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Mandala Power
Ocean Drive Became a Spiritual Path as Tibetan Monks Set Up Shop in the Art Deco Museum “We believe strongly in the relation between the external world and the internal world and energies. When our internal energies are strong, it helps create benefits in the external environment as well.” By Tony Guzman Thanks to the efforts of local followers of the Dalai Lama and others, a touring company of eight monks from the Drepung Loseling monastery were in town recently and the Art Deco Museum on Ocean Drive and 10th Street became the site for the construction of an intricately conceived and executed sand mandala associated with White Tara, a female Buddha akin to Christianity’s St. Mary. The White Tara mandala is considered to be especially beneficial for health and longevity, White Tara being deemed a particularly accessible champion of ordinary people trapped in the cycle of suffering and delusions associated with unenlightened existence.
It all began at noon on Friday, December 27, with an opening ceremony during which the monks chanted, played their distinctive Tibetan temple instruments and performed a ceremonial dance to bless the site, propitiate negative forces and transform the portion of the museum where the mandala was to be constructed into a sacred place. Over the course of eight days, the mandala, basically a meditation device and tool for spiritual transformation, took shape, and an impromptu community of seekers sprang up around it ranging from those deeply conversant with Tibetan spirituality to some who just got caught up with the strangeness and beauty of the mandala. There were daily lectures by the touring group’s head lama, Geshe Tsultrim Gyatso, a well-attended performance of Tibetan sacred music and dance at the Jackie Gleason Theater, and an empowerment ceremony on the night before the mandala was dismantled during which Geshe Tsultrim Gyatso chanted and guided those who had evolved from curious onlookers into bona fide seekers through the amazingly complex visualizations that are part of a Tibetan Buddhist empowerment.
On Sunday afternoon, January 5, after a closing ceremony attended by a couple of hundred people or so, the brightly colored sand was swept together into a dusky, rainbow-hued heap, and the monks led a procession across the stretch of beach by Lummus Park to the ocean’s edge, where the sand was cast to the waves to express the impermanence of unenlightened existence and help revitalize Mother Earth. On the Friday of the opening ceremony, sitting on a white vintage sofa in the Art Deco Museum beside head lama, Geshe Tsultrim Gyatso, with translator, Tsepak Rigzin, standing by, I held a brief but wide-ranging interview with “Rinpoche,” an honorific term of endearment meaning “precious one” reserved for the most highly-realized lamas believed to be reincarnations of noteworthy meditation masters of the lineage. He explained the principle of Tibetan Buddhism: “The main, fundamental principal is non-violence as a mode of behavior and, philosophically, the view of the interdependent origination of all existence – basically, those two principles. Here [with the South Beach mandala], the emphasis is on cultivating non-violence.”
The guru’s answers tended towards the concise and straightforward, as in: What is the goal of life? – “To cultivate good habits and be of service to others.” What is money? – “In a spiritual sense, money is a material means to bring about happiness.” Do you think money is overemphasized in American society? – “In a way, but this comes with the educational environment.” What is the role of physical exercise? – “In a spiritual sense, by keeping the body healthy, the flow of energy in the nerves is facilitated. This keeps your mind fresh for spiritual practices.” I tried to draw Rinpoche out on the question of whether Tibetan meditation deities are to be taken as internal psychological phenomena or as independently existing beings by asking whether there was a relation between the characters in our dreams and “dakinis” or feminine spirits. “There may be a connection,” he said, qualifying that, “Dreams come as an expression of predispositions of the mind. Dakinis are a higher thing.” What is hate? – “Anger. Anger is a form of seeing the object, imposing the negative on it more than it ought to be, with a harmful intent also imposed on the object. It comes from a negative mind. In the past, there was a source of anger resulting from imposing on some object negativities concerning its ‘has, is, may.’” I asked whether anger might sometimes serve a positive function. “The role of anger is always negative,” he answered. “Some people see it as a positive force. This is wrong.” What is power? – “Power is, actually, akin to the