Sand Mandala for Tibet Week at Emory University - Day 3

in #meditation6 years ago


This is day 3 for the beautiful sand mandala I've been watching since Monday. The theme of the mandala is compassion.
You can see the monk on the left is using the point of a compass to draw a design which will then be colored in with different colored sand. To draw with the sand, the monks collect sand in a conical tube with a very small opening. They scrape a textured strip on the tube held at a special angle to make the sand fall out at a particular rate.
My son and I got to try making a sand mandala on a sheet of paper with a design - it is NOT easy! In fact, it is quite difficult and I'm sure takes a very long time to master.
The designs are so intricate. It is truly a special occasion to be able to observe this practice. One of the monks told me he has been doing this for 5 years. This group travels around the country to different universities creating mandalas to raise awareness for the Tibetan cause and to educate people about Tibetan Buddhism.
On Saturday, we will attend the closing ceremony where the entire week's work will be destroyed and the sand distributed to the ceremony attendees to pour out into a body of water.


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This is beautiful thanks for sharing!!

You're welcome! I'll be posting some other things showing more of the process over the week and I will try to get a video of the closing - when they wipe the whole thing away - life is ephemeral, etc...

I love these. They're so amazing.

Me too! I've been going everyday - twice on Wednesday. I took my son yesterday and had to drag him away! He was still interested after 45 minutes!

I've never seen one in person. I need to make that happen. It would be so wonderful if everyone was really able to devote themselves to something they really love like that. To just devote their lives to whatever their calling is and have their basic needs totally met.

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