Have you ever followed a panda cam or a puppy cam or an animal rescue cam? Did you know, thanks to the excellent work of our IT Guru Mike Kindinger, you can follow the Tibetan Buddhist monks of Drepung Gomang Monastery on our St Paul's monk cam? Check it out at http://tinyurl.com/stpaulsmonkcam.
The Drepung Gomang monks are creating a World Peace mandala in the nave of St Paul's. Their full schedule of events for this week is available at https://www.keywesttaramandala.org/schedule-of-events/
As part of my doctoral work in visual anthropology at Emory University, I made a number of films under the tutelage of Professor Anna Grimshaw. In 2008, I made a film entitled Making a Mandala. I thought St Paul's folks might enjoy learning a bit more about mandalas and so wanted to share this work with you.
The film is in the genre of observational cinema and follows the work from Tuesday, June 24 through Saturday, June 28, 2008 as monks from Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta create a Manjushri (Buddha of Wisdom) mandala in the atrium of the Emory Math/Science Center during the International Association of Buddhist Studies (IABS) congress at Emory.
The piece explores the role of imagination in the making of a mandala by paying close attention to the physical work of the monks as they prepare for, create, and then dismantle the sacred sand painting. Though we do not have access to what is going on in the monks’ minds as they paint, we can see the visible results of their interior work as the mandala takes shape. One of the reasons Tibetan Buddhists paint sand mandalas is because the work of painting is held to produce positive, transformative effects within and for the painters and, by extension, for the world.
Though we cannot see the inner transformation that happens within and for the monks, we can imagine the extensive memory work involved in creating a mandala and ways in which the mandala serves as a mnemonic device in practicing deity yoga. By paying attention to bodily practices, we can observe the ways in which the monks go about collaboratively painting a perfect cosmos by heart.
You can watch Making a Mandala at https://vimeo.com/dsmote/making-a-mandala.
If there is interest, I would love to teach an Introduction to Buddhisms class as a formation offering. Please let me know if you would be interested and what your preferred days and times would be.
Login To Leave Comment