Year of Compassion: Celebrating 90th Birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Mandala of Arya Tara
Image Courtesy: Mandala @ MIT/ Prajnopaya Foundation
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Healing the Divide is hosted by Sri Nalanda and the Prajnopaya Institute & Foundation to Celebrate the Year of Compassion, marking the 90th Birthday of Nobel Peace Laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. This year also marks the 21st Anniversary of Prajnopaya. Program is organized by The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi Rinpoche and Geshe Losang Samten (founder of Jamyang School).
To Benefit Jamyang School in Leh, Ladakh, India
The Jamyang school, based in Leh and established as per the Dalai Lama’s vision, is a residential school that caters to disadvantaged children, many of them coming from the Brogpa community that were the earliest inhabitants along the Indus River in Ladakh. More about Jamyang School...
2025 Sand Mandala Schedule in the US
August 12-16: Lawrence Arts Center, Kansas City
September 5-12: Tibet House US, New York
October 14-19: Prajnopaya at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2025 Program will be led under the guidance of His Eminence Kyabje Gyabung Tulku.
His Eminence Kyabje Gyabung Tulku Lobsang Choeden Rinpoche is recognized as the reincarnation of the renowned Khunu Geshe Rigzin Tenpa from Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, located near the Indo-Tibet border. Khunu Geshe Rigzin Tenpa was born in Gyabung village in 1890 and later travelled to Tibet for Buddhist studies. He joined the prestigious Drepung Loseling Monastery in Tibet, where he spent over three decades rigorously studying Buddhist philosophy under the guidance of distinguished masters, including Dardo Yongzin and Tehor Geshe Yama Tsepag. After years of intense study, he earned the Geshe Lharampa degree, equivalent to a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies.
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What is a Sand Mandala?
The Tibetan culture is one of the most ancient on our planet and is currently highly endangered. Among the Tibetan arts, the practice of creating Mandalas by painting with colored sands through funnel- like tubes, remains as one of the most uniquely exquisite and deeply symbolic. This sacred art form is constructed as a vehicle which generates compassion to benefit all beings, manifests healing energies in the environment and a serves as a reminder of the impermanence of the physical world.
The art of making sand mandalas is not only found in Tibetan and Eastern spiritual traditions, but also appears in many Native American cultures. Legend has it that most traditional or sacred patterns used as a basis for the creation of sand mandalas appeared as a “vision” in the mind of realized meditation masters. These visionary patterns were then documented with “keys” to interpret the layered meanings contained in the symbols and colors.
Over a period of several days, in a purified site, millions of grains of fine sand, ground from marble and other colored stones, are painstakingly laid into place by specially trained monastics, onto a flat platform, forming an intricate geometric diagram symbolizing the enlightened mind and the ideal world. When the sand Mandala is completed, the colored sands are swept up during a dissolution ceremony and poured into a nearby river or stream. From there, the waters carry the Mandala’s blessings and healing energies throughout the world.
The Mandala Project: Aesthetics, Contemplation, and Education is a visionary and meditative exercise that can encourage young minds to “visualize” and contemplate the positive qualities they would like to see manifested in the world around them. This pedagogical tool encourages participants to reflect and conceptualize during a collaborative process making an abstract creation that represents a better world.