Mandala Creation & Dissolution this week at UA Bookstores

April 4, 2017

Mandala Events This Week

Sponsoring Units: College of Humanities, Departments of Religious Studies and Classics, & East Asian Studies.

Every day from 9am-5pm through Thursday, April 6, Tibetan Buddhist monks are working on creating a mandala from colored sand, at the University of Arizona bookstore. Related events and information are below.

Tuesday, April 4th, 5:30pm – “Mandala and Mindfulness” (Khyentse Foundation Lecture)

Thursday, April 6th, 5:30pm – Ritual Dissolution of the Mandala

Mandala Creation

Sunday, April 2nd-Thursday, April 6th

The University of Arizona Bookstores, Lower Level Event Center

Tibetan Buddhists regard the mandala as a celestial palace inhabited by buddhas and attendant deities. From Sunday April 2nd through Thursday, April 6th, Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche and monks affiliated with Drikung Namgyal Ling will create an intricate mandala from colored sand. To create the mandala is to recreate the world, to invite viewers to see their environment in a new way. After five days of detailed and disciplined work, on the 6th, the mandala will be ritually dissolved, the ultimate symbol of the ephemeral nature of forms. This dissolution is understood to purify the surrounding environment in a pervasive way.