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Lamas create oasis of peace at college

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By KLINT LOWRY

klowry@suncoastnews.com

Published: October 21, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - It might not quite qualify as achieving a state of spiritual enlightenment, but those who enter Pasco-Hernando Community College's conference center will find an oasis of instant stress relief and cultural enrichment.

For the second consecutive year, Buddhist lamas from Ratnashri Sangha of Tampa Bay, led by spiritual director Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche, are spending 10 days constructing a sand mandala as part of the campus's Peace Week activities.

Students and faculty have been basking in the serenity of the building's lobby where the lamas have been working on the mandala since Oct. 12. It took more than two days to draw the 5-foot wide pattern, and will take the four lamas about a week to fill the intricate pattern with sand.

The making of sand mandalas, Sanskrit for mansion, is a centuries-old tradition, the skill passed from teacher to student. There are several patterns of mandalas, interpreted with slightly different details each time it is created, Ningpo said. Mandala is Sanskrit for mansion. The mandala the lamas are making represents the deity Chenzerig surrounded by his entourage.

The lamas spend about eight hours a day applying the sand, using a chak-pur, a funnellike metal tube with a ridged side. A thin rod is rubbed along the ridges of the tube, which regulates the flow of sand.

The public is invited to watch the lamas as they work from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, and until 9 p.m. each day to view the mandala. The public is also invited to the mandala's dissolution ceremony at 4 p.m. Thursday.

"That is really something to experience," said professor Michael Sadusky, who teaches psychology and religious studies at the community college.

After days of painstaking, concentrated effort creating the mandala, the lamas invite those at the dissolution ceremony to join them as they rub their hands across the sand, wiping out the mandala as a symbolic gesture acknowledging that nothing is permanent. The sand is then poured into a nearby body of water, in this case, the campus pond.

For Westerners, who are raised to whisper in art galleries, the dissolution ceremony is an amazing thing to take in, Sadusky said.

"We in the West are not used to it," he said. "They do it with no hesitation, mindfully, consciously."

The dissolution ceremony is just one of many Peace Week events going on all week. Darrell J. Fasching, professor of religious studies at the University of South Florida, will present "Religion and Our Global Future: Gandhi or Bin Laden?" as the keynote address at 7:15 p.m. Thursday.

For Peace Week activities, visit www.phcc.edu/peace.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Mandala construction by Buddhist lamas from Ratnashri Sangha of Tampa Bay

WHERE: Pasco-Hernando Community College's conference center

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays to observe the work; until 9 p.m. to see the mandala

Klint Lowry can be reached at (727) 815-1067.

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