El Mercurio, a Spanish language daily from Santiago in Chile, announces the arrival of Tibetan Cultural Festival, "Encounter with the Tibetan Culture", in the first week of April in Chile’s capital City, Santiago.
The festival, which will be inaugurated on April 5, will compose of two segments. The first segment will include four photo exhibitions which will be displayed from April 6 to 24 at the Corporacion Cultural de Las Condes. "Jewels of Tibetan Art", 30 patrimonial pieces of private collections of silks and Thankas, portrays the various aspects of Tibetan religious paintings; "Living Treasures of Buddhism", a photo exhibition of big format (2×1 mts) by the Mexican artist Ángel Alcalá portrays Buddhist Masters in meditation; "A Long Look Homeward" presents Tibet’s contemporary history; "The Voyage to the Dalai Lama’s Heart" by Pablo Rosenblatt and Chantal Bernsau projects the images of Dharamsala, headquarters of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government-In-Exile.
The second segment, which will take place in the same venue from April 5 to 10, will include the construction of Sand Mandala by the monks of Namgyal monastery, video film shows, lectures on various aspects of the life of Tibetan people, workshops on Tibetan medicine and music, Tibetan musical concert with Nawang Khechog.
In its March 27 issue, EL Mercurio writes: "His enthusiasm to reveal the richness and strength of this people encourages Abdullah Ommidvar to invest US$ 15.000 in order to bring to the Corporación Cultural de Las Condes Buddhists monks and the Representative of the Dalai Lama for the Latin America, Tsewang Phuntso, from New York, as well as four exhibitions, an avant-garde Tibetan musical concert; 10 movies, including Martin Scorsese; a Tibetan Medicine workshop and another on Tibetan music as a way to kindness. On the top of these, the construction of a Sand Mandala will take place from the 6 to 10 of April, between 11 am to 7:30 pm."
Mr. Abdullah Ommidvar, an Iranian cinematographer who married to Chilean woman and migrated to Chile in 1964, is the head of the committee responsible for the organization of this event. The Committee is composed of the representatives of several Tibetan Dharma Centers, Friends of Tibet, and Chilean Tibetan Cultural Associations.
El Mercurio is a conservative daily read by 300,000 people in Chile.
Following is the full text of the English translation of the report. The original Spanish can be read by clicking here.
CORPORACIÓN CULTURAL DE LAS CONDES:
THE TREASURES OF TIBET ARRIVES IN CHILE IN APRIL
EL MERCURIO, Santiago of Chile
Sunday 27 of March, 2005
By Heidi Schmidlin M.
With the same passion with which he dedicated himself to produce cinematography in Chile, a territory quite barren before his arrival with Arauco Films in 1964, Abdullah Ommidvar dedicated unconditionally 55 years of his life to the welfare of Tibetans and the Dalai Lama. The clearness of his Persian eyes becomes even more transparent when assuring that from the 140 countries he has visited, none hushed him as Tibet did:
"The way Tibetans see themselves and how they project to humanity penetrates each detail of their daily life. It is a culture deeply influenced by the inner world. As individuals, they center all their potentials to the growth in coherence with the community. They are free despite being suppressed and they lead a life with a compassion and self-dedication, although their conditions are extremely hard and poor. As the world has now become a global village, we can’t avoid presenting a way of life, which not only represents 3% of the world population, but also seduced by another big mass of people with very diverse origins and believes".
His enthusiasm to reveal the richness and strength of this people encourages Abdullah Ommidvar to invest US$ 15.000 in order to bring to the Corporación Cultural de Las Condes Buddhists monks and the Representative of the Dalai Lama for the Latin America, Tsewang Phuntso, from New York, as well as four exhibitions, an avant-garde Tibetan musical concert; 10 movies, including Martin Scorsese; a Tibetan Medicine workshop and another on Tibetan music as a way to kindness. On the top of these, the construction of a Sand Mandala will take place from the 6 to 10 of April, between 11 am to 7:30 pm.
"The Tibetan Art is not an expression of shapes; it answers to a sacred sense and looks to project in this world the reality of a more transcendent one. It requires self-discipline, which forces the artist to skillfully command drawing, color and expression. In general, it is about a collectors’ art very well valued in international markets of New York, London and others. With his work, the creator reveals the spiritual level and the connection degree with his visions. The creator’s personal perfection depends how he understands and illustrates the worlds of great sages like the Buddhas", comments the photographer Mónica Oportot, who has traveled to Tibet during the last twenty years.
