A masterpiece meant to vanish: Tibetan monks create — then destroy — intricate sand mandala at UMass to symbolize impermanence

AMHERST — A work of art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst will be gone on Friday afternoon — not relocated elsewhere intact, but physically destroyed.

Throughout this week, as part of their “Mystical Arts of Tibet” tour, Tibetan Buddhist monks from Drepung Loseling Monastery in Georgia have been creating a mandala on the second floor of the Old Chapel at UMass. A mandala is an art form and spiritual practice that involves placing colored grains of sand into intricate patterns with meaning.

The monks work in intermittent silence, with intermittent chanting playing in the background. They collect colored sand from nearby bowls with funnel-shaped tools called chakpurs, then scrape a ribbed portion of the narrower end of the chakpur with a metal tool to disperse the sand over an outline in small, careful amounts.

Their design — one of about eight or 10 that the monks can create as part of this tour — represents a palace with Avalokiteshvara, the Mahayana Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, at the center.

“There’s a very deep spiritualness to it, but I think the reason why the monks also tour … is that it’s accessible. It’s something that people can look at, and it’s tangible and it’s beautiful, and I think it’s something they can hold on to and remember,” said Purna Venugopalan, the director of the Asian and Asian American Arts and Culture program at UMass.

But on Friday at noon, the mandala will be destroyed.

“Through witnessing the care and devotion the monks bring to placing each grain of sand, we’re gently reminded that loss isn’t always jarring or frightening,” said Elizabeth Gittens, the UMass Fine Arts Center’s director of education and engagement, in a statement. “It can be held with intention and the realization that some experiences matter deeply, not because they last forever, but because we were fully present and quietly connected to them while they were here.”

Though the mandala is very finely detailed and requires precision and care to create, it won’t last — and that’s on purpose, because, in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, a sand mandala symbolizes the impermanence of life.

At Friday’s closing ceremony, the monks will ritually destroy the mandala and give some of the sand to visitors. The rest will be released into the nearby Campus Pond, with the belief that the healing energy that went into the mandala’s creation will disperse through the world by way of the water cycle.

Monk Tsewang Punchok said the mandala is not only a teacher, but also “a roadmap to enlightenment” — something that is “just a symbol, but it gives us lots of information.”

“When you see the complete mandala, it’s beautiful, right? We are attached to that,” he said. Attachment is normal, he added, but too much attachment creates problems. With that, the mandala “gives us a strong message: ‘Nothing is permanent in this universe. Everything has to go, so let him go.’”

On the first floor of the building is another mandala, which features an image of the Old Chapel, the W.E.B. Du Bois Library, and a few trees, rendered in psychedelic hues. This one, created for and by visitors, is less precise than the other: grains spill over between sections, and some of the artists have left behind their “signatures” — “K+C” in black and red, “ELI” in orange, next to a multicolored sun.

Over the past week, Gittens has watched visitors, including school groups, creating the mandala.

“I think what was interesting was that people had to let go of perfection. … They would come in and be like, ‘Oh, this isn’t good, [but] they would change their mind about it once they got into it,” she said.

Besides the practice of mandala-making itself, the Mystical Arts of Tibet tour also aims to promote the life and work of His Holiness The Dalai Lama, and a number of banners flank one side of the room with information about him. They describe his early life, the four main precepts he follows, his books and public appearances.

The tour also aims to promote Tibetan Buddhist practices in the face of repression. This summer, the Chinese “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress,” will take effect, with the goal of assimilating ethnic minority groups in the country into a central Chinese cultural identity and language.

For Thondup Tsering, assistant director for student learning at UMass, a member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, and a member of the Tibetan Regional Association of Massachusetts, the mandala has a far deeper significance than simply as a showcase of art and culture.

“It’s a lot more,” he said. “It’s a healing experience. It’s a spiritual experience, a purifying experience, and an experience that can benefit everyone in the community.”

“There’s a lot for everyone that you can take away,” he added, “and hopefully it’ll start as a spark for someone’s journey in learning more about compassion, kindness, and how they can really be a contributing member to the larger community.”

As a few monks worked on their design on Wednesday morning, a handful of visitors watched, and Punchok invited them to ask questions. One woman asked how Punchok’s approach to life changed once he understood impermanence. Watching a mandala be dismantled, he said, was a great metaphor for life.

“Oh, it’s beautiful, but it has to go. Just think more and more like this: all the universe, the same, right? One day, everything has to go,” he told her. “Think more and more and more. When you feel it strongly, that feeling — it’s an antidote of attachment.”

Admission is free. The Old Chapel is open to the public for viewing on Thursday, April 9, from 1 to 7 p.m., and the closing ceremony will be on Friday, April 10, at 12 p.m.