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Ven. Ngawang Chojor

The impermanence of the sand mandala

At the MATC Community Cultural Festival on April 30, the Venerable Ngawang Chojor sat patiently behind a roped off area creating a sand mandala, a sand painting that is destroyed at the end of the day, reflecting the impermanence of life. In many ways, the sand mandala reflects the life of Ven. Ngawang.

At the age of 13, Ven. Ngawang entered the Namgyal Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet, the monastery of the Dalai Lama. "I started learning how to make this art when I was seventeen years old and studied until I was 25," Ven. Ngawang said through interpreter Tsering Namgyal. "So, I have a lot of experience in making these. I also create butter sculptures. I didn't have any choice in what I created. I memorized the patterns and the colors. There may be over 100 sand mandala designs, but I know how to create 15-20 of them." According to Ven. Ngawang, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, first taught the designs of the sand mandala over 2,600 years ago.

In 1959, Ven. Ngawang fled Tibet with the Dalai Lama when the Communist Chinese invaded it. They settled in India where he lived until 1993 when Ven. Ngawang moved to Wisconsin.

The creation of a sand mandala begins with the theg-pu, the base of the mandala where Ven. Ngawang draws - with the help of a compass and other instruments - the outline of the design. Then he uses three different sizes of chak-purs, special metallic funnels, to distribute the sand into the pattern. "It is special sand we brought from the Kulu Valley in India," Ven. Ngawang said. "We collect soft rocks, crush them, and then color the sand. We make three different shades of blue, red, yellow, and green." As he points the chakpur over the design, Ven. Ngawang rubs a metal stick along it’s ribbed side, causing the sand to flow in a fine and steady streamlet. With imperceptible movement, Ven. Ngawang fills in the outlined design.

At the end of the day, after this intricately designed and detailed drawing has been created, it is then destroyed. While in Western culture, people try to preserve completed art, place high monetary value on it, and can become very destructive about the art, in the Buddhist tradition, Ven. Ngawang and other sand mandala artists learn every time to let go, that eventually all art - and things - are impermanent. While their art may evoke different emotions within them, the discipline of their spirituality makes them let go.

"When we make a mandala, we begin with a ritual when we bless the sand," Ven. Ngawang explained. "We bless the sand when we dismantle it and put it in the river. It gives benefit to the environment. It also lets us know that nothing is permanent. We realize it is impermanent, so we can dismantle it. As a monk, I have to let things go. Sometimes, I feel pride when I make these different mandalas. 'Oh, I made a beautiful mandala.' So in order to remove those kinds of feelings like pride, I dismantle it. I dismantle it and make another one." Life and art are daily discoveries.