During the next seven days, Olympia residents can watch the world be created and destroyed — symbolically speaking, that is.
Tibetan monks are creating a mandala — a circular geometric pattern that, on one level, represents the world in its divine form — in The Washington Center’s Black Box Theater.
The public can watch the creation take shape all week and see the finished design, made up of millions of grains of sand, during Friday’s Arts Walk.
And then, on Oct. 7, they can watch the monks sweep their work away as part of “The Mystical Arts of Tibet,” a performance that also includes sacred music and dance.
The monks of Drepung Loseling, a Tibetan monastery rebuilt in India, preserve these traditional Buddhist arts and have been touring since 1988 sharing them.
“The monks are traveling to promote healing and peace around the world with these sacred chants and dances and art,” said Geshe Lobsang Tenzin, director of Drepung Loseling Institute in Atlanta, Ga., which coordinates the tour as part of its mission to preserve Tibetan traditions. “It is also a way to raise awareness about Tibetan culture and the present situation.”
Symbolic meaning
A mandala (a Sanskrit word meaning circle) is a formal geometric pattern with several levels of meaning. It is the floor plan of an imaginary palace, filled with symbolic objects and deities, that is contemplated during meditation.
There are many types of mandalas, each with different lessons to teach.
But the creation and destruction of the sand mandala, an ancient Tibetan spiritual practice, might be as meaningful as the pattern itself.
“Making the mandala really is not just making the design,” Tenzin said. “It’s about the complete psychological or meditative process involved in making the mandala as well. The monks need to know the principles behind the mandala and the deities that are involved in the mandala.”
The process began Monday with a ceremony consecrating the site and calling forth the forces of goodness. The actual construction of the mandala begins with the drawing of the design onto a base.
The creation of a 5-foot-by-5-foot mandala takes 25-30 hours, Tenzin said, with four monks working at a time. Working from the inside out, each monk paints using a traditional metal funnel called a chak-pur, from which the sand flows like liquid.
It’s fascinating to watch the mandala take shape, said Kevin Boyer, The Washington Center’s marketing director, who spent a lot of time with the monks when “The Mystical Arts of Tibet” visited the center five years ago.
“It was a wonderful week for me,” he said. “A lot of people came last time and just sat for hours at a time and enjoyed watching them work.”
The monks themselves are an inspiration, too, he said. “You would think with monks that it’s rather serious business. It was very enlightening to hang out with them because of their sense of humor and their sense of fun.”
Only one monk in the group of 10 speaks English, but the humor crosses linguistic boundaries.
“It’s not like they’re cracking jokes, but they’re just not solemn like you would expect them to be,” he said. “They’re very lighthearted.”
But visitors to the mandala will be able to do more than simply watch. They’ll get the opportunity to try a chak-pur for themselves and paint their own designs.
When the mandala is completed, it will be covered with an acrylic cap so Arts Walk visitors can enjoy it without any worries, Boyer said.
But the cap won’t be on for long. The ephemeral nature of the sand mandala is part of its power. The destruction of the painstakingly created design represents the impermanence of all that exists.
At the conclusion of their Oct. 7 performance, the monks will simply sweep away the fruit of their labors.
Some of the sand from the mandala will be shared with those who attend the performance, but the rest will be dumped into Budd Inlet. By pouring the sand into a body of water, the monks are spreading the design’s healing power throughout the world.
“That is a very moving thing at the end of the night,” Boyer said. “We’ll have the streets closed off, and we’ll all make a candlelight procession down to the water. It’s really great.”
