After working on this beautiful, mind-boggling creation for an entire week, my family and I attended the closing ceremony, where the mandala was "dismantled" and disseminated in the river to spread compassion around the world as much as possible. The mandala is undone to emphasize the ephemeral quality of life, etc. Nothing lasts forever, we can't get too attached to things...
Here is a close up of the entire finished mandala just before the ceremony began. I watched it being constructed at least once per day all week and was still very impressed when I saw the finished product. The theme of this mandala is compassion, so as they worked meticulously on every single detail of their collaborative creation, they are praying/concentrating on/meditation on spreading compassion throughout the world.
Here is the finished mandala with the altar behind it. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism.
This shot will hopefully show you a little more detail. The sand has a lot of texture - there are clear lines that are pointy in the middle, there are dots, swirls, etc in many layers. It is truly breathtaking.
After chanting prayers for compassion for about 15-20 minutes, the head monk walks around the mandala three times saying special prayers to eradicate any unintentional stray thoughts that occurred during its construction. He took a small pinch of the sand and put it on his head under his headdress to absorb the good intentions of the compassion infused into it.He then used his pointer finger knuckle to draw lines from the outside to the center of the mandala as he walked around it. Next, he used a brush to sweep the sand to the center of the table. The pattern looked very cool and colorful.
Most of the sand was scooped into an urn to put in the small creek behind the building.
The procession leads the crowd out to the creek to disseminate the sand so the compassion infused into it by the monks as they worked can spread over the earth through water. The monks also put a small scoop of sand in tiny ziplock bags to give to the attendees of the ceremony to distribute where they like. I thought that was a particularly nice touch.
Once all of the sand had been collected, we could see the intricate lines the monks traced on the table to guide their creation. Even the template is beautiful and impressive.
Part of the reason these monks travel the country doing mandalas everywhere they go is to raise awareness of their practices and traditions as well as of the plight of the Tibetan people, whose country has been occupied by China for 60 some years.
I hope you've enjoyed seeing these pictures and I hope you've learned something new - I did! Thanks for reading!