By pieces
The two previous visits of the Dalai Lama to Chile left trails. Among others, His followers discovered that they weren’t confronted with something esoteric, but a "philosophical tradition particularly refined in its way to explore human conscience", as described by the neurobiologist Francisco Varela, who had several encounters with the highest exponent of Buddhism, in his book, "Gentle Bridges" among other texts. What was mentioned in the book will be the recurrent subject during this week of encounter that will be inaugurated on Tuesday 5 of April at 7:30 pm, including four exhibitions.
"Jewels of Tibetan Art", 30 patrimonial pieces of private collections of silks and Thankas, paintings with representations of deities which hang in every home, serve as parts of religious festivities; "Living Treasures of Buddhism", a photo exhibition of big format (2×1 mts) by the Mexican artist Ángel Alcalá portrays Buddhist Masters in meditation; "A Long Look Homeward" presents Tibet’s contemporary history; "The Voyage to the Dalai Lama’s Heart" by Pablo Rosenblatt and Chantal Bernsau projects the images of Dharamsala, current residency of the Dalai Lama, taken few years ago while making a documentary film. The spinal column of the samples is the construction of a sand mandala (see related text).
Among the novelties stands out "Kundun" of Martin Scorsese (Saturday 9 th), which will be exhibited after having been censured in Chile more than once: "A documented fiction movie which revolves around the sense of life and death, of whom could be the last Dalai Lama", says Ommidvar.
Admission to these and other activities is free. More details in www.tibet.cl
NAWANG KHECHOG
Special mention deserves the musical concert (Friday 8, 7:30 pm) by the flutist Nawang Khechog, one of the popular contemporary Tibetan musicians, currently equal to the Japanese Kitaro. He has shared stages with Philip Glass, Paul Winter, Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon and Peter Kater, among others. A son of Tibetan nomads who migrated to India, Khechog learnt to play the bamboo flute, old and popular instrument in rural Tibet. At the age of 20 he looked for the guidance of the Dalai Lama and went into retreat as hermit in a cave, dedicated to meditation and philosophy. Four years later, he emerged from his self-imposed exile and went to Australia, where he nationalized and learnt how to play the aboriginal didgeridoo, a long wooden flute.
His music is found in the soundtrack of "Seven Years in Tibet" directed by Jean Jacques Annaud, among other films and documentaries.
Adhesion: Ch$ 5.000
MANDALA, AN ILLUMINATED DRAWING
The sacred circle will be the spinal column of this Tibetan Week
Click here for the original Spanish text.
Carl G. Jung explored obsessively down to the deepest darkness of unconsciousness. His methods of investigation were so different as the cases he chose to analyze. Because of this, nobody could be much surprised when he announced the weirdest discoveries, evidences that were to change forever the way of facing human inner self. He discovered, for instance, that there were archetypical images and that, when applied, they represented therapeutic figures for the treatment of some neurosis and schizophrenias. One of the most precise was the Tibetan mandalas, universe diagrams used as meditation focus. To Buddhists, mandalas are a kind of architectural plan, a map that the mind uses to re-orientate states of internal confusion.
The significance of its presence in the Tibetan art and spirituality, deserves that the construction of a sand mandala (of diverse kinds) to be the spinal column of the activities at the Corporación Cultural de Las Condes. Although its work is of greatest delicacy and takes days of work, once completed it is destroyed and offered. This represents the impermanency of matter and the ego dissolution.
Its construction will start with a ceremony to consecrate the place where it will be installed. Some monks will perform the tantric dance "Black Hat" to eliminate the obstacles that could emerge during its creation.
The measurements of the design lines are based on the magical geometry. In the distribution of color sands –all symbolic- a "vajra" is used (manual airbrush), which represents the method: love and compassion. It all starts with the sounds of a bell, wisdom. The few lamas who decide to build mandalas should dedicate themselves to the practice of a special discipline, "oriented to reach perfection in the representation of worlds which are not visible to our eyes", state the experts.
Once the mandala is completed and dismantled, a portion of sand is given to the people. The other half is given away in a river o the sea in order to purify the environment and bring peace in the environment.
The base color of the sand identifies the requested activity. Thus, the white is for pacification; yellow for enhancing, red for power and dark blue for irate activities.
In general, all mandalas have three levels of consideration — external, inner and secret. In the exterior, the world is represented in its divine form; in the interior, a transforming map of the ordinary mind; and in the secret aspect, the perfect balance between subtle forms of body and mind are presented.
It is said that a sand mandala purifies in these three levels.
