not really, but sometimes it seems so, they have such fine control of where they are placing the sand.