monks- live on tour!

three days ago, a group of monks from the Gaden Shartse monastery in Tibet arrived in abq. these guys have been criss-crossing the U.S. for the past 15 months + they have 3 more months to go before they return to India (where the monastery has been relocated, thanks to the Chinese invasion of Tibet- damn Chinese government!). 


my first thought when i heard they were coming was: poor guys. i don't know much about Buddhist monks, but a non-stop traveling tour of performing one's sacred dances + prayers for 18 months seems like the exact opposite of what a monk would want to do. their website (www.gadenshartsecf.org) explains that the monks tour in order to promote cultural exchange + raise funds for their monastery but it seems more like a test of how well they've learned their lessons on emptiness, compassion, mindfulness, etc. on the other hand, maybe it's a little fun- some of these guys have been in monk training since they were 10. maybe they like being out of the monastery. maybe they get to play video games + eat pizza + watch "jersey shore" while they're on tour. 


                  the monks set up shop in the Maxwell museum of anthropology at UNM for a couple of days as they created a sand mandala honoring green Tara, a female deity. the sand is made from crushed marble and dyed with poster paint. the symbol for green Tara is in the middle of the mandala, surrounded by four doorways + lotus blossoms. lotus blossoms are big b/c they grow out of mud + muck, illustrating humans' journey from people muck to enlightenment. that's all i remember from the explanation.







after three days, the monks performed a dissolution ceremony for the mandala.  i went to watch the dissolution. the monks chanted, played instruments, + sprinkled some sand from their home monastery on the mandala. then they swiftly swept all the sand into a pile in the center of the table. later, they would take the remaining sand + pour it into the closest moving body of water, the rio grande river.

















the room was packed. i was able to wiggle in between two people upstairs to get a view. after the monks swept up the sand, they immediately started scooping it into teeny nickel plastic bags, which the head llama handed out to the crowd. clearly they'd done this many times; the fastest monk (top left in photo) had the movements down to scoop, flick, seal, + toss. he was tossing filled bags so fast, he looked like he was dealing cards in vegas. 

the most fascinating part of the ceremony for me was watching mr. head llama passing out sand baggies to the crowd. ppl approached him with their hands cupped in front of them- when else do we take this position? if someone hands something to me, i take it with one hand. kids at my elementary school do hold out cupped hands to receive snacks, like goldfish, but this is because you get more crackers that way than if you only held out one hand. each person in this room was only getting one bag of sand, so the goldfish principle doesn't apply. curious.


i stayed till the very end. as i left the parking lot, i saw the monkmobile, an unmarked white van, pull out in front of me (they did not cut me off). someone screamed, "WE LOVE YOU ALL!!" as they headed towards the rio grande.