Sand Mandala

April 3, 2004 12:07 PM

Photoblog of a Tibetan Sand Mandala. [Via Boing Boing.]
posted by homunculus (13 comments total)

Hmm, I can scroll down the page in Explorer, but not Safari.
posted by homunculus at 12:14 PM on April 3, 2004

Great shots. A group of monks did a mandala at my school earlier in March, the sands of which were scattered in the Providence river. I took a ton of shots, but never got as close as these. A worthwhile thing to experience.
posted by rafter at 12:29 PM on April 3, 2004

deja vu! A group of monks came to MIT and did a mandala here earlier this year. Wonder if it was the same guys...
posted by whatzit at 12:29 PM on April 3, 2004

om-mani-padme-hum.

nice site, very crisp images.
posted by clavdivs at 12:45 PM on April 3, 2004

what's with the flag waving at the end?
posted by luckyclone at 2:13 PM on April 3, 2004

FYI, in 2000 I worked on a web cam project with the museum of the University of Colorado, covering a similar event. We had the camera suspended from the ceiling above the centre of the mandala. Link here. We webcast it for five days and also put up a selection of pics from each day (scroll down to bullets). Because of the position of the webcam you can see the mandala grow 'outwards.' I still have almost 1000 jpgs to stitch together into a movie.

Kind of a self-link but not to my home page, although some of the links on the mandalacam page link to my stuff ;)
posted by carter at 2:21 PM on April 3, 2004 [1 favorite]

Personally, I prefer Hi! Monkey's version!
posted by wigu at 3:13 PM on April 3, 2004

what's with the flag waving at the end?

I think it's just a way to show representatives from different nations/groups. I see the US and Tibetan flag, but does anyone know what the other flag is? It looks like the Rainbow flag, but I'm not sure.

Also, whenever I see sand mandalas I always think of the Red Army General played by Ric Young kicking the sand mandala in Seven Years in Tibet.
posted by Gnatcho at 3:16 PM on April 3, 2004

The other flag is the Buddhist flag; yay, go Buddhism ;)
posted by carter at 3:24 PM on April 3, 2004

It's weird that people can find this ceremony of non-attachment spiritually meaningful, but still want to keep a part of it -- photos, or souvenirs.

Before the ceremony was completed, I was fortunate enough to have received a small amount of the mandala sand from the monks. It was a nice gift and it will be a great memento, but I'll try not to get too attached to it :)

Before the sacrifice was completed, I was fortunate enough to have received a small amount of ox blood from the priests. It was a nice gift and it will be a great memento, and I hope God doesn't mind too much :)
posted by Hildago at 4:47 PM on April 3, 2004

I think the monks might see it as spreading the dharma. You have to be careful not to get too attached to non-attachment ;)
posted by carter at 5:11 PM on April 3, 2004

"It's weird that people can find this ceremony of non-attachment spiritually meaningful, but still want to keep a part of it -- photos, or souvenirs."

You know, hildago, I thought the exact same thing. I guess I would say that it is not the monks taking or keeping the pictures. As far as the monks are concerned, they created a work of beauty and then let it go forever. Whether others wish to let go of that beauty or not does not relate to their own non-attachment.
posted by PigAlien at 10:47 PM on April 3, 2004

Awhile ago, for my own amusement, I made a movie out of the mandala photos that carter mentioned. I guess folks might enjoy it so here it is [1MB].
posted by gwint at 11:37 AM on April 5, 2004