Monks Making A Mandala
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Six Tibetan
Buddhist
monks from the Dalai Lama's Gyudmed
monastery
near the village of Hunsur in South
India
toured the United States. They came to visit the
Napa Valley
in California where I live.
I had the good fortune to
be with them
on various occasions, listening their message of compassion for all
sentient beings. On three of those occasions I observed them as
they created an intricate, ornate mandala from colored
sand in a wind-free room. It was a hushed,
privileged
experience. I could have been observing Michelangelo hewing La
Pieta out of the marble slab, or Da Vinci painting
Mona Lisa.
The first time I observed them, I saw their patience, their slow,
meticulous concentration. There was no margin for error, and they
made none. It was a fine, detailed, creative work of art. I had
never seen anything quite like it before. It took them three days
or more of painstaking work to create the mandala, one grain of
sand at a time. And when they were done, they destroyed it with a
whisk broom in a matter of seconds!
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