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Tibetan Lamas Demonstrate Ancient Sand Art Technique At PHCC

Klint Lowry/SUNCOAST

Buddhist monks Lama Konchok Gyaltsen left, Venerable Konchok Shenpen and Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche are creating a mandala, or Buddhist sand painting, at PHCC West Campus.

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: November 18, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - All this week West Pasco is being offered a glimpse of an ancient culture and its art and religion.

Tibetan Buddhist teachers, called Lamas, are in the lobby of the Pasco Hernando Community College West Campus Conference Center creating a sand image as part of the college's Peace Week activities.

Students, faculty and members of the community are welcome to come throughout the day, individually or in classes, and watch as the monks do their delicate, painstaking work.

They are creating an intricate and colorful 5-foot wide image, known as a mandala, entirely from colored sand.

"There are many levels of interest here," said PHCC Professor Michael Sadusky, who teaches psychology and religious studies and is sponsoring the event. "You can be interested in it as a religious symbol. You can be interested in it as a piece of art.

"For many people this is a once in a lifetime activity," Sadusky said of the creation of the mandala. "I've had students come over and just sit for an hour watching this."

Symbolic gesture
The people who are viewing the monks at work are being encouraged to come back Friday to see the completed project and witness the closing ceremony. After 10 days of precise work and concentration creating the exquisite image, the monks, with help from spectators, will wipe out the mandala.

The sand from which it was created will be tossed into a nearby stream.

This is the last symbolic gesture to a practice that is filled with symbolism.

The monks are from the Ratnashri Sangha of Tampa Bay, which follows the Kaygu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism.

Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche, who spent the first 40 years of his life in Tibet and is now the spiritual director of Ratnashri Sangha of Tampa Bay, is leading the project. Lama Konchok Gyatsen, a fellow Tibetan, and Venerable Konchok Shenpen are assisting him.

Sand mandalas are part of a centuries-old Buddhist ceremony in Tibet.

"It comes from the Buddha," Ningpo said. "Basically the same design every time, slightly different interpretation."

There are several symbolic elements to the design. In one sense, it can be looked at as a blueprint of a residence for a deity. The word mandala is Sanskrit for "mansion." Other definitions include "circle" or "completion," and their design is meant to be an interpretive representation of the universe, often used in meditation.

Unwavering eye
There are several mandalas; this particular one is for the deity Chenrezig, "the one who looks with an unwavering eye" or "Buddha of unwavering compassion."

"It's something that, especially in Tibet, is passed down, teacher to student, so it comes down from an unbroken lineage of masters," said Shensen, a young American student of Ningpo working on his first sand mandala. "That's how it maintains its integrity and how the design stays the same."

Same, but with slight interpretive differences every time, Ningpo explained.

It will take 10 days for the three men to create the mandala employing hundreds of hours of combined effort. Once it is finished, the mandala will exist only a few hours.

Week of lectures
Throughout the week, there are lectures scheduled at the school tied in its creation. At 3:30 p.m. Friday, Ningpo will give a two-hour teaching on the mandala.

At 5:30 p.m. comes the final ceremony, the dissolution of the mandala. Those in attendance will be invited to take part in wiping their hands across the sand until the image is gone. Then the sand is collected and poured into a nearby stream.

It is often a shock to Western sensibilities to see such a carefully crafted piece of artwork destroyed right after it is finished. But that's the purpose, to symbolize the impermanence of all things in this world.

"That's why I wouldn't make a good Buddhist," said Sadusky, who saw a similar demonstration last year at the St. Petersburg Art Museum and decided this was the kind of cultural experience PHCC should have.

"I'm not trying to turn anybody here into a good little Buddhist or anything like that," Sadusky said.
Instead, Sadusky said: "We are very interested in diversity and exposing ourselves and our students to other cultures, and other religions, and other groups and ways of thinking. That's what the college is all about. What a marvelous example of cultural, ethnic religious diversity this is.

Peace Week events are open to the public. For a complete schedule visit http://phcc.edu/peace/.
Klint Lowry can be reached at 727-815-1067 or klowry@suncoastnews.com.

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