Three Tibetan monks are spending this week at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle making a sand mandala of the Buddha of Compassion. It is hoped this will help the peace process in Ireland.
A small flower, blessed by the Dalai Lama on his recent visit to Belfast, will be placed on the finished mandala.
On Saturday, the mandala, or sacred circle which symbolically represents the universe, will be broken up and taken in procession to the Liffey where it will be thrown into the water as a symbol of the impermanence of every thing.
In the Buddhist tradition a mandala is always made for the benefit of others. It is six feet in diameter and composed of coloured marble which is tapped through a copper tube over very precise drawings of its details.
The monks work silently from the inside outwards, building the mandala on a large board placed on the floor. Five colours symbolising five Buddha families are used. At the centre of the mandala in Dublin Castle is the Lotus family, in which resides Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion.
The men making the mandala, senior monks Namgyd Khunchoc and Dhomden Norbu, from the Gyudmed Tantric University, in the state of Karnataka, southern India, and junior monk Txenzin Dhonyoe, from the Sera Je monastery, also in southern India, began making the mandala on Monday. They will continue working from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. until tomorrow afternoon.
Txenzin Dhonyoe explained that there are 3,000 monks at his monastery in India, with 600 at the monastery to which his senior colleagues belong. All are Tibetan refugees. He has been a monk for 17 years since leaving school at the age of 10.
