During the week of Nov. 17, Venerable Losang Samten came to Germantown Academy to teach the community about mindfulness through the art of the sand mandala. Students and faculty were able to see Samten at work with Upper School Visual Arts Teacher and Department Chair, Mr. David Love, in the MCR.
“After all that we’ve been through with the pandemic and so much political tension, I thought it would be a perfect time to bring him back again” Mr. Love said.
Venerable Samten is an author and former Tibetan Monk who served as assistant to the Dalai Lama and is currently the Spiritual Director of the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia.
“In the 1980s, the Dalai Lama asked him to bring the art of sand mandalas to the United States, creating the very first sand mandala in the West,” Mr. Love said.
Venerable Samten is also one of the only traditional Tibetan sand painters worldwide. He has led holy pilgrimages and made sand mandalas all over the world.
“I really just love his calm spirit in his peaceful ways,” Mr. Love said. “The way that he speaks, the way that he works, the way that he moves through the world is what I find to be most fascinating.”
Many classes, students and faculty members came to the MCR to watch the sand mandala being made. The room was a peaceful environment for people to observe and ask questions.
“I’ll go there, and as I’m walking in, I’ll be thinking about all the emails I have to send, all the work I have to do. Then I go in there, and it all falls away.” Ms. Sara Krupnick-Ritz, Upper School Art Teacher, said.
On Thursday Nov. 20, Samten hosted a mindfulness session during break. The sand mandala was later dismantled during the final ceremony and procession and poured into the creek.
“In a way, the mandala is a symbol of peace,” Venerable Samten said. “We create the design, meditate on it, find peace, and then dismantle to return back to the natural.”
Venerable Samten highlights the unique art form of sand mandalas while teaching the community about impermanence.
“It reminds us to work really hard to be present because we only have this moment. Nothing else is guaranteed,” Ms. Ritz said.“To notice everything in the moment is so important because everything is fleeting.”
“It was a really cool experience to watch him because the mandala sort of brought people together teaching us all a lesson through creating it then disassembling,” Bella Burnett ‘28.
Venerable Samten’s visit to GA educated the community on the meaning of the mandala. He illustrated the importance of peace and meditation through the artistic outline of the mandala.