teacher’s ability to influence his students to achieve spiritual progress; to the meditation master’s power to energize and accelerate his students’ meditation capabilities.” Regarding the mandala itself, Rinpoche told me, “Actually speaking, the mandala is associated with the empowering of a disciple into a particular aspect of Buddhahood.” I asked him to discuss its principle of operation, to explain it to me as an engineer might explain how a car engine works. He answered, seeming to get a kick out of the car engine metaphor: “The real engineer is the Buddha Himself. He is the pilot. The mandala is based on texts that have come down via an unbroken spiritual transmission. Does it help to understand how it works? No, it doesn’t. The engineer has to know – or else it could be harmful to others.” As someone who’d been hopelessly flummoxed in the past by the complexities of Tibetan Buddhism’s visualizations, I asked Rinpoche’s advice for someone who has trouble visualizing, hoping for an insight on a possible breakthrough. “Visualization is complex and sophisticated in terms of Tantric Buddhism,” he said, “but those who find it complicated should first ground themselves in sutrayana paths [studying and living according to Buddha’s teachings] and this will be helpful as well.” I had the sense that Rinpoche had (quite rightly and accurately) taken an Enlightenment for Dummies tack with me, but whatever slight chagrin I felt melted with the openhearted warmth with which he took my hands when our interview was over. Dropping by a few days later to see how the mandala was going, I spoke with another one of the monks, Dawa Sonam. He related how he’d become a monk at the age of nine in Kandze in Eastern Tibet and had lived in his local monastery under Chinese communist rule until he was 23, when he escaped to India. Turning to the subject of the mandala, I asked Dawa Sonam what the monks were visualizing during the opening ceremony. “We were visualizing Tara and all the enlightened beings,” he said, “requesting their blessings and the inspiration to permit us to do the mandala.” How did you know that South Beach was a proper place for the mandala? – “That was apparent during the visualization, but the people who hosted us had already determined this was a good place. Then, during the ceremony, we asked permission of the non-human beings so that they wouldn’t raise obstacles. Do you really believe there are non-human beings around here? – “Yes, we believe there are non-human beings, that is, spirits, nagas [sort of scary mystical guards and guides], gods and goddesses.” Do they take an interest in our ordinary lives? – “Yes. When people commit negative actions, they know that and it disturbs them. Even though most people cannot see it – it takes a highly-evolved being. What people do affects an area’s Spirit Eye.” Does every location have a “Spirit Eye”? – “Each location has its own spirits, although they are in constant transition from one place to another, in a state of flux, with more influence in different areas at different times.” How will the mandala affect our area? – “We are channeling the energy of the Tara; creating a Healing Area of the Tara that helps heal the environment.” Will people be able to sense the effect? – “Yes. Those with higher realization will be able to sense the efficacy of whether we helped or not. But the legacy of our transmission and our own experience convinces us it helps. We believe strongly in the relation between the external world and the internal world and energies. When our internal energies are strong, it helps create benefits in the external environment as well. The mandala is an integrating force, an assimilating force between the internal and an external, enlightened cosmology and invisible world. The mandala brings heaven and earth closer through healing energies. As the feminine Buddha, White Tara is especially suited to promote long life and the removal of obstructions by providing healthy, healing energy.”
I asked Dawa Sonam what he thought of South Beach. He smiled and said, “We really just walked around the outskirts of the beach [the monks stayed at a nearby apartment on 13th Street provided by one of their local hosts], but I feel that this is one way to provide an environment for people to open themselves up and feel good and be with nature.” On the seemingly improbable alliance between the materialistic U.S. and hyper-spiritual Tibet, Dawa Sonam said, “Outwardly, the two countries appear to represent two extremely different ways. But deep in the heart of the people, they connect in love, compassion and affection. These know no boundaries.” For more information about the Mystical Arts of Tibet touring company and the Drepung Loseling monks, visit www.mysticalartsoftibet.org. Photos by Tony Guzman |
