{"id":15577,"date":"2025-11-22T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gaden-shartse-buddhist-monks-complete-sand-mandala-wrapping-up-week-of-events\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:49:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:49:04","slug":"gaden-shartse-buddhist-monks-complete-sand-mandala-wrapping-up-week-of-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/gaden-shartse-buddhist-monks-complete-sand-mandala-wrapping-up-week-of-events\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaden Shartse Buddhist monks complete sand mandala, wrapping up week of events"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Geshe
Geshe Phuntsho, a Tibetan Buddhist monk from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in Southern India sweeps away an intricate sand mandala that he and five other monks had worked on for the past five days. The ceremony was meant to signify the impermanence of life and spread a prayer of compassion for all sentient things. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At the core of any Buddhist tradition is the philosophy that life is impermanent. One day, everything in existence will end, and for that reason, everything in that existence is sacred.<\/p>\n

So, too, was that philosophy at the core of the final event held by six Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery during their Compassion Way Durango tour on Friday. The goal of the visit was to share their culture and philosophy with the community and to raise funds for a new school back in Southern India, before they left for the next stop on their journey \u2013 this time in Joshua Tree, California.<\/p>\n

The monks had come 10 days prior, and for all that time had been working doggedly to create an intricate sand mandala \u2013 the physical manifestation of a prayer of compassion for the well-being of all sentient things.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left: Geshe Ludup Phuntsok, Lobsang Khamchok Rinpoche, Jay Surya Bisht, Geshe Phuntsho, Palden Angrup Raja and Lobzang Yeshey Shanu chant over their finished sand mandala. The six monks had come from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in southern India to raise money for a new school and share their culture \u2013 including the creation of the pictured sand mandala. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Some 50 community members stood shoulder to shoulder to witness the final blessing of the mandala by the monks before they poured the vibrant, consecrated sand into the Animas River.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the ceremony, monk Geshe Phuntsho addressed the gathering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want you to rejoice,\u201d Geshe Phuntsho said. \u201cRemember this blessing. It will always lift up your energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to explain that according to Buddhist philosophy, meditation is meant to conceptualize the hugeness of the universe, and that everything in the human experience is insignificant and fleeting by comparison. He compared Earth to a single tiny mustard seed. But, he said, that does not make life lose its meaning \u2013 in fact, it gives it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeditation is to humble oneself,\u201d he said. \u201cEgo, pride and gasping makes us feel like this (life) is such a huge entity, but we are not even a dot in this huge universe. Meditation is the mentality to find peace and happiness in the hugeness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"From
From left: Palden Angrup Raja, Jay Surya Bisht, Lobzang Yeshey Shanu, Geshe Ludup Phuntsok and Geshe Phuntsho pour sand from their mandala into little plastic bags to be given to community members. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

He explained that the creation of the mandala was a form of that meditation \u2013 in which the monks prayed for the peace and happiness of all living things on Earth that somehow, in that universal grandeur, had come into existence.<\/p>\n

He encouraged those in attendance, Buddhist or not, to be compassionate toward their fellow humans.<\/p>\n

\"Monks
Monks from the Gaden Shartse Buddhist monastery walk through downtown Durango on their way to the Ninth Street Bridge to pour sand from their mandala into the Animas River. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cCompassion is the universal human religion,\u201d he said. \u201cWhatever you\u2019re faced toward, do your best. Deep down, know that whatever I\u2019m doing, I\u2019m doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that, the monks began chanting a final prayer over the mandala, consecrating the sand through verses of chanting punctuated by the ringing of bells, crashing of symbols and the blowing of a conch shell, before Geshe Phuntsho and another monk, Lobsang Khamchok Rinpoche, began brushing the intricate mandala into a pile.<\/p>\n

They handed small bags of the sand to attendees, then walked beneath a rainbow through the rain-dampened streets of Durango to the Ninth Street Bridge.<\/p>\n

In the early winter sunset, the monks chanted again, then sprinkled the sand and flower petals into the Animas River below, sending their prayer for the well-being of all living beings downstream.<\/p>\n

sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"A
A procession of community members follow the six Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in Southern India to the Ninth Street Bridge to pour sand from their mandala into the Animas River. The mandala is a physical representation of a prayer for the compassion and well-being of all sentient things, and also represent the impermanence of all things. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Tibetan
Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in Southern India gather at the Ninth Street Bridge to pour the remaining sand from their mandala \u2013 a physical representation of a prayer for the well-being of all sentient things \u2013 into the Animas River. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lobsang
Lobsang Khamchok Rinpoche pours consecrated sand from the monks\u2019 mandala into the Animas River. The ceremony was meant to send the monks\u2019 prayer for the well-being of all sentient things into the world, and to represent the impermanence of all things in life. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Monks
Monks sprinkle flower petals after pouring consecrated sand into the Animas River, culminating their ceremony and their 10-day Compassion Way Durango tour. Next, the monks are headed to Joshua Tree, California. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monastics leave Durango with encouragement to rejoice life and be compassionate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,407],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-religion-and-belief"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15577"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19731,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15577\/revisions\/19731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15577"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}