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Two Buddhist monks in robes of saffron and crimson will create a mandala, a
religious artwork made of millions of grains of brilliantly colored sand, Feb.
28-March 21 at the University.
The painstaking installation at the Ackland Art Museum will show visitors an
art form that the Tantric Buddhists of Nepal and Tibet kept secret from the
rest of the world until 1988 -- an art that practitioners of the ancient
religion believe inspire feelings of peace, well-being and wholeness.
The mandela, on display through June 8, will be part of Buddist Art and
Ritual from Neapl to Tibet, an exhibit of 20 sculptures and other sacred
objects that opens Feb. 25 at the Ackland.
The two visiting monks, who speak and understand some English, will attend the
free public opening reception from 3 to 5 p.m. It will coincide with the
opening reception for another exhibit, Touchstone: 200 Years of Artists'
Lithographs.
Lectures, guided tours, storytelling programs and a teachers' workshop will
accompany the two-year Buddhist art exhibit, which will include a video called
Buddhist Worship in Kathmandu, Nepal and a video introducing the entire
process of creating a mandala.
An elaborate color catalog, describing the art works and their significance in
Buddhist rituals in detail and including a bibliography, will be available for
sale. Educational hand-outs, including a children's bibliography and
information on the mandala, will be free.
The exhibit is part of the Ackland's "Five Faiths Project," which uses art to
teach about the world's five major religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism,
Hinduism and Islam. Begun in 1999 in response to growing diversity in the
Triangle, the project aims to teach respect and tolerance for all religions.
All five major faiths developed in ancient times when few people could read, so
art helped teach religious practices and ideas, said the Ackland's curator of
exhibitions, Barbara Matilsky. She researched Buddhism for three years, reading
dozens of books, to develop the new exhibit.
A $45,000 grant from the Museum Loan Network -- a national collection-sharing
program funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew
Charitable Trusts made the exhibit possible. The Ackland, lacking Tantric
Buddhist art until recent donations, borrowed from the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, the Newark Museum and Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum.
Art as altar
The exhibit will display the objects in the configuration of a Tantric
Buddhist altar, a context often lost in museum galleries, Matilsky said.
Venerable Tenzin Gephel, a Buddhist monk from the Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca,
N.Y., visited to precisely place art in the exhibit for religious rituals.
Two monks from Ithaca who will create the mandala will use the altar for their
morning ritual before beginning daily work. Among objects on the altar are
seven brass offering bowls, which Buddhists fill daily with water, fruit,
incense, and sometimes rice to represent the five senses. In placing them, the
monk "was very particular that the bowls had to be just one grain of rice
apart," she said.
An ornate brass bell with a steel tongue, representing the sensation of sound
and the female aspect of life, and the vajra -- a ritual object symbolizing a
thunderbolt representing the male counterpart, captures the Buddhist ideal of
eliminating the dualities of life through the synthesis of opposites. This idea
is also depicted as the intertwining of male and female deities, Matilsky said.
The transience of sound also represents the change and flow of life,
exemplifying Buddhism's belief that people cannot count on holding onto things
-- material goods, jobs, status, relationships.
A gilt copper Buddha on the altar inspires followers to seek the wisdom,
compassion and inner peace of the Buddha. She said, "People believe that the
spirit of the Buddha resides in and emerges from the sculpture."
Through the ages, Tantric Buddhists -- monks and lay persons -- have spent
countless hours carving stone and casting bronze into religious artworks,
Matilsky said. They also made paints by mixing mineral pigments with animal
glue.
Of many strains of Buddhism, Tantric (or Vajrayana) Buddhism recognizes
multiple deities, she said, and "all of these deities represent aspects within
ourselves." Thus the lesson of the altar's gilt bronze Lhamo, a female
protector deity standing guard against evil forces.
"Really, the enemies are within ourselves," Matilsky said. "You look at her and
you're frightened, but the only way to deal with that fear is to look inside
yourself and acknowledge all the negativity that holds you back."
Buddhists meditate upon tangka paintings. The Ackland will rotate eight to 10
such paintings through its exhibit over two years, including an "Eleven-Headed,
Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara."
Tantric Buddhism's various sand mandalas represent different aspects of the
Buddha. Perhaps recognizing the Triangle's wealth of medical research, schools,
businesses and facilities, the monks chose the Medicine Buddha for its
installation, Matilsky said. Its message: "We all have power within to heal
ourselves and other people if we have compassion and wisdom," she said.
