A Mandala Sand Painting by Tibetan Monks

The Tibetan Monks bring process painting to its highest realization with their Tibetan mandalas. The sand mandala is created for the purpose of healing; the process of creating realizes that intention; there is no lasting product as the outcome.

I had the extraordinary opportunity to watch the Tibetan Lamas of Drepung Loseling Monastery create their mandala art  in May, 2006.   They transformed the Center for the Arts lobby in front of the University of New Mexico’s Popejoy Hall, Albuquerque, NM. into a sacred space. The mandala sand painting began with an opening ceremony in which the monks blessed the site with chants, music and mantra recitation.

The creation process for a sand painting is very different from a contemporary artist’s approach to process painting.  Most contemporary artists working with process painting use the process itself to discover their images.   For the Tibetan Monks, their design is very deliberative.  It begins as the monks draw the mandala design onto a raised wooden platform.   The design they use is drawn from their traditional iconography, using sacred geometry art  and a multitude of ancient symbols from Tibetan Buddism.

Once the design is drawn, the slow, meditative work of applying the colored sand begins.  In the past, the colored sand was obtained by grinding up brightly colored stones.   Today white stones are ground up and then dyed to produce the bright colors.  A total of fourteen colors are used by adding shades of white and black to the basic colors blue, red, yellow and green.

The sand is poured through traditional metal funnels called “chak-pur.”    The monks complete the sand mandala over a period of days or weeks, pouring millions of grains of sand through the chak-purs in the process.  Vibration causes the sand to flow through the chak-pur.  This vibration is created when the monks run a metal rod over the grated surface of the chak-pur.   The finished mandala is around five feet by five feet in size.

The sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for blessing and re-consecrating the earth and all her inhabitants.  With the completion of the mandala sand painting, the Tibetan Monks make a huge departure from our Western approach to conserving and preserving art as a commodity.  After a closing blessing ceremony, the monks dismantle the sand mandala.  They sweep up the sands and place them in an urn. To fulfill their healing intention, half of the sand is distributed to the audience and the other half is released into a nearby moving body of water.  The waters then carry the sands, infused with healing energy, to the ocean and from there the waters carry them around the whole world to contribute to planetary healing.

To view examples of  the Tibetan Monks’ sand mandalas visit the official website of Drepung Loseling Monastery Inc. http://www.mysticalartsoftibet.org/Index.cfm#top .  View the Tibetan Monks’ sand mandala created in New Mexico at  http://www.artnetwork.com/Mandala/gallery.html

To experience the fun of process painting try this art project.