Livin' La Vida Local, no. 2: Drepung Gomang Tour

Known for its many fountains, a ridiculous number of barbecue restaurants, stellar live jazz and blues, and a well-established art scene, Kansas City, Missouri, provides plenty to experience. I thoroughly enjoy livin' la vida local in the Flyover Zone. Join me as I explore new finds and old faves in this big small town I call home.  

The monks visiting Kansas City from the Drepung Gomang Monastery stand together in saffron and maroon.

The Temple Buddhist Center/Unity Temple on the Plaza, University of Kansas, the Vietnamese Buddhist Association, and the Rime Buddhist Center are currently hosting the Drepung Gomang Tour 2012. The Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in Mundgod, South India, are in town to spread their message of interfaith peace and raise funds to support the 2,000 monks in residence at the monastery and to provide food, lodging and education for the refugees who have fled to the monastery from Chinese-occupied Tibet.

This highly detailed sand mandala contains a wide variety of imagery, including common symbols of the major world religions, a lotus and other flowers, ducks, a river valley, and decorative patterns.

Monks at work on the mandala at Unity Temple use special tools called chakpur to guide the sand into place.

I witnessed the construction and destruction of the the interfaith peace sand mandala the monks created at Unity Temple this past week. The painting was beautiful, but like many beautiful things, it is no longer in existence. Don’t fret, though; the monks are currently constructing a mandala at the Spencer Museum of Art on the KU campus, and they will build yet another one at the Vietnamese Buddhist Association next week. You can see the mandala at KU on Thursday, September 6  from 11:30 am - 7:00 pm and on Friday, September 7 from 10:30 am - 2:00 pm. The Closing Ceremony will begin at 2:00 pm. The mandala construction at the Vietnamese Buddhist Association will be open to the public on Friday, September 14 and Saturday, September 15 from 10:00 am - 5:00 pm and on Sunday, September 16 from 10:00 - 11:00 am. The Closing Ceremony will begin at 11:00 am.

The finished mandala with the monks' altar behind it.

I highly recommend watching Buddhist monks construct a sand mandala. You definitely do not have to be a Buddhist to appreciate this cultural experience. The time-consuming process becomes a meditation for the viewer. The sound of sand draining from chakpur and the sight of sand slowly marking a path over the mandala is completely enthralling. That does not even begin to cover the artistic abilities and patience of the monks. One of the monks told me it took five years to learn the sand painting techniques.

The monks chanted mantras during the Completion ceremony; the chant leader had a very low voice.

The monks sliced through and swept away the sand, only to replace it with flowers and oranges from their altar.

Once the sand mandala was completed, the monks performed a ceremony to disperse their hard work into the world. They chanted sacred mantras and sliced through the painting with a knife. Then, they brushed the mixed and muddied sand into an urn (after reserving small packets of sand for those of us who attended the ceremony). Afterward, we followed the monks to Brush Creek to allow the sand to flow out into the world. The ceremony struck a friend of mine as a funeral for the art the monks had made. I told him I thought of it as a way to allow the sand to become what it will become next. 

After sweeping the sand into an urn, the monks led the group to the nearby Brush Creek to disperse the sand.

Dispersing the sand on a rainy day in Kansas City.

I overheard many people comment on the beauty of the mandala and how they couldn’t believe it was going to be destroyed. However, the construction and subsequent destruction of the mandala strikes me as a great analogy for a basic tenet of Buddhism - impermanence. Everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Being able to make something of such beauty and then release it from its form emphasizes this idea and makes one contemplate the meaning of change. Life goes on even after such beauty is washed away.

Finished!

If you want to learn more about the Drepung Gomang Tour, please go to facebook to find more information (www.facebook.com/DrepungGomangKC), or contact kcmonktour@gmail.com with specific questions.

Following the sand mandala from its beginning to its end was such a meaningful experience for me. What sacred ceremonies or experiences have moved you recently?

Alison :)

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Flowers in my yard. We all take time and patience grow.

Tonight memory emerged as a main theme during my Buddhist book discussion group, where we are currently reading Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard, a French-born Buddhist monk. We focused on finding inner-knowledge, regardless of our personal histories, by making a regular practice of quieting our minds to allow for new inspiration. Following prescriptions forged by past experiences do not always lead to productive decisions.  We can become trapped in a cycle by reacting as we always have. That can lead us back to exactly where we started.

This topic led to a bit of an aside. We discussed how our past changes us, how we reflect upon previous experiences, and how we only know turning points in our lives upon looking back. We do not have to disavow our pasts in order to make effective choices. Sometimes we learn by getting burned - by a flame, candle or otherwise, for example. Our pasts shape us, but our memories do not have to control us. 

This idea inspired me. Someone mentioned that he can look at memories with a clarity that is not present when the past is, well, present. We extract information and insight from experiences as they are occurring, but we gain wisdom from observing our pasts from afar. Distance from an event, in both time and space, allows us to look back upon an experience without being affected emotionally. We can remember past occurrences without reliving them. We can become observers of our own lives. That is when the fruit of the past is ripe for picking, eating and digesting. Some experiences take more time to ripen than others; sometimes we remain embroiled in the present (presence?) of an experience for so long, we do not know how to quell the blaze.

