ST. LOUIS - For the past several days Tibetan Monks have been painstakingly pouring tiny grains of sand into a beautiful work of art at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.
The monks are visiting from the Drepung Loseling Monastery as part of the college's liberal arts convocation series. They spent countless hours creating the intricate mandala sand painting devoted to health as a lesson in patience for the school's busy students.
“For our students it’s a way of lifting our heads out of the books, away from the computer screens to see a larger world and a larger connection instead of hopefully running from one class to the next, one test to the next,” Professor Brian Walter said. “It’s, wait a minute, we're actually part of a larger scheme and we want to connect with it in that way.”
“We begin this work on Monday, and yes tomorrow we going to dismantle it,” Geshe Loden, of the Drepung Loseling Monastery, said. “So a lot of hard work. A lot of passion. A lot of effort put to have to make this.”
That’s right, the work of art was swept away during a special ceremony Friday at noon. The monks are trained for several years to learn the skills needed to create the Mandela. The designs and color patterns are completed from memory.
