Sands of healing and compassion
Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. That’s especially true when it comes to the creation of a mandala, or sand painting.
On Saturday, five monks from the Dzongkar Choede Monastery in South India completed work on an intricate and colourful sand painting at the Nikkei Cultural Centre as part of a tour to raise money to support their monastery. For four days the monks hunched over pillows to rasp fine coloured sand, ground from marble, through chak purs, a kind of metal flute, into an intricate pattern stenciled upon a green tablet. The process is a form of meditation. The mandala’s creation is a symbol of healing and compassion.
And when they were finished, it was all swept away.
“By destroying it, we learn to let go,” said Lopon Jampa Sopa, the ritual master of the monastery.
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