photo by Gary D. Brune copyright 2008
Last Saturday, Buddhist Monk Lobsang Samtem closed out the Wheel of Time mandala he had been working on since the beginning of February in the Bell Memorial Union at California State University, Chico. Meaning circles, the mandala, or sand sculpture, was authorized by the Dalai Lama at the time of the full Moon Eclipse in the beginning of the month.
Samtem is one of 100 people worldwide who can do this type of art. It is extremely rare for an individual to do this project solo from begining to end. Using his four years of experience in studying the art form, Samtem laid every design by hand using a pair of chapkus to apply the sand.
At the end of the project, Samtem lead a prayer of several hundred people at the BMU who helped him sweep up the sand. His group of 12 assistants gathered it up into tiny envelopes and handed them out to those in the audience. He led a group out to the Chico State Amphitheater where they returned a supply of the sand to the Big Chico Creek setting it on its way back to the ocean.
I will post a couple more photographs with more of this story in the coming days
About Me: Let's rake it up.
That's pretty cool. It's things like this that we run the risk of losing with our love of technology.