Forty years ago, what most Durangoans knew about Buddhism was the practice of meditation while chanting “Om,” and that was primarily from the movies and television.
Now, with more than 500 members at the Durango Dharma Center and the Buddhist temple and retreat at Tara Mandala outside of Pagosa Springs, Southwest Colorado has become a major stop for teachers, speakers and monks. A group of monks from the Gaden Shartse Phukhang Monastery in southern India is in town this week as part of a two-year teaching and healing tour of the United States.
The trip, 10 months old and in Colorado through the end of the month, has a secondary purpose, too: to raise $400,000 to rebuild an edifice that houses 500 monks and is falling down.
“Durango is very special, very wholesome,” said Lobsang Wangchuk, the tour manager and a former monk from Gaden Shartse, which follows Tibetan Buddhism. “People here have good karma, or they wouldn’t be here.”
While in town, the monks have been creating a Green Tara Mandala at Open Shutter Gallery, teaching at various locations, including the Dharma Center, Himalayan Kitchen and Inhabit, and performing healings of houses and people.
‘Hungry ghosts’
The mandala has brought in a steady stream of people, said Margy Dudley, owner of Open Shutter, including a number of homeless people who have come in to be near the monks. She’s glad they felt comfortable enough to come in, she said.
“We’ve seen a lot of what we call hungry ghosts here,” Wangchuk said. “They’re looking for some sustenance and never finding it. We’ve been doing ritual healings down the street, removing negative forces, giving them protection.”
Tibetan Buddhism is one of four branches of the religion, which also includes Theravada, Mahayana and Zen Buddhism.
Tibetan Buddhism focuses on study, with monks beginning their day at 5 a.m. and continuing until midnight six days a week, Wangchuk said. Southern India is much warmer than Tibet, so they generally take a break during the heat of the day and again in the evening. Two geshes, or longtime students, are on this tour, having studied for 25 years or longer.
“We have five texts, and they need to study each for five years,” he said. “There’s a lot of analysis and logic, trying to figure out how things work. They study logic for six or seven years and have five hours of Socratic debate every day.”
Tibetan Buddhism’s cosmology is much the same as quantum physics, Wangchuk said.
“Everything is interdependent and connected, and there is no God, just like science,” he said. “It’s unusual for a religion to be in harmony with science. If an idea is disproved by science, we go back and change it.”
The group also includes Khamchuk Rinpoche, a reincarnated lama who has been recognized by the students of the former reincarnation as well as the Dalai Lama.
The mandala
As part of their time in town, the monks are creating a Green Tara Mandala, which is not just a piece of art but a sacred act.
The Green Tara is the goddess of universal compassion, representing virtues and enlightened action. She also brings longevity, protects earthly travel and guards followers on their spiritual journey to enlightenment.
In the opening ceremony, everyone was asked to visualize the celestial abode of the Green Tara and asked permission from the local spirits in the trees, water and mountains to build a mandala and consecrate the space before they began. The monks will not create a mandala at every stop of their tour but are expected to produce between 25 to 30 over the course of the tour. Each mandala requires anywhere from 75 to 125 hours to complete and represents the architectural layout of the entire palace of a specific deity.
“They study many hours from books to learn the mandalas,” Wangchuk said. “They must be exact, nothing can be changed, but they can be embellished.”
Every color, symbol and placement has significance.
“I’ve seen maybe 250,” he said, “and I can tell when there’s been a mistake.”
Fortunately, there’s a way to fix a mistake by placing a cloth over the mouth of the metal cone used to place the colored grains of sand, powder-dyed stone, dust, flowers and charcoal, then gently inhaling to create a vacuum.
At the closing ceremony Thursday, the mandala will be destroyed, and the sand offered to the Animas River to cleanse the environment.
‘A refuge’
This is Wangchuk’s second trip to Durango. He was here 15 years ago for a joint Tibetan-Navajo exhibit because the two cosmologies have a lot in common, including the art of sand painting, he said. The group stopped in Flagstaff, Arizona, earlier in the tour for a joint ceremony with members of the Navajo Nation.
While he’s in his 70s and says this will be his final tour, Wangchuk said the monks and maybe he himself will return someday.
“Durango is a good place,” he said. “It is protected by desert to the south and mountains on three sides. It will become a refuge for humanity in the future.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
If you go
Thursday is the final day of Peaceful Heart Durango 2015, the visit of the Gaden Shartse Phukhang monks. They will finish creating the Green Tara Mandala from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., then will hold the closing ceremony at 3 p.m., both at the Open Shutter Gallery, 735 Main Ave. The mandala will be destroyed at the end, the sand swept up and deposited in the Animas River as an offering to purify the surrounding environment.
Their day will conclude with teachings on “The Four Immeasurables: Cultivating Qualities of the Heart” at 6:30 p.m. at Inhabit Learning Center, 1970 East Third Ave., Suite 101. The qualities of the heart include loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. A suggested donation of $10 is requested, but no one will be turned away for giving less.
Visit https://www.facebook.com/PeacefulHeartDgo?fref=ts or the Sacred Arts of Tibet Tour at www.sacredartsoftibettour.org/ to learn more.
Visit www.durangodharmacenter.org to learn more about the local sangha and its schedule of speakers and sitting groups.
