Mandala

Last week, Charlotte received an interesting email: 10 Tibetan Buddhist monks would be visiting the University of Wyoming to prepare a mandala.  If you don't know what a mandala is, I'd advise you to look it up online, because it's fascinating and I'd do a poor job explaining it.  Anyway, Charlotte stopped by on Tuesday, and sure enough, the monks had arrived!

As you can see, they had traced their geometric pattern out.  Pretty neat, right?  Well, Charlotte and I stopped by today to see their progress; check this out!!!

It is hard to convey in photographs how amazing the practice is, but the entire colored pattern that you can see is made of sand!  To create their work, the monks collect various colors of sand using a cone, or "chakpur," like the ones in the bottom right of this photograph.

Then, using a stick to vibrate that cone, they meticulously apply tiny amounts of sand extremely precisely.

The result, as you can see, is incredible.  Unfortunately, as you can't see, the design is not only incredibly intricate, but also three-dimensional and layered.

Anyway, the monks are still hard at work on the mandala.  After all this, once it's finished, they'll have a ceremony to dismantle the mandala by sweeping the sand away.  We're certainly glad that we made it before that happened!!!