Tibetan monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery create mandala sand art as part of the events during the Martin Luther King Days of Dialogue week.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pushed for unity and equality. In his time he referred mostly to the divide between black and white, but today the idea has expanded to focus on equality among people of different nationalities, ethnic groups, sexual orientations and religions.
There is a gap between what people think of as diverse and what they see every day, Kayla Lunemann, campus activities student coordinator, said. That is the idea behind the theme of this year’s Days of Dialogue celebrations—Mind the Gap.
For the last week, the University of Wyoming has celebrated the message of Dr. King with the Days of Dialogue. The driving idea of the celebration is that if a dialogue can be opened about the inequalities between different groups of people, different ways to eliminate them will be discussed.
As part of the Days of Dialogue, UW has hosted a group of Tibetan Monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery. During their visit, the monks created a sand mandala in the Skylight Lounge in the lower level of the Union.
By hosting the monks, UW is working to close the gap.
“The sand mandala helps bring in a different culture,” Rachel Nedved, campus activities student coordinator, said. “This is something some people have never experienced before.”
The sand painting is about resolving conflict, whether they are internal conflicts or conflicts in the world in general, Nedved added.
The monks began by laying a precise outline of the main parts of the mandala in chalk before they started painting the design in sand using special funnels. Throughout the week, the design took shape and images began to come alive with vibrant colors.
Many students walking through the union felt compelled to stop and observe for a moment before heading to their next class.
“I think it’s amazing!” Cody Knighten, a sophomore in the zoology program, said. “It takes a great deal of patience to build something like that.”
The closing ceremony for the sand mandala will be at 2 p.m. this afternoon. During the closing ceremony the sand will be swept up and gathered. People attending the ceremony will be given a small bag of the sand to take with them.
“I have a great deal of respect for someone who can create something like that and then just sweep it away,” Knighten said. “It teaches you not to have an emotional attachment to things.”
In Buddhist tradition, the creation of a sand mandala invokes a certain type of energy and the offering of the sand at the end of the ceremony imparts that energy to the receiver.
As the Days of Dialogue come to an end, the campus community must ask itself—what can we do to bridge the gap and end racism and inequality? The answer may be as individual as grains of sand.
For additional photos visit Tibetan Monks create a sand mandala at UW.
