Monks demonstrate impermanence of material world despite the fact that there were no signs telling them to be quiet, people whispered if they spoke at all in the Bullen Center ballroom Friday afternoon.
Even children stood still and silent.
One elderly woman held a gloved hand to her lips like she was afraid to breathe.
The space felt sacred.
Three Tibetan Buddhist monks in red robes were bent over a table in the middle of the room scraping thin metal sticks across the ridges of metal funnels. The vibrations from the scraping released, a grain at a time, colored sand, which the monks deftly laid into place.
As the people in the room watched over the monks’ shoulders, visibly mesmerized by the exhaustive process, things appeared. Intricately detailed patterns, designs and pictures jumped out of the sand spread across the tabletop.
Hundreds showed up to see the finished creation on Saturday, literally overflowing the ballroom. They admired and snapped pictures of it for 30 minutes and settled back for the closing ceremony.
Amid sacred chanting, the eldest of the monks ceremoniously circled the table and dragged his hand across the delicate image they had labored over for three days, destroying it.
The monks then swept all of the sand into the center of the table, gave half of it to those in attendance and poured the other half into the nearby Logan River.
It’s a tradition historians believe was originated 20,000 years ago by the Buddhist monks in Tibet — the sacred sand painting known in Sanskrit as a “mandala,” literally translated “circle” or “center.”
It’s also called a “cosmogram,” a two-dimensional depiction of a three-dimensional universe.
A mandala has three meanings, one outer, one inner and one secret. On the outer level, a mandala represents the world in its divine form; on the inner level, a map by which the ordinary human mind is transformed into the enlightened mind; and on the secret level, the primordially perfect balance of the subtle energies of the body and the clear light dimension of the mind.
The destruction immediately following the completion is key to the ritual, symbolizing the impermanence of all things.
The distribution of the sand to the observers and the flowing water is meant to spread the blessings of the mandala throughout the world.
For any desired blessing — health, long life, steadfastness — there is a mandala intended to bring it about.
“There are thousands of different Buddhas and thousands of different mandalas,” a young monk named Thupdenchonjor said.
The monks have created mandalas in more than 50 museums in the United States, including the Smithsonian. They also created one at the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York.
Named for the popular female Buddha, Tara, the mandala the monks created in Logan last week was intended to bring peace, harmony and compassion.
According to legend, Avalokiteshvara (the Buddha of compassion) was looking down from his heaven on the suffering beings in the world and began to weep, seeing their pain. From the tears streaming down his face was born Tara — a wise and compassionate goddess, white in color, symbolizing her purity.
Thupdenchonjor hopes that the mandala’s creation brings comfort to a hurting world.
“There is so much trouble in the world,” he said. “So much fighting and wars.”
He is no stranger to it.
At 10 years old, he escaped from Chinese-occupied Tibet on foot with his family. They walked to India, a trek lasting two or three months.
Midge Henline, a practicing Buddhist from LaVerkin who recently hosted the monks in her home for ten days, said all nine of them have witnessed unspeakable horrors in their lifetimes, but somehow don’t seem affected by them.
“Many of them have been tortured,” she said, “but they come into your house with smiles. They’re still so innocent and happy.”
Over the 10 days that they were with her, Midge said she became quite attached to them. She traveled with them to Logan, she said, because she wanted to spend as much time with them as she could before they return to the Drepung Loseling Monastery in India.
“I guess you could call me a monk groupie,” she said with a laugh.
Few could blame her.
“They were out watering my flowers and mowing my lawn,” she said. “They’re fabulous house guests!”
But she also wanted to see the mandala ceremony again.
“To me it’s a powerful experience to be able to witness this,” she said. “It’s so detailed in construction, but rather than taking pride in it, they think nothing of sweeping it away.
She said it reminds her of the unimportance of material things and inspires her to be a better person.
“(The monks) are such examples of generosity and kindness and not being proud,” she said. “It’s a reminder for us that we can all attain this. It’s really not a bad way to go.”
