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Sand Mandala Festival at Mahamudra Centre for Universal Unity, Colville, New Zealand, March 2021. Photo by Jennifer Coyne.
Mahamudra Centre for Universal Unity, the FPMT center in Colville, New Zealand, welcomed school children and other community members to their center for a big ten-day celebration. Jennifer Coyne, spiritual program coordinator, shares the story.
We celebrated our forty-year anniversary in 2021 with a Chenrezig Sand Mandala Festival! We invited two Tibetan monks who live in New Zealand to come to our center to create the sand mandala. The making of a sand mandala is a practice that uses tiny grains of colored sand to represent the celestial abode of a particular Buddha. There are many different mandalas. The monks created the mandala of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion. It was chosen to radiate the enlightened, healing, compassionate energy of Chenrezig into this world.
Dissolving the sand mandala at Mahamudra Centre for Universal Unity, Colville, New Zealand, March 2021. Photo by Jennifer Coyne.
Our community came together for an opening ceremony to request permission from the local protectors and deities in the environment. The monks then began constructing the mandala by using a metal funnel, tapping it with a deer antler horn to allow a stream of sand to trickle out. Each detail has a profound meaning and very specific pattern, which the monks had studied and memorized at a tantric college in South India. The mandala took ten days to create, and the process was incredible to watch.
Merely seeing this mandala plants a seed of compassion in the mindstream, and so we were delighted to welcome many visitors. Many locals and tourists who had never visited us before dropped in for our Sand Mandala Festival. We estimate approximately one hundred people viewed the mandala or joined the prayers and guided meditations.
The two monks led the morning and evening prayers, and our resident nuns Ven. Nangsel and Ven. Khadro led the guided meditations. One of the monks brought some extra tools so that visitors could try to create their own mandala. We quickly realized how much skill is required to construct a sand mandala.
A highlight for us was the school tour. Elizabeth, a teacher at Colville School, brought her class of students to view the mandala and try their hand at making their own mandalas. The students were around six years old. Elizabeth has a long-time connection with our center. She often joins us for our community meditations and has volunteered her time here in the past.
Mahamudra Centre for Universal Unity community, Colville, New Zealand, March 2021. Photo by Jennifer Coyne.
We had a closing ceremony to dedicate the merit after the monks had finished the mandala. Geshe Jamyang, one of the monks who created the sand mandala, reminded us of the importance of dedication. It allows the merit or positive energy to continue to flow and expand even long after the mandala has been dissolved. The mandala was so beautiful; it seemed a shame to dissolve it. Geshe Jamyang reminded us that just as our bodies are born, slowly decay, and then die, and just as a seed slowly blooms into a flower, everything material is subject to impermanence.
We poured the blessed sand into the ocean so we could offer the blessings to all sentient beings. Since all of the planet’s water bodies are interconnected, offering blessed sand to a single water body means that the blessings will radiate through the whole planet. The blessed sand will nourish and protect the well-being of the environment and all the beings who dwell in it. Gathered together at the water’s edge, our community said our final prayers while visualizing the blessings going out into the world. We especially visualized those blessings going to those who need it most.
Watch the seven-minute video “Chenrezig Sand Mandala at Mahamudra Centre” to see the process from beginning to end:
https://youtu.be/lht2wcqI2LI
We were honored to welcome Geshe Jamyang and Ven. Karma to our center to create the mandala. Geshe Jamyang is the resident teacher at Tashi Choepel Ling in Tauranga, and Ven. Karma resides at Jam Tse Dhargyey Ling in Whangarei. They grew up together in Tibet, studied together at Sera Je Monastic University, and have both been living in New Zealand for more than ten years. They often come together to create sand mandalas at locations throughout New Zealand, usually in art galleries or public spaces. They were excited to create a sand mandala in a gompa, and we were excited to welcome them back to our center!
To learn more about Mahamudra Centre for Universal Responsibility, visit their website:
https://mahamudra.org.nz/
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