A week of observation and interaction marked the weeklong visit of two Tibetan monks to the Colgate campus last month.
Tenzin Thutop and Tenzin Wangchuk, from the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca, N.Y., spent hours painstakingly placing millions of grains of colored sand to create a sand mandala in Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology.
Students used study breaks to watch the monks in action, occasionally asking questions and writing comments in a guest book.
The Buddhist Students’ Association and Case-Geyer administrators, in conjunction with Professor Vic Mansfield’s Core Tibet course, planned other events to make the most of the monks’ time on campus.
The monks led meditation in the Chapel, adding to the weekly Buddhist reflections and providing students a chance to talk with them about various Buddhist practices.
Tibetan scholar Craig Preston spoke about mandalas and Thomas Brackett, Colgate professor emeritus and founder of the Brackett Education Fund in Burma/Myanmar, gave a talk about his group’s nonprofit work with Burmese refugees.
Members of the Buddhist Student Association also took the monks to The Barge coffeehouse for an informal discussion over cups of tea and warm baked goods.
At the end of their stay on campus, the monks held a dissolution ceremony. After spending a week creating the vivid and intricate Wheel of Compassion Mandala, the monks brushed the sand away and threw it all into Taylor Lake.
Students, faculty and community members watched as the sand was dissolved into the water, symbolizing the release of the compassion of the deity over the community.