As part of the Spiritual Directors International conference in Louisville, April 14-17, 2015, these monks from the Drepung Gomang Center for Engaging Compassion  and the Drepung Gomang Sacred Arts Tour created a sand mandala for the sake of wisdom, compassion, and healing.

The monks lean across lines and arcs

like the funnels they wield,

as if tilting a column of sand

up the spine

to pour from a third eye.

The grains trickle in rivulets

between skeletal lines

penciled onto a blue field.

This gold, this red,

in precisely this place—

the design takes flesh

in lavish detail.

This work is prayer

begun with chant

from which the air yet hums.

Ringing metal, rubbed like a firestarter,

sings as it coaxes sand

from the tiny mouth of a ribbed silver cone.

For days the sand pours,

the chants rise,

the mandala widens.

Each morning a ritual:

with one hand the leader rings a bell,

with the other he holds a blade.

Beside the completed design

sits a white flower

in a silver bowl.

Atop the lotus of sand

in the mandala’s center,

the bowl becomes a mirror.

Now the blade, ever-present

through all the days of creation,

cuts from the points of the compass

to the center—

destruction from every direction.

A brush sweeps the careful work

into swirls of muddied color—

a heart-sob—

for all the careful tending vanished,

for every thing of beauty gone.

Behind four monks clad in gold,

a quiet crowd walks to the river.

As if in tribute,

four golden planes fly

in formation overhead.

Standing in the current,

the silver-haired leader

tilts a vessel,

yielding to the river

the sand,

the work,

the prayers,

the loss,

the acceptance.

The river carries this embodiment

of compassionate understanding

out into the world.

Returning,

the four walk with ease,

smiling, their shoulders relaxed,

while I keep taking

photographs to keep.

Susan Christerson Brown