Tibetan Nuns will Build Mandala of Compassion at Trinity College

The Buddhist Channel, August 27, 2012

Six Buddhist Nuns from Nepal also will participate in College Convocation

HARTFORD, CT, (USA) -- Six Buddhist nuns from the Keydong Thuk-che Choeling Nunnery in Kathmandu, Nepal, have arrived in preparation for building a mandala, a sand painting used for prayer, contemplation, and healing, at Trinity College.



Before the mandala making gets underway, however, the Keydong nuns will appear at the College's convocation on Thursday, August 30 at 2 p.m., at which they will recite "Words of Truth," a prayer composed by His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. The convocation will take place on the main quadrangle, and is free and open to the public. (The rain location is the Koeppel Community Sports Center, 175 New Britain Avenue.)

The Keydong nuns are among the first Buddhist female monastics to learn and practice the sacred art of the sand mandala, an ancient tradition once reserved for monks. This marks their third appearance at Trinity, having been the first Buddhist nuns to create a sand mandala in the United States in 1998. They returned to Trinity in February 2005 to build asecond mandala.

In September, on a day deemed auspicious on the Tibetan calendar, the nuns will start creating a third mandala using brightly colored sand they are bringing from Nepal. The mandala will be built in the Austin Arts Center's Garmany Hall.

In the Himalayan valley where the Keydong nunnery is located, the monastic women collect nuggets of white marble that they crush, wash, and dry in the sun. The sand is divided and dyed in five colors—red, blue, yellow, green, and white—representing the five "Buddha families," which contain multiple levels of meaning.

The mandala will take one month to complete, and will measure approximately eight by eight feet, according to Ani Ngawang Tendol, a Keydong nun who serves as the group's leader and interpreter. ("Ani" is the honorific prefix given to a nun's name in Tibetan Buddhist, and means "Nun.")

Both graphic and abstract in design, the intricate forms and spiritual symbols of a mandala can be "read" by the initiated. At the center is a square diagram of a palace inhabited by an enlightened celestial being. In this case, it is Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion. Multiple circles surround the deity's palace.

The exhibit, "Mandala: The Sacred Art of Sand," will be open to the public on Friday, September 14. Visitors should be prepared to take off their shoes before entering Garmany Hall.

That day, public viewing of the mandala making will be at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., and will be followed by a keynote lecture at 4:30 p.m. in the adjacent Goodwin Theater. Rinchen Dharlo, president of the Tibet Fund and former North American representative of the Dalai Lama, will introduce the lecturer.

Entitled "Tradition Changing Women, Women Changing Tradition: The Interface of Tibetan Nuns and the Sacred Art of Sand Mandala Making," the lecture is, in part, an eyewitness account by Melissa R. Kerin, who first observed the nuns in Nepal in 1993 while a student at Trinity. She iscurrently assistant professor of art history at Washington and Lee University.

Beginning Saturday, September 15, observers are welcome to witness the mandala making on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. through October 13. There will be occasions when Garmany Hall will be closed for the nuns' religious observances, so those travelling from a distance are encouraged to call ahead at             860-297-2199      .

On Sunday, October 14 at noon, the nuns will ceremoniously dismantle the mandala and disperse the sands into the Connecticut River at Charter Oak Landing in Hartford, a gesture signifying the impermanence of life. The public is invited to observe these rituals. School buses on Summit Street, adjacent to Trinity's Mather Hall, will provide free round-trip transportation. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

A concurrent display of sacred thangkas and contemporary painting from Tibet, on loan from local private collections, will be shown in Garmany Hall. Related concerts and films, all free to the public, will take place in the Goodwin Theater and Cinestudio.

"Mandala: The Sacred Art of Sand" is sponsored by Trinity's Office of the President; Office of the Dean of Faculty; Hy C. and Micki Dworin Fund for Asian and Eastern European Studies; Austin Arts Center Guest Artist Series; the Center for Urban and Global Studies; and The O'Neill Asia Cum Laude Endowment. The project is supported by 26 departments and programs at Trinity.

For more information about the Keydong Thuk-che Choeling Nunnery in Kathmandu, Nepal, please visit: www.keydong-thukche-choeling.org<http://www.keydong-thukche-choeling.org>. For more information about the events, please visit: http://www.trincoll.edu/arts/mandala.

Read More @ Source



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scholars discuss relevance of Buddha in modern world

Image
New Delhi, Nov 27 ( IANS ) More than 900 Buddhist scholars , leaders and practitioners from 46 countries Sunday began deliberating the relevance of Gautama Buddha 's teachings, 2,600 years after his enlightenment, at a four-day Global Buddhist Congregation here. The venue at Hotel Ashok sported a riot of saffron, burgundy and ceremonial colours as monks and senior lamas from 46 countries like Nepal, Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia, Laos, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Germany flooded the premises. In a televised message, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama , who will attend the convention Nov 30, to deliver the valedictory address, said: 'There have been many opportunities for Buddhists to come together and to discuss issues of common concerns.' 'The congregation has provided a much-needed and crucial opportunity. Now, and in the future, we need to encourage and foster an exchange of knowledge and experience among our different traditions and improve communication a
Keep reading

Buddhist temple in Westminster destroyed in early-morning fire

Image
Enduring bitter cold Monday morning, a Westminster firefighter battles a blaze at the Lao Buddhist Temple. The building was a total loss. (Steve Nehf, The Denver Post) WESTMINSTER — Brutal cold mixed with cold reality for members of the burned-out Lao Buddhist Temple of Colorado on Monday as they mourned the potential loss of artifacts saved by generations of worshippers. "It's not good, it's not good at all," said an exhausted Tom Pong as dusk fell over the remnants of the temple. "There is lots of history, over 100 years of it, and it could be lost forever." Pieces charred or melted by the fire — which started just before 6 a.m. — included several Buddha figures. Worries about asbestos prevented Pong and other members of the temple from going inside to assess the damage. The temple is part of an older building that the congregation bought in the early 1980s and then expanded on a 6-acre parcel at 10685 Dover St. The older section has asbestos,
Keep reading

Danish Buddhist leader, Lama Ole, to visit in Snohomish

Image
SNOHOMISH -- An unconventional guest is coming to Snohomish County next week. Ole Nydahl, a 70-year-old Danish leader of Diamond Way Buddhism, is visiting followers here in the Pacific Northwest. Nydahl's school of thought can be described as an adaptation of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism to the Western culture, said Daria Novoselova, who will be hosting Nydahl's meeting with students in her Snohomish home. Nydahl, who is known as Lama Ole, is expected to arrive Monday. He is scheduled to give a talk at the University of Washington later that day. Novoselova, 29, felt drawn to Diamond Way Buddhism as soon as she met Nydahl. She remembers that very first lecture. She was 16 and living in Yekaterinburg, Russia, when her older brother brought her along to the lama's talk. "I immediately felt at home," she said. "I had all these ideas about the world, and, suddenly, everything came together." At the end of that lecture, she accepted a blessing
Keep reading