Several close friends asked me to post my introductory remarks from the Closing Ceremony of the 2011 Mystical Arts of Tibet at the Crow Collection.
6:30 PM, Friday, August 26, 2011
Grand Gallery
This Mandala, representing the Medicine Buddha is especially meaningful as the museum enters a new realm of describing ourselves as The Wellness Museum. This museum is a place where you do more than look at art. In tandem with Asian aesthetics where art is the center of the universe, not something you look at up on a wall for years and years, the museum is a place where you grow as a person, as a friend and as a citizen of the world. Through this next hour we have the opportunity to pause. At the door of the gallery we left a hurricane, an earthquake, dismal headlines and a world in crisis. Inside it is quiet. This silence, this mandala, and the harmonic sounds of ten compassionate monks are ours for the next hour. With time, it will change…like everything we know, as my three-year old says, “In this world”. I would like to ask you to use your dharana or mental focus to think about one grain of sand in the mandala. Consider where it sits in this palace of another dimension. Think about how it will move with the Geshe’s hand as he sweeps the sand with acceptance and abandon. Where will it go? Will it land in a bag? Will it be swept into the air? Will it travel with you to a field, or a friend, or to the powerful lull of a wave in the ocean? Where will you carry this grain of sand? The monks teach us that these grains of sand, as they blessed, are emboldened with healing energies that positively impact the world—spreading healing protection, love and compassion wherever they go. Think about yourbody as a grain of sand: like grains in the mandala, millions of us, as part of a complex universe.
Today, a hundred of us came together as a beautiful work of art and when this evening is over, we will leave. Where will you go? Will you, like the grain of sand, carry a healing energy in your heart? Will you share this awareness and compassion with others? I’d like to suggest that it is not we who carry the sand out into the world in little zip lock bags tonight, but rather the sand, and its powerful energy, and the gifts of these beautiful monks from the Drepung Loseling Monstery that carry us.
Namaste. Be Well.
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