Keeping the ritual alive
The monks will begin with a private ceremony on Feb. 26 and work every
day except Mondays until the mandala is complete. The public may watch their
progress -- although photography will not be permitted in the gallery -- during
regular museum hours, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and
1-5 p.m. Sundays. School groups will visit on Tuesdays.
After drawing the design on a five-and-a-half-foot wooden platform, the monks
will then gently guide the grains of colored sand into its appropriate place on
the mandala.
"Each grain of sand represents goodness, and when someone sees these millions
of grains of sand, it's a magnification of that goodness," Matilsky said.
"Buddhists believe that the spirit of the deity resides in each grain of sand,
so just think how powerful this mandala is. When the monks create the mandala,
they feel they are in the deity's domain, and that represents incredible
spiritual power."
Mandalas symbolize a pure and perfect universe, providing a visual framework
for establishing feelings of peace, well-being and wholeness, Matilsky said.
The Medicine Buddha's vibrant purples, reds and greens represent Buddha's
ability to diagnose suffering in the human mind and offer remedies.
In the 1950s, China launched invasions into Tibet, destroying 6,000 monasteries
and the art therein. Many Tibetans and their current, 14th Dalai Lama -- only a
child at that time -- fled to exile in nearby countries. Subsequent Chinese
rule suppressed many Tibetan religious practices. Thus, in 1988, at the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Dalai Lama invited the
public to observe the previously secret practice of mandala-making for the
first time.
"To him, it was a way of sharing a ritual with the rest of the world that
needed to be kept alive as it was being destroyed in Tibet," Matilsky said.
Monks leave their mandalas in place for a short time only. In a ceremony on
June 8, the monks will sweep up the Ackland's Medicine Buddha, place the sand
in a vase and take it to a nearby body of water, into which the grains of sand
will be dispersed. Details of the ceremony will be announced later.
Why destroy something so beautiful? Because, said Matilsky, "the belief is that
we shouldn't get too attached to things. We've got to be able to let things go.
Nothing is permanent."
Yet a mandala's spirit is thought to live on, as it spreads far and wide in the
waters of recipient streams and in the memories of its observers.
"It is a symbol that life is fleeting and transient, in a way, confirming our
eventual death," Matilsky said. "It makes us appreciate that we are here only
for a short moment in time, and that we need to appreciate what we have. In
many cultures, death is something scary. But the more you're able to
acknowledge that you're going to die, the more you're able to live."
Related events
The following events will accompany Buddhist Art and Ritual from Nepal and
Tibet at the Ackland Art Museum beginning Feb. 25. All free, public events
will be at the Ackland unless noted.
Storytelling
* Feb. 25, 2 p.m. "Women of Faith," Louise Omoto Kessel
* April 1, 3 p.m. "Saints and Other Sinners," Milbre Burch
* April 29, 3 p.m. "Buddhist Stories," Louise Omoto Kessel
Opening reception
* Feb. 25, 3-5 p.m.
Family tours
* March 4, 3 p.m. (for ages 5 to 8)
* March 25, 3 p.m. (for ages 9 to 12)
Gallery talks
* March 7, 12:15 p.m. Ackland Curator of Exhibitions Barbara Matilsky
* March 18, 3 p.m. Ackland Director Jerry Bolas
* April 4, 12:15 p.m. Matilsky
* May 2, 12:15 p.m. Matilsky
Buddhist art and ritual lectures
* Feb. 28, 5:30 p.m. "Mandalas: Sacred Circles of Healing and
Enlightenment," Daniel Cozart, associate professor of religion, Dickinson
College, Carlisle, Pa., Hanes Art Center Auditorium.
* March 21, 5:30 p.m. "The Medicine Buddha and Tibetan Healing Practices,"
Susan Gaylord, director, Program for Integrative Medicine, Carolina School of
Medicine, and director of the Shambala Meditation Center, Durham. Gaylord will
discuss health and healing. Hanes Art Center Auditorium.
* April 4, 5:30 p.m., "Tibetan Buddhism: Practicing a Union of Sutra and
Tantra," William Magee, visiting assistant professor of religious studies,
UNC-Greensboro, and director of the Dharma Farm Tibet Center, Charlottesville,
Va. Hanes Art Center Auditorium.
Adventures in Ideas weekend seminar
* March 9-10, "Art, Ritual and Religion in India, Nepal and Tibet,"
presented by the Ackland and the Program in the Humanities and Human Values.
Speakers will include Ackland Curator of Exhibitions Barbara Matilsky;
assistant art professor Pika Ghosh; and associate professor of religious
studies Joanne Waghorne. For information, visit http://www.unc.edu/depts/human
or call 2-1544.
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