From June 23-28, the Way of Compassion Dharma Center will host a special visit from the monks of the famous Gaden Shartse Monastery during their Sacred Earth and Healing Arts of Tibet Tour. The event will be hosted at the Third Street Center in Carbondale, and will include the creation of a sand mandala for public viewing, a series of workshops, ceremonies and more.
The Way of Compassion Dharma Center, founded in 2015, provides resources and teachings freely to Dharma students in the Roaring Fork Valley. Providing a weekly schedule of meditation and study groups, as well as day-long programs and retreats, the center is largely supported by a free-will donation basis and led by Spiritual Director John Bruna.
Bruna, after a long career of various pursuits, was ordained as a Buddhist Monk at the Gaden Shartse Monastery in India in 2005, with the name of Jangchub Chophel. After six years of monastic life — some of which entailed leading the same tours as the visiting monks this year — Bruna now lives as a layperson, sharing his experience and monastic training for the benefit of others.
Since the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese government, many Tibetan people have had to form close communities in other countries for the preservation of their culture. Although the Indian government has provided land to organizations like Gaden Shartse, they are not funded by the government and thus rely, in part, on donations from across the world for sustaining themselves and rebuilding their community.
The Sacred Earth and Healing Arts of Tibet Tour forms a significant part of these fundraising efforts, in which monks from Gaden Shartse donate two years of their lives sharing their practice, culture and experience with the global community — including our valley.
The events will vary from those catering to curious folks who might not be practicing Buddhists, like a session on Monday in which the monks will present daily life in the monastery and answer any questions; as well as events for all ages, such as a Tibetan butter sculpture workshop on Sunday.
For those more in the practice of Dharma, events include a meditation workshop with Bruna and a tea offering on Saturday, as well as a Vajravidaran healing ritual on Sunday. However, the main attraction is certain to be the creation of the sand mandala over the week, as well as its dissolution ceremony.
“The first night, there’ll be a ritual and the monks will do prayers, they’ll purify the environment and make it conducive to receive the sand mandala, so that’s usually a big night,” said Bruna. “A lot of people, they see these beautiful sand mandalas, and they get swept up. It’s hard for them to grasp the hours of work that go in, and the detail and the dissolution. There’s a much greater purpose. The idea of the sand mandala is to bring healing and peace to an area, and to purify the area of negativity.”
Over the week, the monks will painstakingly construct a symbolic image of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion, with brightly colored sand, the whole time with meditation, intention and prayer.
Chenrezig embodies the great compassion of all Buddhas, which is the desire to free all beings of suffering. “A lot of people get confused with compassion, they think sympathy is compassion, which it’s not. Compassion is really this force, this energy — you want to remove suffering,” Bruna shared.
Once completed, the mandala undergoes a dissolution ceremony, in which all the sand of the mandala is swept up and the image is erased.
“The idea is that this is for the whole area; it’s for the Valley,” says Bruna. “[The Mandala] will be consecrated, which means it will be blessed with the deities themselves … Then, the idea is that all of the sand is blessed with healing and purification qualities, and everyone who is there gets a little bag of sand to take home. Then, what we do is go to the river … do some more prayers, and the idea is that these blessings will be carried through the waters all the way through the Valley.”
For those interested, the events of Compassion week begin on Friday, June 23 at 7pm, with the opening ceremony in the round room of the Third Street Center. A calendar of events is available at www.wocdc.org
The mandala will be open for public viewing the next day through its dissolution, and while the events are all free, donations are suggested by the center.