((PKG)) TIBETAN SAND ART
((Banner: Mandalas of Sand))
((Reporter/Camera: June Soh))
((Map: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania))
((LOSONG SAMTEN, SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR, TIBETAN BUDDHIST CENTER OF PHILADELPHIA))
When I was a teenager, at the age of 17, I had a privilege to enter into His Holiness Dalai Lama’s monastery in India. I have been studying sand mandala ever since then. So it’s a long time.
((Banner: A mandala is a Buddhist and Hindu spiritual symbol))
What I’m doing now in the Philadelphia Folklore Project is the center of the mandala.
If, let’s say, we decided to do a whole mandala compassion, it’s at least going to take three weeks to complete.
Mandala represents the universe. Mandala represents home of the god and goddesses. We will say the deities.
I came here in 1988 to the United States to do the sand mandala in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History. That was the first time displayed the Tibetan unique sand mandala to the public. Ever since then I’ve had a great opportunity to create the sand mandalas all over the United States and Canada, a lot of parts of the world.
These are uniquely designed. Many, many, many, many, many years. So, passing through artist to another artist to another artist to another artist.
So, the color has a meaning. Shape has different meanings. Not my design. It didn’t come out of my own idea.
((Courtesy: Losong Samten))
((LOSONG SAMTEN, SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR, TIBETAN BUDDHIST CENTER OF PHILADELPHIA))
In the winter of 1959, crossed the Mount Everest. It took us two months to cross. You cannot travel during the day. And so scared and not enough food, not enough clothes. I was age of 5. I have seen, I mean, unbelievable dead bodies, people dying without food. I became a monk at age 11 when I was in school, refugee school.
When I am doing this mandala at the universities and in the schools, many kids came to me, “when I saw you doing the sand sandala, that helped me so much to finish my education.” Patience.
((NATS))
Dismantle has many different reasons. One thing is, dismantle is a beauty, whatever we see as a beauty on the earth, never be everlasting as a beauty and impermanent, impermanent, comes and goes. It’s like a season.
((TRACI CHIODRESS, GALLERY VISITOR))
I think it’s powerful to see something so beautiful created, and then taken apart, and to be done in a community with a group of people of different ages. I just think it’s an important type of practice.
((NATS))
