For Elon junior Lizeth Torres-Tomas, the Green Tara Sand Mandala Ceremony is a way to create ripples of positive energy across campus.
“It is appropriate at the beginning of the school year to conduct, to sort of allow those feelings of compassion, peace and harmony to ripple throughout our space, throughout our campus, throughout our students,” Torres-Tomas said.
Elon University’s Truitt Center for Religious & Spiritual Life welcomed Tibetan Buddhist monks Geshe Sangpo and Geshe Tenzin from the Kadampa Center in Raleigh for the center’s twelfth annual Green Tara Sand Mandala Ceremony at Numen Lumen.
During the ceremony, the monks will create a mandala out of different types of colored sand. Sangpo and Tenzin will spend the next three days creating the mandala and then destroy it Sept. 12.
Once the mandala is destroyed, the sand used in the ceremony will be distributed amongst attendees, according to Torres-Tomas, who is a multifaith second-year leadership intern at the Truitt Center and helped coordinate the event.
“Where a sand mandala is created, there are blessings that are left, especially within the destruction of the sand mandala,” Torres-Tomas said. “Usually that sand can be dispersed or it is thrown into nearby waters to create these ripples, whether it's physical, in terms of water, or whether, emotionally and spiritually, leaving a charged energy within that space.”
According to outreach coordinator for the Kadampa Center Elise Strevel, inviting positive energy in through the creation of the sand mandala also comes through honoring Green Tara, a female Buddha who represents compassion and peace.
“She's a universal mother. She's a remover of obstacles. She guides us through difficulties, and she is compassion in action,” Strevel said. “Here we are setting the intention to acquire these qualities of the Green Tara, the qualities of compassion and loving kindness that helps us through all the difficulties in life.”
Senior multifaith second-year leadership intern Rocco Albano hopes that anyone who attends can take away something from the ceremony.
“We hope that you know, maybe if you're not taking away something physical, necessarily, that you're still taking away something that you keep with you,” Albano said. “Maybe things from time to time that remind you of values that you want to hold close to yourself.”
Sangpo and Tenzin will be creating the sand mandala until Sept. 12. They will destroy the sand mandala during the closing ceremony Sept. 12 at 3 p.m.