Tibetan Buddhist Sand Mandala at Empathy Center

This past weekend the Empathy Center hosted five Tibetan Buddhist monks creating an intricate sand mandala. The Empathy Center is the former home of Saint Mary’s Seminary up on Las Canoas Road, near Skofield Park.

I arrived an hour before the scheduled public event that started at 12:30PM on Saturday September 21. It was good timing. The monks were just placing the final finishing touches on the mandala. Here are all of my photos.

https://swt.org/events/sandmandala-empathycenter-2024-0921/

Here is my short video of them working. You can see the delicate work of funneling the colored sand onto the surface.

This gentleman is Geshe Tsewang Dorje, president of the Ngari Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Village Saboo in India.

This was the schedule of his Sand Mandala Tour.

He was selling a variety of crafts and art to help fund the tour. I bought one of the painted mandalas and some necklaces for my wife.

Just before most of the attendees arrived, the sand mandala was completed and placed on a table. I was able to get some close up photos that showed the intricacy.

The gentleman on the left in the photo below is Tibetan Buddhist Lama Thepo Tulku. Tulku is a title for advanced practitioners. The Dalai Lama is perhaps the most famous Tulku. Like the Dalai Lama, he was born in Tibet. Thepo Tulku fled Tibet as a child as a result of the Chinese invasion. He currently lives in Santa Barbara. In the middle is Geshe Tsewang Dorje. And on the right is Kevin Brine.

Kevin is an independent scholar and Buddhist practitioner. We had an interesting conversation about Buddhist practice, history and theory. He also directed me to an art piece on the wall that represents “Green Tara”. Tara was a fully enlightened female buddha.

Here are a few more of my photos of the art and symbols.

I had seen Saint Mary’s many times while hiking the Rattlesnake Trail. But I had never been on the property. The views are quite spectacular. Here were some views.

The event was promoted as a chance for people of many faiths to meet up. This gentleman Mahomed Akbar Khan is fairly new in Santa Barbara and calls himself a “Social Entrepreneur”. He posed with me and sent me this photo.

This was my photo of him with one of the monks.

Father Larry Gosselin of the Mission was there and he was happy to pose, too!

At 12:30 attendees filled the room. A meal was planned, followed by an interfaith discussion. Unfortunately I had five events to attend that day and had to leave before the food and discussion.

After the discussion the mandala was carefully dismantled in a Dissolution Ceremony and taken to the ocean. A symbol of the impermanence of all things. I was grateful to be able to save these images while it existed.

Thanks to KEYT-TV news for publicizing this event. That is how I and many of the other attendees learned about it. This was their story.

https://keyt.com/news/santa-barbara-s-county/2024/09/20/the-empathy-center-hosts-sand-mandala-tour-in-santa-barbara/

Here is more information about The Empathy Center, including photos, videos, virtual tours and a way to sign up to be notified of future events. They are fairly new and still finding their way and I am looking forward to seeing what else they bring to our community!

Robert Bernstein

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Written by sbrobert

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