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 Seret's family, friends and community as well as to the peaceful resolution of divisions and conflicts in the world. It is also dedicated to the Afghan people who are suffering oppression and threat of widespread famine this winter.
  
 
 
November 14 - 20, 2021 *via Zoom
  
 

Sponsored by Ira and Sylvia Seret & Family

  
   
   
  The Drepung Loseling monks will create a Buddha Akshobhya mandala sand painting with daily meditation and chants for protection, healing and transformation of conflicts from November 14 to 20 via their home monastery in India. This program sponsored by Drepung Loseling Monastery’s long time friends, Ira and Sylvia Seret and family, will be streaming live via Zoom (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 Institute’s Arthur Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

This mandala and related prayers will be dedicated to the Seret’s family, friends and community as well as to the peaceful resolution of divisions and conflicts in the world. It is also dedicated to the Afghan people who are suffering oppression and threat of widespread famine this winter.
 
     
 
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 (Mountain Standard Time)
  
  Time Converter  

 

  
   November 14  
 
 
8:00 am – 8:45 am MST
  Mandala Opening Ceremony  
       
 
8:46 am – 8:55 am MST
   Presentation
  
         
 
8:56 am – 10:30 am MST
   Mandala Construction
  
       
   November 15-19  
     
 
8:00 am – 8:30 am MST
 

Meditation & Chants

  
       
 
8:31 am – 8:50 am MST
  

Presentation

  
       
 
8:51 am – 10:30 am MST
   Mandala Construction
  
   
   November 20  (Day 7)  
 
 
8:00 am – 8:30 am MST
 

Meditation & Chants

  
       
 
8:31 am – 8:45 am MST
  

Mandala Time Lapse

  
         
 
8:46 am – 9:30 am MST
  Mandala Closing Ceremony  
     
   
 
 
     
   
     
  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar and daily reminders.