Here are a couple examples of experiences that have affected me greatly - one is old and silly, the other is recent and serious: 

1) For YEARS I was embarrassed about a middle school incident - because middle school is rough on everyone, and even little events become gigantic traumas. My shoe squeaked in gym class one day when we were all silently lined up in our rows, and my classmates accused me of farting. I was so humiliated, and it took time, distance and the realization that a) I am probably the only person who remembers the event, and b) I have actually farted in front of people who really mean something to me. Finally, after years of reliving the red-faced heat of that moment, I can look back and see the humor. I am no longer so afraid of standing out, because I know I can live through/with embarrassment; 

2) When my Aunt Vickie died unexpectedly a couple months ago, I played that day over and over again as if it were my favorite record. I relived the phone call, the drive over to my aunt and uncle's house, the first sight of my cousins' faces, my uncle's pain, and on and on and on. I drowned in those feelings. They prevented me from sleeping and caused intense panic attacks. This event has caused trauma of a different sort - related to my own mortality, the mortality of those I love, the fear of being alone, etc. It took going to a therapist and meditating regularly to begin to dissipate those feelings. It's only been a couple of months, so, obviously, the forces of that event are still affecting me. I still do not have the clarity of distance my acquaintance mentioned, but I really want this experience to be profound in the most positive way possible. Because I do not want to be ill, I have decided to make coping an activity into which I put real energy. I am developing skills I can take along with me into future experiences.

I am in no way a Jedi Master, a guru, a saint or a genius. I am a person who thinks too much, too deeply, and, at times, too darkly. I most certainly chew the cud too often. From my perspective, time, patience and space from an experience help. So does intentionally re-focusing my mind whenever I start to ruminate. Feeling that I have a choice in what I think about, and intention in how I think and act, makes me feel like I am in control of the content of my life. I may not be able to control what happens during my life, but I can react in ways that benefit my well-being by being conscious of my thoughts and actions.

Any reflections on memories and how your recover from the past, apply lessons to the present, and take the skills learned into the future?

Alison :)

Bagels, Birds and Buddhism

Freshly grilled and filled with a thick slab of cream cheese, I purchased the most memorable bagel of my life from a street vendor in New York City. An iced mocha accompanied it. The vendor added sugar by the tablespoon, and it grated my tongue as I slurped my drink down. While I have tried many interesting foods, this gritty sensory explosion remains one of my favorite gastronomical experiences.

The bagel and iced mocha I purchased today paled by comparison. However, I enjoyed the crisp yet chewy consistency of the bagel, made gooey by the slathering of melting cream cheese. I relished the bittersweet mocha as I watched birds bicker over crumbs. I enjoyed the shade, the light breeze, and all the passersby oblivious to my attention. I was participating fully in the moment.

It is no secret I have been having a tough time in the aftermath of the death of my Aunt Vickie. This unexpected, untimely death has drudged up so many fears and questions. One thing that has made this season of grief, anxiety and upsetting thoughts more bearable has been the knowledge that all my grief symptoms are completely normal. I am not doing anything unique. The true godsend, though, has been my discovery of a mindfulness meditation group. Years ago, I meditated often on my own as part of my yoga practice. It made me feel calm, attentive, and connected to a reality larger than myself and this existence. For me, it was a form of prayer, and I felt enlivened by the practice. Over time, though, I fell away from meditation, prayer, or anything of the like.

Recently, I began attending group meditation sessions. Before my aunt died, I had been searching for that spiritual connectedness I used to have, but afterward I was hoping it would help me heal. Through searching, I found out about these nondenominational meditation sessions and decided to attend one. I am so glad I did. It has really opened a doorway for me. So far, the benefits have been enormous. These meditation sessions give me the opportunity to slough away my thoughts and be completely in the moment, which reduces my anxiety tremendously. I can also employ these freeing techniques outside of class when I really need them. In addition to the meditation itself, the acquaintances I sit with in silence are becoming the spiritual community I have been missing as of late. We all think and know differently, but we support each other along our parallel paths. 

Before one of my first meditation sessions, I told the meditation leader I really gained a lot from chanting as a form of meditation. You cannot help but be present when your whole body and mind are activated through the spoken word. She told me she would be chanting for a whole hour after our group meditation. I said, "I'm in." I stuck around while some people left and other people joined the group. It turns out I had joined in on what I think of as a Buddhist prayer service. We chanted prayer mantras and contemplated compassion and loving-kindness. During that first session, I was completely focused on the sound of the words as they flowed from my gut through my mouth, and, out of the ether, I had a bit of an epiphany: I am a religious mutt, just as I am a Euro-mutt. At that point, I shrugged away my embarrassment about not actually being Buddhist. The people who know me and my spiritual ups and downs, will not be surprised by this huge announcement-to-self. I do not know if I am going through a phase, or if I am at the beginning of a new focus. At this point, I don't know if I will ever become a Buddhist, if I will return to attending the Christian church of my childhood, or if I will seek out an entirely different church community. All I can say is that I like the Buddhists. I find sense in their philosophies and sensibility in their practices. Maybe I can't ultimately have it all ways, but this is where I am right now: label free and loving it.

If you would like to share, I would love to hear your stories of religious/spiritual awakenings, or even the complete opposite.

Alison :)