Gaden Shartse Sand Mandala Ceremony in Seattle
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The sand mandala is a Tibetan Buddhist tradition involving the creation and destruction of a deity mandala made from colored sand, spread out on a table or on the floor. The meticulous creation of this compassion mandala involved a number of highly trained monks and took place over four days at Seattle’s Asian Art Museum in late June 2011. Its accompanying ceremonies and viewing symbolize the Buddhist doctrinal belief in the transitory nature of material life.
The ceremonial destruction of a sand mandala is also highly ritualized. Even the deity syllables are removed in a specific order, along with the rest of the geometry, until the mandala has been dismantled. The sand is collected in a jar that is then wrapped in silk and transported to a river (or anyplace with moving water—in this case, Seattle’s Lake Union), where it is released back into nature. For this reason, the materials keeping with the symbolism are never used twice.
For more information contact Seattle’s Dechen Ling Tibetan Buddhist Center (www.dechenling.org) or Gaden Shartse Cultural Foundation (www.gadenshartsecf.org). The video was filmed and produced by Faren Bachelis.
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