Sand mandala: Tibetan Buddhist ritual

[Music] Tibetan medicine and healing has always been crucial to the Buddhist path so creating a medicine mandula is one way of healing the community but also healing the environment the word mandala is actually a Sanskrit term a meaning container of essence it is that Sacred Circle embodying something sacred Essence within originally they would have used powdered Stones powdered gems things like lapis Malachite and so on today they use crushed marble and made into sand now the colors are very important because they symbolize different attributes of the deities um but in this particular one that we

have here it is all about the medicine Buddha and healing and what they create is a Heavenly Palace all around him most of the monks have been in monasteries since the age of about seven they would have leared the actual art of painting a Mandela the first instance but to actually make San Mandela takes about 5 years to train because it's a very precise art tapping the sand out of these copper funnels into these intricate geometric designs the prayers that the monks perform are to do with invoking the presence of the medicine Buddha and inviting

the healing power to enter the center of the Mandela and then throughout when they actually performing creating the Mandela they are meditating on that same thought and for those people who are watching every grain of sand will give one a blessing this form of Buddhism is is about developing your mind's potential or a way of transforming the mind so the person who is using this in meditation would imagine themselves as the medicine Buddha in the center and they would try and break down the barriers of their normal deluded life into the pure enlightened mind of

the Buddha a very important buddist belief is the impermanence they don't believe that death is the end it's just a passing phase it's our Essence that carries on but also that you shouldn't be attached to anything so the idea of the destruction of the sand Mandela is really putting it to bed if you like we return to the elements so too is the sand Mandela return to the elements [Music]