The Brief Life of the Sand Mandala

Goshen, Connecticut

I spent a long weekend making pictures at TibetFest 2022, held at the Goshen Fairgrounds. There are many activities, many of which remind me of American Indian PowWows, which I photographed in Connecticut thirty-five years ago. I've contributed many pictures to the venue's Facebook page which you can see here if you're curious:

https://www.facebook.com/events/181049937572896/?active_tab=discussion

While people watch the performances of dancers and singers keeping up the tradition of Tibeten culture in exile, a small group of monks carries on the tradition of the Sand Mandala. They use brass tube tools topped by ridges that, by stroking one containing colored sand, with another empty one, precisely place colored sand into the outlined chart on the table. Over the course of two days what they put down is so incredibly more complex than the blueprint, it's stunning. I'm pretty good at hand skills, but I can't imagine how many hours of practice it would take for me to be able to do this in performance (which, among other things, this ritual is).

Hour by hour, it grows to fill the outlines.

Children learn of a sacred practice that may be unfamiliar to them. Though most of the attendees were Tibetan Americans who already knew.

Complete, for its one hour or so of existence.

The table with the finished mandala is moved to the center of the enormous metal barn building rented from the Goshen Fairgrounds for the event.

One of the monks explains the meaning and import of the mandala, and its transience, in Tibetan Buddist culture. Alternating between Tibetan and English.

A solemn ritual is performed circling the mandala with bell ringing and double basso throat chanting. (If you don't know what that is, you need to look it up.)

And then they begin to deconstruct it.

The first sand picked up goes into a glassware vessel.

Then a brush is used to to turn the mandala back into its elements of colored swirling sand. The audience, almost all of them Tibetan, knew this was coming, but couldn't restrain a huge collective gasp filling the air. But that is the lesson. All is ephemeral, except the All to which the mandala has just returned.

Children are encouraged to approach as the sand is gathered up.

They are told to scoop up tiny bits (quarter teaspoon I'd guess) to put into little ziplog bags to take home with them. These are talismans, meant to keep one safe and protect against danger. I think the kids were just having fun, which delighted the monks and is also very Tibbetan Buddhist.

The remaining sand will be ceremoniously poured into a free running river.