A capacity crowd filled The Resiliency Center of Newtown (RCN) on April 12, when a mandala dissolution ceremony was held following three days of work by visiting monks. Guests were encouraged to let go of their resentments and to try to make themselves as happy as possible during the formal ceremony.

The monks were visiting from DNKL, the Buddhist temple in Redding. For the first three days of their visit to the South Main Street location, which began April 9, the monks were observed by the public while they created their mandala. A mandala, as described at britannica.org, is “a symbolic diagram used in the performance of sacred rites and as an instrument of meditation... Mandalas may be painted on paper or cloth, drawn on a carefully prepared ground with white and colored threads or with rice powders (as for Buddhist Tantric ceremonies of initiation), fashioned in bronze, or built in stone, as at Borobudur, in central Java.”

On Friday afternoon, guests of all ages crowded into the office space for the 30-minute ceremony. Welcoming everyone, RCN Founder and Director Stephanie Cinque said she and her staff had been “beyond honored” to host the monks and their work.

“This space has been a healing location for a lot of people,” she said. “Not everything has to go on behind closed doors, either, which is what we have been able to demonstrate this week.

“It’s not up to us to decide what’s going to heal everyone,” Ms Cinque said of the myriad offerings RCN has offered since opening in 2013 in the wake of 12/14. “Everyone has to decide that. We welcome suggestions, and we welcome the offer of help, including the creation of a sand mandala.

“To see this transpire has been remarkable,” she continued. “To meet the people who have come in has been great.”

Compassion For All

The visit by the monks had been arranged as a response to the suicide two weeks earlier of Sandy Hook resident Jeremy Richman. Janet Ettele, a student at DNKL for 11-plus years, said she had read about Mr Richman’s death and felt like something needed to be done to once again help Newtown heal.

“My heart just fell,” she told The Newtown Bee of her response to reading about the father of a 12/14 victim taking his life. “I just felt like we had to do something. I was overwhelmed with this.”

Ms Ettele reached out, she said, to Geshe Lobsand Dhargey, at DNKL, to see if DNKL would consider sponsoring the creation of a Compassion Sand Mandala.

“It’s not something we’ve done before,” she said, “but he thought for just a minute and said okay. He put the wheels in motion to get Geshe Ngawang Palden, who is visiting from India, who did much of the work on the mandala.”

Palden was assisted and supported during the week by Geshe Lopsang Jimpa, according to Ms Ettele.

In a statement ahead of the mandala creation, Dhargey clarified that the mandala’s creation was to benefit more than those who live within this town.

“While we are bringing this offering to Newtown, where there has been well-known tragedy, pain, and grief, the building of the mandala is dedicated to peace and compassion for all living beings throughout the world,” he said ahead of the event.

The monks spent approximately 30 hours creating the mandala, one grain of colored sand at a time.

Friday afternoon, guests of all ages crowded into the space, listening to Dhargey explain what would be happening during the ceremony, which lasted approximately 30 minutes. The board upon which the mandala was created had been lifted from the floor and put atop a pedestal just inside RCN’s entrance. Vases of flowers adorned each corner of the board, and offerings to the mandala had been placed along the southern edge of the board.

Two small bowls of saffron water, “one for cleaning the mouth and one for cleaning the feet,” Ms Ettele explained, were among the offerings. Incense, for a pleasant scent; a tea light, for the eyes/sight; perfumed water, for the body; and an orange, for taste, were also included in the presentation.

Ahead of the dissolution of the mandala, Dhargey said that the mandala was “our small help from our center to all of you.”

The dissolution ceremony, he explained, was to help those in attendance let go.

“Let go of everything negative that is holding you, which just brings you suffering,” he said. “But we are not letting go of everything — you have a lot of positive qualities. We have a lot of good quality things.

“We only let go that which is destroying you emotionally, physically, or suffering,” he explained. “Whatever you have that is suffering, you have to let it go at the same time we are destroying the mandala. This is why we are dismantling.”

As he spoke, many in the group nodded at his words. Tears formed in the eyes of some, as well.

The colors, symbols, and even the shades of the sand that had been used during the week were all symbols of compassion, Dhargery explained.

In addition to Dhargey and Palden, Geshe Lopsang Jimpa, The Venerable Lobsang Nyima, and Ven Losang Tendrol also participated in Friday’s ceremony.

Systematic Dissolution

Following nearly 20 minutes of chanting — including time when the crowd was invited to chant with the monks — the actual dissolution took just a few minutes. As the group walked clockwise around the pedestal and mandala, Jimpa used a small tool to make the first cuts into the mandala’s design.

Following behind him, Dhargey used a paintbrush to continue the systematic dissolution. The sand was slowly pulled into a pile at the center of the board, the naturally colored sands no longer distinct from each other.

Once the ceremony began, only the chanting of the monks and the occasional bell tone was heard. The assembled crowd remained silent, watching every move made by the monks.

The sand was collected into a jar and then wrapped in silk, as is part of the formal ceremony, to be transported to a waterway and returned to nature.

Following the ceremony, Ms Cinque said the creation and dissolution of the mandala had been “just what the community needed on its path toward healing.”

Stepping outside for a moment, Losang Tendrol said she, too, was pleased with the afternoon’s events.

“I think the mandala [dissolution] was everyone coming together,” the visiting monk said. “We saw many people during the week who said they would be back, so we expected the crowd.

“It’s great to think that so many will be helped by this. For me, the takeaway was compassion and the inner urge to invoke that.”