CHAPEL HILL -- Tenzin Dhargye, clad in maroon robes and wearing a dust mask, sat cross-legged on a cushion beside a blue felt panel on the floor of the east gallery at 523 E. Franklin St., the former home of the Chapel Hill Museum.
He dipped the wider end of a chakpur, a long, narrow metal funnel, into a small tub of very fine, pale yellow sand. Dhargye leaned deeply forward, resting his forearms on a small pillow, until his face was just inches from the surface of the panel.
He positioned the narrow tip of the tool close to the blue felt panel and rapidly and delicately scraped its finely ridged surface with another chakpur, producing just enough vibration to cause a minute stream of sand to trickle out. He made a tiny dot of sand on the panel, then another and another.
Two other Tibetan Buddhist monks, Dawa Tashi and Geshe Kalsang, worked in similar fashion, and with similar concentration, on other portions of the panel. Their chakpurs chimed with the vibrations; together, they sounded a lot like the cicadas that have been chirring in the Triangle for the past month.
Grain by grain, the visiting monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India have spent this week creating an incredibly intricate sand mandala at 523 E. Franklin. The brilliantly hued mandala honors what is known as the Green Tara Buddha, a female Buddha.
"The construction of the sand mandala is an act of blessing in Buddhist tradition," said Geshe Lobsang Dhondup, speaking in Tibetan through a translator, Tenpa Phuntsok. "We all need to collect more merit and more wisdom, and one of the ways we do that is with the construction of the mandala.
"This one is especially for Chapel Hill and all the people here to have this blessing and to encourage all people to generate more compassion and understanding."
Visit with a purpose
The eight monks are in Chapel Hill on a two-week stop on their Sacred Arts Tour. The creation of the sand mandala, an ancient Tibetan Buddhist art form, is just one of the events on tap during their stay. They also will lead workshops in the arts of sand painting and butter sculpture, host a Tibetan Cultural Pageant featuring ceremonial chanting and dance, and present an evening of cultural arts.
"This is the first time monks from this monastery have been to Chapel Hill, so it's a bit of a leap of faith," said event coordinator Eve Barkley, who arranged their visit.
The town donated the space at 523 E. Franklin St., but Barkley, unaffiliated with the town, has organized their visit with the help of volunteers and sponsors.
"This is something beautiful and interesting for the community, so we wanted to invite them here," she said. "I hope the people of Chapel Hill will get something out of it."
The monks have been coming to the United States for the past eight years, sponsored by the Drepung Gomang Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Louisville, Ky. All the proceeds from their visit go to support, educate, house, feed and clothe 2,000 refugee monks living at the Drepung Gomang Monastery in southern India.
The monks began work on the mandala Monday morning, and were to complete it, using millions of grains of sand, today.
The mandala and its creation are open for public viewing from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. until Monday, when, in accordance with tradition, the monks will deconstruct it in a public ceremony beginning at 2 p.m.
Its fleeting nature
It may strike some as surprising, to say the least, to spend so much time creating something so beautiful, only to destroy it. But its demise represents a key concept in Buddhist thought.
"It symbolizes the impermanence of everything, and we use it to remind people of that impermanence," Dhondup said, through Phuntsok. "The lack of understanding about that causes many of the discomforts and problems for individuals and in the world."
At the deconstruction ceremony, each person in attendance will be given a small amount of the sand from the mandala. The monks will carry the rest of it to Bolin Creek, where they will scatter it into the stream.
"We distribute some sand to all the people who come here, as a blessing that they can put in their house, under a tree, near their gate, for protection and blessing," Dhondup said. "We take the remaining sand to a nearby waterway and pour it into the water, where it will carry healing energies throughout the world."
"I think this conveys the most wonderful message, that everything changes, everything is impermanent," said Karen Monaco of Chapel Hill. "There's something so meditative about watching them work. They work on this beautiful creation day and after day, and then it will disappear. Nothing stays forever."
