Buddha Akshobhya Mandala Sand Painting
Live Exhibition with Meditation & Chants
by the Drepung Loseling monks of the Mystical Arts of Tibet
This week’s programs will be dedicated to the
peace and healing around the world.
April 18 - 23, 2022 *via Zoom

Sponsored by Mr. Marco Spinner, a longtime Tibetan Buddhist
practitioner and a supporter of Drepung Loseling Monastery
  From Monday, April 18 to Saturday, April 23, the venerable monks will construct a mandala of Buddha Akshobhya with millions of grains of colored sand at the Drepung Losel Ling Meditation and Science Center in South India. Additionally, each webcast session will include traditional monastic chanting and prayers for peace and healing.(Register here).  
     
 
     
  Buddha Akshobhya is invoked through rituals, arts and meditations during times of major crisis, pandemics, natural disasters and conflicts for protection, healing and transformation of conflicts. Buddha Akshobhya, known in Tibetan as Gyalwa Mitrukpa, means “unshakeable conqueror”. This mandala represents the forces of goodness and enlightenment that cannot be shaken from the pure ground of authentic being, even in the most challenging of times. At the recommendation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Drepung Loseling monks first created this mandala on their Mystical Arts of Tibet US tours in January 2002, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art (previously known as the Arthur Sackler Gallery) in Washington, DC in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
 
 
From all the artistic traditions of Tantric Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand ranks as one of the most unique and exquisite. In Tibetan this art is called dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means "mandala of colored powders." Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks.  

   
Formed of a traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.  
 
The monks begin the work by drawing an outline of the mandala on the wooden platform. They then begin to lay down the coloured sand by the use of sand funnel tools called chak-purs. Each monk holds a single chak-pur in one hand while running a metal rod on its grated surface. The vibration causes the sand to flow out and onto the table like liquid.
 
 
     
     
 
Program Schedule
  
  Time Converter  

 

  
   April 18  
 
 
9:00 am - 9:45 am EDT
  Mandala Opening Ceremony  
       
 
9:46 am - 10:00 am EDT
   Presentation
  
         
 
10:01 am - 12:30 pm EDT
   Mandala Construction
  
       
   April 19 - 22  
     
 
9:00 am - 9:30 am EDT
  

Meditation & Chants

  
     
 
9:31 am - 9:45 am EDT
  

Presentation

  
     
 
9:46 am - 12:30 pm EDT
   Mandala Construction
  
   
   April 23  
 
 
9:00 am - 9:45 am EDT
  

Meditation & Chants

  
     
 
9:46 am - 10:00 am EDT
  

Mandala Time Lapse

  
       
 
10:01 am - 10:45 am EDT
   Mandala Closing Ceremony  
     
   
 
 
     
   
 
 
 
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information about joining the webinar and daily reminders.