The creation and destruction of a sand mandala will bring an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition to the University of Minnesota-Crookston in April.
Wongdue Sangbo Gurung, a Buddhist monk from Nepal, will spend several days creating the mandala leading up to the final dinner April 11 in the International Dinner Series at UMC.
The opening ceremony will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday in the Prairie Room of the Sargeant Student Center in Crookston, providing a chance for discussion with Gurung. The campus and the community are welcome to visit often to view the work in progress, a news release said. The closing ceremony will follow the final April 11 International Dinner.
To make a sand mandala, an elaborate geometric design is created using colored sand and working from the design's center to the outer edges. The sand is applied until the desired pattern is achieved in intricate detail.
When completed, the mandala is much more than a work of art. It reflects the deeply held Buddhist belief in the fleeting nature of the material world. The destruction of the sand mandala is ceremonial and materials that were used in its creation are released back into nature and never used more again.
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Sand mandalas are part of the ancient Tibetan Buddhism tradition. They are set up to look like a palace with four gates pointed in the four directions. In the center is the greater being, making it a three dimensional picture. The message of the sand mandala is that all living beings want to be happy and for that they need inner peace. On Wednesday, as work on the sand mandala begins, Wongdu Sangbo Gurung invites people to rid themselves of all negative feelings and to discover inner peace, a news release said.
Wongdue Sangbo Gurung is an uncle to UMNC student Yangchen Gurung, a senior business management major from Mustang, Nepal. He was the former principal of the monastic school in Lo-manthang, the capital of the small Tibet-buddhist kingdom of Mustang, which now belongs to Nepal. The school was built in 1994 to try to keep their identity and their Tibetan culture alive. There are about 70 young monks older than 8 attending the school.
Gurung is pursuing an education in Tibetan Buddhism at International Buddhist Academy in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has traveled to Germany, Switzerland and Thailand to demonstrate sand mandala paintings.
In 2006 and 2011, Buddhist monks who visited UND also created sand mandalas at North Dakota Museum of Art in Grand Forks.
