A few months ago, yes months, we went to the Asian Art Museum for the clearing of a sand mandala. Mandalas are sacred buddhist art works. Essentially they have symbols of four Gods placed on the compas and a symbol of the Buddha, often a lotus, in the center. This is surrounded by other detailed symbols and colors each having a very specific meaning. Like many religious art work, the way the mandala is created and destroyed is a sacred ritual. We weren't able to see the monks start or work on the mandala, but we did see the finished product and the ceremonial clearing.
The sand here is probably close to a 1/2 -3/4 inches thick.
The mandala is cleared by first drawing lines down the middle of the four cardinal points...
Followed by the next four...
And then the entire thing is swept up, blessed one final time, and each person receives some of the blessed sand. The rest of the sand is again ceremoniously dumped into water (this time it was Lake union) so it can spread throughout and bless the entire world. We took a small bag home and christened Tina, our trusty '98 civic, a buddhist, hoping the sand would bring her many more years.
It was a very 'Seattle' experience. A large group of well educated, wealthy onlookers mixed with a few homeless. Amid comments like "Well, I hope they used organic dye for the sand because there is no way the government would let them put non-organic dye into Lake Union" I couldn't help but think about how lost the people in that room were and how desperately they craved to feel the devotion of those monks or on the other hand thought it was a fine intellectually culturally enlarging experience, but they would go on living as they always did--worrying about whether or not the dye for the sand was organic. How grateful I am to be able to see the good, the truth in the Buddhist religion and to see that there is so much more.
