Books to Read in Celebration of Newark Museum’s Tibet Collection Centennial

Many years ago, John MacGregor wrote an excellent book on Westerners in Tibet. Entitled Tibet: A Chronicle of Exploration, it situates the various missionaries, trade representatives, military officers, and others in their very complicated religious, ethnic, social, economic, and political contexts. He begins with the Franciscans and the Jesuits of the 17th and 18th centuries, who fought one another for the honor of converting the Tibetans, but to no avail. The British in India in the late 18th century were intent upon opening up the Himalayas to trade, but they, too, were unsuccessful due to their misunderstanding of the relationships between the Tibetans, Nepalese, Mongolians, and Chinese.

Later, in the 19th century, they used military force to achieve their goals in the famous Younghusband Expedition of 1903. This expedition was conducted largely in response to the intrigues of the Russians and their Mongolian allies. Also in this century, the eccentric orientalist Thomas Manning and the charming priest Evariste-Regis Huc recorded their impressionistic observations of the Tibetans. In this book, MacGregor writes eloquently about all of these characters, and he does so with sophistication and understanding.

Another book  to read:
 
Martin Brauen from the University of Zurich has assembled a remarkable team of contributors to examine the visual history of the Dalai Lamas. Each Dalai Lama is described in detail, usually with a full chapter devoted to his live and thought by a leading scholar. Additional essays cover the tradition of Tibetan reincarnation, the iconography of the Dalai Lamas, their protective deities, and the relationship between the Panchen Lamas and the Dalai Lamas. It is introduced by an interview between the editor and the 14th Dalai Lama. Profusely illustrated, it is a stunning book entitled The Dalai Lamas: A Visual History published in 2005.

To learn more about the Tibet Collection Centennial, visit newarkmuseum.org.
 
William Peniston, Ph.D. is the Librarian at the Newark Museum.

The Making of a Sand Mandala

Avalokiteshvara, or Chenrezig as he is known in Tibetan, is the Buddhist deity who personifies the ideal of compassion. He can be portrayed in several different forms, two of the most popular being as a white deity with either four arms or 1000 arms; the extra arms symbolize his ability to help many beings simultaneously.

The Mandala can be described as being the residence of the respective deities and their retinues. The sand Mandala of Avalokiteshvara was originated from the tantric teachings of Lord Buddha Shakyamuni. Although depicted on a flat surface, the Mandala is actually three-dimensional, being a “divine mansion” at the center of which resides Avalokiteshvara, surrounded by the deities of his entourage.

 Every aspect of the Mandala has meaning: nothing is arbitrary or superfluous. The four outer walls of the mansion are in five transparent layers, colored as white, yellow, red, green, and blue, representing faith, effort, memory, meditation, and wisdom (these five colors also represent the five dankinis).

The four doorways, one in the center of each of the four walls, represent the Four Immeasurable Thoughts: love, compassion, joy, and equanimity and there are decorated with precious jewels. The lotus flower in the center of the Mandala represent the lotus family, one of the Buddha families that correspond to the five psychophysical components of a human being, and which purify specific impure states of mind; the Lotus family purifies passion into discriminating awareness. The white thousand arms, thousand-eyed Avalokiteshvara is standing in the center of the lotus flower, on a white moon disk.

 In the four directions are seated his retinue seated on white full moon disks. The deities arise from the unity of; the wisdom of emptiness and great bliss of the principle deity Avalokiteshvara. Seated on the eastern red petal is the purified aspect of Hatred in the form of a blue deity Akshobhya, on the southern yellow petal is the purified aspect of Misery in the form of a yellow deity Ratnasambhava and likewise, the purified part of Ignorance & Jealousy are represented by the white deity Vairochana at the western and the green deity Amogasiddhi at the northern petal respectively. The central deity Avaloketishvara represents the freedom from attachment.

The four colors in the four directions are the emanated light rays of the four deity retinues. The lotus itself symbolizes the mind of renunciation. To protect the residence from negative conditions, it is surrounded by a Vajra fence, which also symbolizes the continuous teaching of the Vajrayana (Tantric Teaching) by lord Avalokiteshvara. In the outermost part, it is circled with burning flames that radiate with intense light and are not only for protection but also to burn away or to get red of delusion and the darknesses of the ignorance.

In general, the Mandala shows a method of bringing peace and harmony in our world, through genuine practices of the mind of Great Compassion, the Wisdom of Emptiness, and the meditations of Mandala with their respective deities. We can generate the respective qualities as mentioned and thereby bring about a positive change in this world of ours.

For a practitioner who meditateson the Tantra of Avalokiteshvara, one would familiarize oneself with every detail of the Mandala and the deities within it, engaging in repeated exercises based upon visualizing the pure beings and pure environment which symbolized one’s own being and environment in purified, sublime form. Such exercises, carried out within the basic Buddhist framework of developing wisdom and compassion, bring about a profound transformation of the psyche. Just to glimpse the Mandala, however, will create a positive impression on the mind-stream of the observer, who for a moment is in touch with the profound potential for perfect Enlightenment, which exists within the mind of all beings.

 At the end of ritual ceremony, the Mandala will be systematically dismantled and the sand powder of the Mandala will be poured into a river or a sea to remind the impermanence of the world. In fact, it serves to enrich the soil and the mineral resources and to eliminate the untimely death, diseases, famine etc.

 In conclusion, we dedicate the merits generate in the preparation of this Mandala together with its rituals for the world peace and true happiness of all the sentient beings. May peace prevail on the Earth!!

The information about the sand mandala is provided by the monks of Drepung Gomang Monastery.  www.gomang.org

The Drepung Gomang monks will be at the Newark Museum creating this sand mandala until Thursday, May 12, 12 pm to 4 pm.  The procession and dispersal of the sand into the Passaic River will be on Sunday, May 15 at 3 pm. To learn more about the Newark Museum Tibet Collection Centennial visit, newarkmuseum.org.