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Sand mandala (Tibetan : དཀྱིལ་འཁོར།, Wylie : dkyil 'khor, THL kyinkhor; Chinese :沙壇城/壇城沙畫) is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of mandalas made from colored sand. Once complete, the sand mandala's ritualistic dismantling is accompanied by ceremonies and viewing to symbolize Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life. [1]
Historically, the mandala was not created with naturally dyed sand, but granules of crushed colored stone. In modern times, plain white stones are ground down and dyed with opaque inks to achieve the same effect. The monks use a special, extremely dense sand in order to limit interference by things such as wind or sneezes. Before laying down the sand, the monks assigned to the project will draw the geometric measurements associated with the mandala. The sand granules are then applied using small tubes, funnels, and scrapers, called chak-pur, until the desired pattern is achieved. Sand mandalas traditionally take several weeks to build due to the large amount of work involved in laying down the sand in such intricate detail. It is common that a team of monks will work together on the project, creating one section of the diagram at a time, working from the middle outwards.
The Kalachakra Mandala for instance, contains 722 deities portrayed within the complex structure and geometry of the mandala itself. Other smaller mandalas, such as the one attributed to Vajrabhairava, contain significantly fewer deities and require less geometry, but still take several days to complete. Like all mandalas, these are meant as two-dimensional representations of what is supposed to be a three-dimensional environment. Various buildings have been suggested to be three-dimensional mandalas, such as Borobodur in Java, Indonesia, and the Bayon in Siem Reap, Cambodia, although no academic consensus on either has yet been reached.
Many sand mandala contain a specific outer locality which is clearly identified as a charnel ground.
The colors for the painting are usually made with naturally colored sand, crushed gypsum (white), yellow ocher, red sandstone, charcoal, and a mixture of charcoal and gypsum (blue). Mixing red and black can make brown, red and white make pink. Other coloring agents include corn meal, flower pollen, or powdered roots and bark.
The destruction of a sand mandala [2] is highly ceremonial. Even the deity syllables are removed in a specific order [3] along with the rest of the geometry until at last the mandala has been dismantled to show impermanence. The sand is collected in a jar which is then wrapped in silk and transported to a river (or any place with moving water), where it is released back into nature to disperse the healing energies of the mandala to sentient beings in water and throughout the world.
Sacred geometry ascribes symbolic and sacred meanings to certain geometric shapes and certain geometric proportions. It is associated with the belief of a divine creator of the universal geometer. The geometry used in the design and construction of religious structures such as churches, temples, mosques, religious monuments, altars, and tabernacles has sometimes been considered sacred. The concept applies also to sacred spaces such as temenoi, sacred groves, village greens, pagodas and holy wells, Mandala Gardens and the creation of religious and spiritual art.
A mandala is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. In the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Shinto it is used as a map representing deities, or especially in the case of Shinto, paradises, kami or actual shrines. A mandala generally represents the spiritual journey, starting from outside to the inner core, through layers.
Bon or Bön, also known as Yungdrung Bon, is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism. It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries but retains elements from earlier Tibetan religious traditions. Bon is a significant minority religion in Tibet, especially in the east, as well as in the surrounding Himalayan regions.
The Gelug is the newest of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. It was founded by Je Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), a Tibetan philosopher, tantric yogi and lama and further expanded and developed by his disciples.
The Panchen Lama is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to the Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas, he is in charge of seeking out the next Dalai Lama. Panchen is a portmanteau of Pandita and Chenpo, meaning "great scholar".
Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet. Gyatso is credited with unifying all Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang after a Mongol military intervention which ended a protracted era of civil wars. As an independent head of state, he established relations with the Qing empire and other regional countries and also met early European explorers. Gyatso also wrote 24 volumes' worth of scholarly and religious works on a wide range of subjects.
Namgyal Monastery is currently located in Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala, India. It is the personal monastery of the 14th Dalai Lama. Another name for this temple-complex is Namgyal Tantric College.
A Kumbum is a multi-storied aggregate of Buddhist chapels in Tibetan Buddhism. The most famous Kumbum forms part of Palcho Monastery.
GyutoTantric University is one of the great monastic institutions of the Gelug Order.
Tibetan tantric practice, also known as "the practice of secret mantra", and "tantric techniques", refers to the main tantric practices in Tibetan Buddhism. The great Rime scholar Jamgön Kongtrül refers to this as "the Process of Meditation in the Indestructible Way of Secret Mantra" and also as "the way of mantra," "way of method" and "the secret way" in his Treasury of Knowledge. These Vajrayāna Buddhist practices are mainly drawn from the Buddhist tantras and are generally not found in "common" Mahayana. These practices are seen by Tibetan Buddhists as the fastest and most powerful path to Buddhahood.
Lopön Tenzin Namdak is a Tibetan religious leader and the most senior teacher of Bon, in particular of Dzogchen and the Mother Tantras.
Reting Rinpoche was a title held by abbots of Reting Monastery, a Buddhist monastery in central Tibet.
Lobsang Tubten Jigme Gyatso (bot=བློ་བཟང་ཐུབ་བསྟན་འཇིགས་མེད་རྒྱ་མཚོ་), officially the 8th Arjia Hotogtu(bot=ཨ་ཀྱཱ་ཧོ་ཐོག་ཐུ།), born 1950 in Haiyan County, Qinghai) is one of the most prominent Buddhist teachers and lamas to have left Tibet. At age two, Arjia Rinpoche was recognized by Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama as the 20th Arjia Danpei Gyaltsen, the reincarnation of Je Tsongkhapa's father, Lumbum Ghe, the throne holder and abbot of Kumbum Monastery. He has trained with lineage teachers, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, the 10th Panchen Lama, and Gyayak Rinpoche—from whom he received many sacred teachings and ritual instructions.
Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies incorporates two institutions: (1) the North American Seat of Namgyal Monastery; and (2) a Tibetan Buddhist theological seminary affiliated with it. The two institutions share a dharma center in Ithaca, New York. The Dalai Lama is their patron, the highest authority, and consultant.
The Khamtrul tulku lineage is part of the Dongyud Palden section of the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Trülku Drakpa Gyeltsen (1619–1656) was an important Gelugpa lama and a contemporary of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617–1682). His Seat was the upper residence of Drepung Monastery, a famous Gelug gompa located near Lhasa.
Losang Samten is a Tibetan-American scholar, sand mandala artist, former Buddhist monk, and Spiritual Director of the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. He is one of only an estimated 30 people worldwide who are qualified to teach the traditional art of Tibetan sandpainting. He has written two books and helped to create the first Tibetan sand mandala ever shown publicly in the West in 1988. In 2002, he was made a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment of the Arts. In 2004, he was granted a Pew Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts.
The Third Trijang Rinpoche, Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1901–1981) was a Gelugpa Lama and a direct disciple of Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo. He succeeded Ling Rinpoche as the junior tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama was nineteen years old. He was also a lama of many Gelug lamas who taught in the West including Zong Rinpoche, Geshe Rabten, Lama Yeshe, Kelsang Gyatso, and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Trijang Rinpoche's oral teachings were recorded by Zimey Rinpoche in a book called the Yellow Book.
Jeff Watt is a scholar and curator of Himalayan and Tibetan Art and well known translator of Tibetan texts.
Kyabje Khensur Kangurwa Lobsang Thubten Rinpoche, was a Buddhist monk, Abbot of Sera Jey Monastery, and the founder of Tibetan Buddhist Institute (Adelaide). Khensur means "former abbot" and Rinpoche means "precious teacher."
